Hacker News Reader

Comment by automatwon | Hacker News Reader

Is this grocery charging 'Whole Paycheck' prices? The fact that they invest into this well-produced video, while referencing Amazon GO, located thousands of miles away in a different country, suggests their target demographic are tech-friendly and, by transitivity, affluent.

How about Amazon GO? Is that a toy / experience / novelty for affluent tech-savvy early adopters?

Sorry if I'm not political correct. I tried. My intent is not to troll or offend people who do shop at Whole Foods. I actually live in San Francisco, 10 feet away from a Whole Foods. I previously lived in Seattle, too. I feel that, compared to other fields such as Finance or law, tech tend to be more self-conscientious and guilty about income inequality.

View on HN

>Is this grocery charging 'Whole Paycheck' prices? The fact that they invest into this well-produced video, while referencing Amazon GO, located thousands of miles away in a different country, suggests their target demographic are tech-friendly and, by transitivity, affluent.

Not any more than e.g. Whole Foods and Krogers consumers.

>while referencing Amazon GO, located thousands of miles away in a different country

You make it sound difficult. In fact Amazon Go made global news, and we have this web thing.

> their target demographic are tech-friendly and, by transitivity, affluent.

Their target demographic is not tech-friendly at all, quite the opposite, but indeed affluent: they are located in the center of rich french cities, where wealthy, often more than 50, people live.

Monoprix is definitely high end. Maybe not whole food prices though. French American speaking.

What? Monoprix is your regular supermarket.

http://www.lefigaro.fr/conso/2014/02/25/05007-20140225ARTFIG...

Monoprix is the most expensive supermarket.

No it's not. Of course your mileage may vary in terms of income, but monoprix has gone regular to premium(ish) in the last 10 years. If you have shopped elsewhere than Paris, you would agree on

Carrfour Market ~ Monoprix > franprix (who is going premiumish also) > 8a8 > g20 > lidl et al > alimentation general du coin

Franprix is going premiumish ? really? Wasnt their core brand value low prices in the first place?

Historically I think so. Even the name hints at 'fair price', and the stores weren't fancy. At least a lot less than monoprix. Maybe they just changer strategy to avoid lowering standards.

Everywhere I shop, Franprix is more expensive than Monoprix.

No way. Monoprix is definetely a high end supermarket, not because it's organic or high quality food only (unlike whole food) but because it's always located in weathy areas of inner towns (your find Monoprix in the XVIth and XVIIth district, not in the XXth).

An analogy to America, to avoid having people imagine Monoprix is Le Bon Marché: Monoprix is like what Target is to Walmart.

Although unlike in the US, most of its competitors are owned by the same parent company, Casino Group.

I agree with the analogy, but I would add that it's usually located where your would have a Walgreens in the US, which is much smaller than the average Target.

That's wrong. Monoprix has indeed succeeded in its transformation by setting up in more wealthy areas (often under the "Monop'" name), but there is always a lot of stores, less trendy, in popular areas like Belleville and in small and modest provincial cities. Prices are adjusted according to location.

I live in the 20eme right in front of one "Monop". I never go there since I usually find better selection and lower prices in Franprix but I wouldn't exactly call Monoprix "high end" or compare it to Whole Foods. Expensive, definitely.

I wouldn't exactly call them "regular". They are mostly in the center of cities, their price are high-ish, but not crazy, so you often see people with no car (old people but also students) living in the city shopping there, as well as wealthy people. Their products are rather good.

It's clearly above regular, not luxury but fairly high.

Monoprix is in fact a regular small-scale supermarket for inner-city folks; its prices are higher than at huge "marts" such as Leclerc or Auchan, but are aligned with those of other shops in the same segment, like Franprix or Carrefour Market.

They print little puns on the packaging of their own products.

The bad accent of the man doing the narration is a little unnerving; they could have gone with a heavy French accent which could have been funny (maybe), or they could have hired a native speaker. But this sounds like they took the first guy in the hall who said he spoke English.

As well as the accent, the last title on the video also does that French thing where they get English tenses wrong. It's peculiarly French to say 'Since ten years we have the best prices', when you mean 'For the past ten years ...' - I'm not actually sure what the mistake being made here is, some literal translation maybe? But, it's usually a good indicator that the ESL speaker is French...

I'd say that it's roughly 20% more expensive than average (at least that's what I see when I compare to a supermarket like Leclerc) but they're well located, easy walking distance from the center of the cities and perfect for people like me who don't want to get into a car to go shopping.

They also have an online delivery service which works really well.

They do tend to have a bit more choice when it comes to fine foods and sell some premium brands like Valrhona that you wouldn't necessarily find in normal supermarkets.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com