Tesco out of Poland? Żabka and Biedronka opportunity.

Why does Tesco in Poland sell such rubbish products as opposed to Tesco in the UK?

Answer: Because only Poles will buy them.

You wouldn't know - because you don't live here. So don't interfere in our reality.

Yes, Doug, I have noticed too (and as a result no longer go) that Tesco really sells sh###t in Poland. You say that in UK it's better, it could be (I have never been to Tesco in UK so I won't say). It could be the same with other foreign stores too. I have also noticed that Auchan is really bad too (and I may go max 2 times a year) whereas their stores in France are from good to almsot excellent. I have also seen French supermarkets in Portugal, Turkey (namely Carrefour) and Prisunic (bought up since by another French chain) in Tunisia and the standard was much lower (especially in the store in Tunisia ;)) than it is in France.

Well, not hard to understand: where people have less money stores offer cheaper goods..(same stores also vary according to neighborhoods).

Excuse me? Looks like you haven't been in English Tesco for quite a bit.

Tesco in Northampton was alright 6 weeks ago. Has it burnt down since then? A large selection of whatever brands and Tesco own that takes your fancy, including what I would call a decent Polish section (not as good as Asda's though...)

Cheap stuff AND expensive - but a fully stocked supermarket. The Polish version makes me think we must be living in some sort of banana republic - shelves and shelves of toilet cleaner and UHT milk.

Very, very poor.
Poland is going back to the days of the awful choice of perogi or pig escallope for dinner at this rate:(

I think they must be rearranging the shop before you come just to make your life in Poland even harder. Looks like not only forum members enjoy your misery.

Well it obviously because Poles has far less disposable income and must first put a roof over their head and then have their 2000 calories a day plus some basic clothes for them and kids. After that they can think about the sun dried tomatoes.

There are in most big towns plenty of delis and a few upmarket supermarkets like Alma or Piotr I Pawel to cater for people who want more expensive items.

PS: Somebody in the business divulged that Tesco is pulling out of Poland - they might as well, their product is so shi ite.

Me think that their financial position tarted first to deteriorate in the UK a while ago, so their possible pull out of Poland may only reflect that. It seems they have somewhat over-invested in the UK as they were expanding too quickly. As they say in Polish: pycha kroczy przed upadkiem.

Excellent, more opportunities for smaller, local businesses.

You mean higher prices for Polish consumers already battered with higher mortgage margins, higher bank fees and more?

Funny how you really desire a return to the pre-1989 days, isn't it?

No I don't mean that but you're not an economist so we can't blame you for not understanding how it works.

Of course you mean that.

I would frankly love you to explain how a small local shop can be better for the consumer than a large European chain. To make matters een worse, supermarkets have people employed on proper contracts, while Żabka and the like are notorious for using umowa zlecenie or worse.

I don't know what Portuguese chain "Żabka" has to do with the small local businesses I talk about. But as I said you have little knowledge about financial world plus you are liberal which means you are close-minded so you won't learn anything new that wouldn't suit you biased opinion.

edited

Zabka is not Portuguese. You are mixing it up with Biedronka.

It's not a Portuguese chain. Are you so long out of Poland that you've lost all concept of how it works? The name and underlying logistics is owned by a British company, however. It's a franchise network. The majority of them are owned and run by Poles, which explains why they're known for using dodgy contracts.


Okay, so let's use some common sense, shall we? Tesco has a huge distribution network, and they buy in huge numbers. They're able to negotiate with suppliers to push prices down as much as possible, which translates into cheaper products on the shelves. Pawel's Sklep on the other hand has no bargaining power, so his prices are higher than in Tesco. But as Pawel's business is small, he can't afford to take the risk of employing people on umowa o pracę because of how much trouble they can cause him. He doesn't have deep pockets like Tesco to fight legal battles - so he uses umowa zlecenie.

Why do you want people to pay higher prices?

It's quite astonishing just how anti-free market all you PiS lovers are.

truth but they are not Polish too

The vast majority of the shops are owned by Poles, they just pay to use the name and distribution network.

No different to KFC in Poland, for instance.

They are franchised stores...

Foreign lackey traitors (for Polonius) who make their employees where pampers and ship vast profits to England and Germany so that..... I got nothin'. The economic crazy of the PiS-ites is something I can't keep up with.

The thing that makes me laugh is that the working conditions in supermarkets are considerably better than in the local Żabka, yet one is owned by foreigners and one is owned by locals. Hmm.

I saw the figures that KFC charged its franchises. The franchises made 700% profit.
So the Foreign profiteer earned 1pln for the food, and the local KFC, owned by a Pole, charged 8pln.

Same story across many other industries. A lot of the blatant profiteering and abuse of workers comes from Polish businesses, not foreign-owned ones.

sure and the Polish franchise owner had no cost other than the franchise cost no

you seem to forget that KFC makes hardly any invesment and makes profit anyway

@delph: can't quite but do you even know what franchise contracts are? Dodgy? Yes I owned and operated 7/11 franchise for over 16 years.zabka or others in Poland are nothing new. A franchisee is basically a high priced manager who works hard thinking he is the store owner. No wonder you failed miserably in your business ventures.

I meant quote*

Doesn't matter what he 'basically' is, the point remains that the owners of the individual franchises tend to be crooks. Żabka certainly doesn't tell franchisees which contracts to use with employees.

Economics are not PiS' strong point.

Merged:

Tesco profits decrease in Poland, may close some outlets

Do you think the pro-Polish (Buy Polish) climate now prevailing in PiS-ruled Poland where many Poles are fed up with being exploited by foreign concerns had something to do with it? That is probably better than special taxes for the biggies -- a patriotic Buy Polish movment with Morawiecki style incentives for indigenous business. If their business starts falling off, the biggies will themselves decide to leave.

Does not exist. The most likely explanation is the increase in Biedronka and Lidl (both of which have opened up within easy walking distance of where I live). After the Lidle opened, the much bigger French owned store next door became somewhat less crowded. I hope it stays open though as it's the only place that carries my favorite pasta - French with an obscene amount of eggs.

And you forgot a really important part:

"The retailer did not say how many jobs would be cut as a result, the daily reported."

Biedronka in particular is likely to devour all the businesses that are too close to their outlets.
"Jak to dobrze, że Biedronka jest blisko Ciebie" - reads their advertising slogan.


The biggies may decide to leave when the PiS government decides to close shops on Sundays. But then voters may ultimately decide to vote PiS out of office if that happens.

Just saying ...

For the sake of selfish personal self-comfort and convenience you would promote Portuguese and Kraut exploiters of the hapless Polish shopping public?! Disgraceful!!!