"You can cook good food EVEN though you're using Lidl stuff"
I'm not 100% sure that's what I want of a cloud provider.
They fulfill the adage that "you don't need a lot of choices, just one good choice."
Lidl reputation as a brand has gone up for me since I moved here.
I am not sure why it works like that. These days you get direct to supermarket more often (taking out Fresh Produce Markets) but again—it's not direct to consumer. Personally, I think it's more because of the retailers being cutthroats than any other reason.
It's rare that supermarket chains have direct contracts with farmers. Usually there are one to three middle men in the chain that all want their cut - on the farmer side a cooperative or other association (e.g. with milk it's common that a milk processor buys the milk from the farmers and then sells the processed milk on), then wholesale markets, and finally cooperatives on the supermarket chain themselves - for example, the supermarket chain "Edeka" actually not only runs their own stores, but also is a cooperative of independent store owners, as their name "Einkaufsgenossenschaft der Kolonialwarenhändler" reflects.
- Farmer
- Fresh Produce Market (for most around 8% agent fee + 8% market fee = 16%; for potatoes it is 5% + 8% for historical reasons)
- Supermarket (40%–60% fee)
So in our case the middle men are not that significant compared to the supermarkets. I know the situation is different for cooperatives, but they are either export orientated or in separate markets like wine or grain, both not considered fresh produce.
Cutting out the FPM actually tends to increase the end cost to the consumer as they tend to be higher value products to start out with. Typically it's berries, naartjies or apples and not staples like potatoes. But like I mentioned above, this is something that changes a bit every year.
Another interesting thing is that in rural areas you can cut out the supermarket instead, as many people like buying directly from the market or buying from people who resell it with small bakkies (pick-ups) to street sellers:
Farmer -> Market -> Pick-up truck reseller -> Street reseller
In the case of resellers on the street, I think they charge anywhere from 10%–70% commission, but it's difficult to say as these are all informal cash transactions.
Just like in the supermarket industry, there is plenty of demand in the market for quality products at cheaper prices.
I remember the early days of AWS where they would surprise us with price cuts every 6-12 months. That hasn’t happened for a long time, which suggests to me that AWS is, over time, taking advantage of their dominant position and getting more greedy with pricing. Just like Amazon itself!
Imo, they're already good at the supermarket business. I am wondering, instead of doing something out of their expertise, why they do not try to focus and beat other players in their core business. I think there are plenty of areas that can be improved. Having only 70 army and try to be on par with AWS is preposterous!
But more interestingly the move suggests Amazon is in danger of real competition in commoditised cloud infrastructure, as well as retail marketing and logistics.
To an outsider, AWS is an incomprehensible mess of confusing service offerings which is nearly impossible to cost and only slightly easier to set up.
It's not hard to imagine a B2B offering which simplifies and commodifies the technology on offer and the way it's paid for.
And a B2C offering which copies Amazon Marketplace but with more consistent product quality.
They mostly only carry their own brand with extremely limited options. If you want orange marmalade they have one style from one brand (their own). If you want some other style, find a different store. (This is the case with most of their items besides a small additional selection of eg certain candy, but still very sparse compared to other stores.)
Most items are set up in bulk on the cargo carriers it comes on. Although this is probably also a lot for show to give a "price consious" appeal.
They tend to have a significant part of the store dedicated to whatever random garbage they got a good deal on. Sometimes it's a boardgame, sometimes it's a stuffed animal, sometimes it's a power tool. Usually decent quality, but rarely the best.
For me I put Lidl in the class of store where you have to make multiple trips to different stores. If I'm cooking I can rarely go only to Lidl. You usually go there to buy some of the stuff you need but then get the rest at some other store with more items.