Danish Grocers Offer Cut-Price Hardware

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30143, 29 May 1963, Page 11

Danish Grocers Offer Cut-Price Hardware

While New Zealand hardware dealers have been snaking c&nplaints about the inroada being made into hardware tales by retailers not normally associated with the trade, Danish hardware dealers, faced with the same problem, have been trying direct retaliation, according to the leading article in the May laaie of the "New Zealand Hardware Journal.” Thia is one method New Zealand dealers have yet to try, says the Journal, describing what is being done in Denmark.

A voluntary chain of 50 grocers in a town in North Jutland began to offer "discount tickets” to customers enabling them to buy a variety of hardware items from the grocer at almost wholesale prices. Public interest, of course, was very favourable, but the local ironmongers soon reacted with commendable resourcefulness First they cut the retail prices of the hardware items concerned, and next played the grocers' game by offering tea and coffee at nearly one-third off the normal retail price per pound.. Reaction from the grocers’ organisation came smartly in the form of a statement that their tactics were not directed at the hardware trade but at

the supermarkets and cooperatives.

This, naturally, was not swallowed by the ironmongers. who continued selling tea and coffee, meanwhile calling on the grocers to come to a fair settlement At the time of writing the battle still rages. “So, while not suggesting that the hardware trade foment a price-cutting war, there is a precedent for some positive action should it be necessary. Nothing much is ever gained by sitting back and Waiting for something to happen. Go to it!” concluded the editorial.