Target CEO Brian Cornell says shoppers are pulling back, even on groceries, as they feel stressed about their budgets.
In an interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick that aired Thursday morning, he emphasized that the retailer has posted seven consecutive quarters of declining sales of discretionary items, such as apparel and toys, in terms of both dollars and units.
“But even in food and beverage categories, over the last few quarters, the units, the number of items they’re buying, has been declining,” he said in the interview.
No shit. Groceries have gone up 40% in the past 1-2 years for no real reason while wages have not and things like housing are going up too. Amazing that people would be buying less ‘units’.
No doubt. I’m starting to eat healthier because a bag of Doritos is like $5 now when I used to buy it for $2.50-3.00. That’s just one example, but across my snacking ‘units’, everything is outrageous.
I’m eating less and healthier ‘units’.
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Where I am, cooking oil is now $14.99 for a 3 liter jug and never goes on sale anymore. It used to be $5.99, and would frequently go on sale for $2.99. I haven’t deep-fried anything in months. This isn’t the way I expected to start eating healthier…
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Even $1.29 is robbery for fucking carbonated sugar water. Come to Canada. They are $3.49 now 🫠
It’s $3.11 canadian dollars from department and grocery stores where I live. Pepsi hasn’t gone up as much, which includes Rockstar energy drinks, which are now cheaper than Coke somehow. On the Walmart website, they show 52 cents per 100ml of rockstar vs 53 cents for Coke.
A lot of stuff I used to consider splurge items at Trader Joe’s are now the same price or cheaper than regular brands, it’s ridiculous.
Gone up 40% in cost and down 20% in quantity
And in quality. Seems like a lot of food items are using cheaper ingredients.
I’ve noticed a lot of things taste worse. Maybe worse ingredients, but also like things were burnt on the assembly line or left out to dry for too long
It has helped me cut down on eating processed food… It’s expensive and not even good half the time
I noticed more defects in chocolates at least. Missing or wierdly moulded shapes etc.
because if wages fell 40% there would be fucking riots. your masters are robbing you with the most basic slight of hand and it’s working.
Sure, I noticed that part. Inflation is always a scam, built into the monetary system, and while manufacturers/distributors are paying more for their materials and energy also, the rest is price gouging. It’s ‘working’ because people have no choice but to you know, eat food.
Inflation is a natural phenomenon that will occur with or without any amount of central monetary planning. It’s impossible to introduce new currency without it affecting the value of that currency. You either don’t introduce currency, which causes the existing currency to become more and more valuable as economic developments create new value, or you print some new money which will cause some amount of inflation.
If your economy has $1000 dollars in it, and suddenly a new invention allows you to create 50% more widgets for the same cost, then the same amount of money is now more valuable since it can fund the creation of more stuff. You can instead add another $500 to the economy to represent this new wealth, but that will have an inflationary effect. You can try to balance it to keep it relatively low, which is what the Fed does with its 2% inflation target, but there’s no real way to completely get rid of it. Additionally, some amount of inflation encourages people to put money into more productive assets like investments rather than simply hording all their money, allowing the existence of things like credit, which are pretty helpful for anyone looking to start a business or buy a house. But, credit requires you to either have a lot of money sitting around in order to make that loan, or you need to be able to print money. The latter offers a lot more flexibility, but again, thus inflation.
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You’ve noticed the trees but missed the forest. Housing is so astronomically worse. Sure, it sucks to buy bread, but have you looked at mortgage rates??
I’m aware of the conditions of the housing market including interest rates, yes.
Not for many years. Buying a home is a fantasy I let go of. Maybe if I leave the US someday…
Mortgage rates aren’t the real issue IMO, but it is an indicator. The real issue is a mix of rent and food prices, which have both gone up drastically. Add to that financing costs for cars and you have basically increased the most common expenses most households have.
Mortgage interest isn’t something the bottom 50% need to interact with, rent, food, and cars are.
People can afford mortgages?
Where do you live that your groceries only went up 40%??? Here it was more like 100-150%. A dozen eggs from a company I like went from $2.89 back in 2021 to $5.69. They said it was avian flu, temporary, covid, etc. Prices today are still $5.69.
This went across the board. A bushel of green onions went from $.99 to $1.99. Some places went higher.
The worst part of all this is that both rent/mortgage and food doubled in a matter of 3 years. And you have to pay these. There’s no avoiding food and shelter.
It’s as if the entire world just threw you down and started rifling through your pockets. The nice ones let you keep a shilling…
I’ve found the prices very much depend on where you shop. A dozen good eggs at my local Albertson’s is $2.50-7.00 depending on how organiccy they are, but I can get 18 at natural Grocers for $5.50 or 24 at Costco for $7.50. Green onions are 2 bundles for $.99 at this Chinese grocery store near me, 89 cents at the local Kroger, or $2.50 at the food coop. A whole chicken at Natural Grocers went from $9.99 to $12.99, but at other stores they’re $15-25 (one is charging $4.99 a lb, which is definitely double what it was a few years ago).
Our rent hasn’t gone up much because it was already ridiculous when my girlfriend signed 3 years ago. Our neighbors who moved in 7 years ago are paying less than 50%.
And yeah, what’s happened with the prices of neccessities is absurd. It’s also absurd that official sources say ‘inflation of 6%! 10%!’. Complete bullshit when we can see prices that went up way more than that.
Jesus, where I live eggs are back down to $1.99 a dozen which is more than they used to be but not that extreme. I think pre-pandemic, we were paying $1.79. There was a period where the store brand was $5.99 and Egg Lands Best was $3.99 which made no sense to me.