[ro-_-b]

I lived in Austria and in Germany and it's 100% true, prices in supermarkets are significantly higher in Austria even for products produced in Austria.

The reasons IMO are: * less price sensitivity: German people are extremely price sensitive, they discuss and compare prices all the time. In Austria people care way less about this on average. Supermarkets take advantage * higher logistics costs: population density in Austria is less than in Germany. Furthermore, many supermarkets are located in areas hard to reach like mountain areas. Higher logistic costs translate to higher prices * VAT is slightly higher in Austria * unqualified labor that works in supermarkets and logistics makes slightly more money in Austria than in Germany * there indeed is a higher supermarket tensity in Austria than in Germany. Supermarkets of the same company appear more appealing in Austria than in Germany: nicer presentation of food, cleaner, way less people in the line waiting. All this makes them more expensive

For all these reasons mentioned above prices are higher. I argue it's mostly related to consumer choices. If they would care so much about prices and so little about esthetics as in Germany then prices would come down. If people would start to walk the extra mile for the cheaper supermarket prices would come down.

[ro-_-b]

Also important to note:

Germany is a car country: most ways to work, gym, etc in the average German city are done by car. Makes it easy to drive the extra mile to the cheapest supermarket.

Austria is much better for using public transport or the bike. In this case you won't make the extra way to stop at the cheapest grocery. And in the areas in Austria where people use cars population density is so low that not a lot of competition between supermarkets exists

[Grimburger]

Looked this up in 30 seconds rather than relying on the ever-common HN anecdote with a certain narrative:

Germany has 627 per 1000 capita.

Austria has 572 per 1000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_...

And here's distance traveled by car in each country, again, basically identical:

https://www.odyssee-mure.eu/publications/efficiency-by-secto...

[tomtom1337]

What per 1000? Cars?

[kiney]

Not true. Most people in germany have a supermarket in walking distance to their home and the bime infrastructe is often critizised but actually good compared to most cou tries

[fsckboy]

even if supermarkets are within walking distance, if Germans are getting in their cars regularly for other reasons, that could change their supermarket shopping behavior in favor of more distant store with cheaper prices.

[ro-_-b]

exactly. While living in Germany I had an expensive supermarket in walking distance, but I'd almost never go there because I used the car to go to work and stopped at a cheaper one on the way back. In Austria in the cities it's almost impossible to go by car to work because parking is incredibly expensive so most people use public transport or bikes

[pantalaimon]

That depends on whether you live in a big city or not

[stewbrew]

Funny comment. You should tell this the Austrian chancellor.

[stewbrew]

You should add conglomerates. In Austria, the grocery market is effectively dominated by 3 companies. They rarely compete directly, i.e., by having stores next to each other.

[berkes]

The same in the Netherlands vs Germany. I live on the border. And often German grocery stores have (organic) vegetables, produced in the Netherlands, for much less than these same vegetables cost in the Netherlands.

Part is VAT, which is higher in the Netherlands, but I'm confident most is due to the fact Dutch people will simply pay more than Germans.

[fesc]

But on the other hand it seems that produce is of higher quality in NL on average than in DE.

[berkes]

How does that explain a price difference? It's the exact same dutch products that are sold in Germany.

[masswerk]

Nothing of this changed in the last two years, though. So this hardly serves an explanation for the current price hikes.

[momirlan]

same is true for Canada vs USA. always more expensive products, and less selection in Canada.

[refurb]

This goes beyond just groceries. I've lived in a few countries that vary in population from hundreds of millions to just a few million and the impact of scale is very noticeable.

It's very intuitive, but the actual impact is eye opening. I've found that for almost all products and services, the size of the US results in far more companies offering said product/service, which results in a lot more competition and better prices.

You see it not just across consumer items, but things like financial services.

[DelightOne]

How do you get cheaper prices when they follow each others' price increases?

[wholesomepotato]

If we all lived in tents, cost of living would go down.

It's silly. If you can afford not having to worry only about the price, congratulate yourself and enjoy it.

[qwertox]

Today at Aldi I saw a pudding [0] which I was about to grab, until I saw the price. 1.88€ for 500ml. My first thought was that I'm paying 1.90 for a VPS which gives me a static IPv4, 1 vCore, 2GB RAM, 20GB SSD and unlimited bandwidth (40 TB unthrottled, 100mbit/s throttled). How does this even relate in terms of value? I would have expected something below 80ct, but some of the prices which products have, have become really absurd. It's as if they're just doing a "let's set it to this price and see if it sticks".

Even funnier was the fact that they now have Christmas products on the shelves, "Wintertraum Lebkuchen". Then again, I read a Reddit post some months ago which explained why they're doing this (might as well put it there instead of into storage).

[0] https://www.aldi-sued.de/de/p.dr-oetker-kirschgruetze-oder-s...

[jpoel]

Which provider offers such a cheap VPS?

[kuroguro]

You can find some on lowendbox.com Some go for ~$10/yr tho I wouldnt put anything important there.