The Loss Of Carrefour

[William Osborne]

.. you guys sound like a bunch of old house wives ... only thing that i go to the supermarket is for beer and maybe upgrade my my flip-flops,t-shirts shorts combo to the latest styles... seriously guys, try and develop some kind of a hobby opposed to bitching about the price of a kilo of turnips..

Edited July 8, 2011 by William Osborne

[lovetotravel]

.. you guys sound like a bunch of old house wives ... only thing that i go to the supermarket is for beer and maybe upgrade my my flip-flops,t-shirts shorts combo to the latest styles... seriously guys, try and develop some kind of a hobby opposed to bitching about the price of a kilo of turnips..

Some of us are lucky and can either cook ourselves (and love to), or have wives who are excellent cooks. I've rarely encountered Thai food at cheaper restaurants that is as good as my wife makes. And almost impossible to find the international dishes she cooks.

Many types of dishes the wife cooks are just not available anywhere in Pattaya. Like chimichurri, guacamole (OK, available at a few expensive places), bagels and lox, authentic tapas, etc. Nice to have these home cooked and eat in the comfort of your home next to your pool.

Thus, the reason we miss all the "good stuff" Carrefour use to have.

[thaimate]

.. you guys sound like a bunch of old house wives ... only thing that i go to the supermarket is for beer and maybe upgrade my my flip-flops,t-shirts shorts combo to the latest styles... seriously guys, try and develop some kind of a hobby opposed to bitching about the price of a kilo of turnips..

I take it your not married with a familly?

[William Osborne]

Actually, i am but really don't pay much attention in the supermarket...usually browse the magazine or electronic section while wife does the shopping, totally tune out when she starts talking about price per kilo of stuff...

[FarangBuddha]

Actually, i am but really don't pay much attention in the supermarket...usually browse the magazine or electronic section while wife does the shopping, totally tune out when she starts talking about price per kilo of stuff...

Maybe you should work on your relationship...good communication is the key

[PattayaParent]

Actually, i am but really don't pay much attention in the supermarket...usually browse the magazine or electronic section while wife does the shopping, totally tune out when she starts talking about price per kilo of stuff...

Maybe you should work on your relationship...good communication is the key

Yes, tell her all about the newest technologu in woofers and the advantages od SSD over HDD if she insists on telling you the price of cabbage.

[sangfroid]

Did some real grocery shopping there today for the first time since the handover and didn't really notice much of a change. All my favorite departments were pretty much the same, including the dairy/cheese, meats, and bakery. There was still a good selection of imported dairy and canned/jarred cheeses and sauces and all my favorite breads were still there. Don't know about prices as like someone said, if I need/want something I just buy it. Fruits and veggies seemed the same as well...not as good as Central Beach but on par with Foodland.

Likewise at Carrefour (Now Big C) Ratchada Rd BKK. Little change there. "Casino" products have taken the place of the Carrefour

brand products.

[Suradit]

Because of living/working in Thailand I am always in shock the first couple days when I am back in the USA and I am experiencing friendly, concerned, efficient clerks and waiters in the stores and restaurants..."Hi, may I help you?" " Is everything fine with the food you ordered?" "Let me check the back of the stock room to see if we have the pair of shoes you want..."

Next time you go to the US take along a Thai friend with limited or non-existent English who turns red and becomes belligerent as soon as he doesn't get exactly what he wants and see how helpful the clerks are at WalMart, especially in foreigner-friendly places like Arizona, Texas or anywhere near the borders since the xenophobes will probably assume he's an illegal alien from Mexico since he has black hair and doesn't speak hillbilly. I wonder how many of the WalMart employees work 29 days a month for 10 hours a day?

While your Thai friend is in the US (always assuming he survived the obnoxious staff at the US embassy who probably wouldn't issue him a visa in the first place), have him wile away his time writing letters to the editor and posting on message boards a laundry list of things he dislikes about the US and how much nicer it is back in Thailand.

[doggie888888]

Because of living/working in Thailand I am always in shock the first couple days when I am back in the USA and I am experiencing friendly, concerned, efficient clerks and waiters in the stores and restaurants..."Hi, may I help you?" " Is everything fine with the food you ordered?" "Let me check the back of the stock room to see if we have the pair of shoes you want..."

Next time you go to the US take along a Thai friend with limited or non-existent English who turns red and becomes belligerent as soon as he doesn't get exactly what he wants and see how helpful the clerks are at WalMart, especially in foreigner-friendly places like Arizona, Texas or anywhere near the borders since the xenophobes will probably assume he's an illegal alien from Mexico since he has black hair and doesn't speak hillbilly. I wonder how many of the WalMart employees work 29 days a month for 10 hours a day?

While your Thai friend is in the US (always assuming he survived the obnoxious staff at the US embassy who probably wouldn't issue him a visa in the first place), have him wile away his time writing letters to the editor and posting on message boards a laundry list of things he dislikes about the US and how much nicer it is back in Thailand.

:lol:

[FarangBuddha]

Because of living/working in Thailand I am always in shock the first couple days when I am back in the USA and I am experiencing friendly, concerned, efficient clerks and waiters in the stores and restaurants..."Hi, may I help you?" " Is everything fine with the food you ordered?" "Let me check the back of the stock room to see if we have the pair of shoes you want..."

Next time you go to the US take along a Thai friend with limited or non-existent English who turns red and becomes belligerent as soon as he doesn't get exactly what he wants and see how helpful the clerks are at WalMart, especially in foreigner-friendly places like Arizona, Texas or anywhere near the borders since the xenophobes will probably assume he's an illegal alien from Mexico since he has black hair and doesn't speak hillbilly. I wonder how many of the WalMart employees work 29 days a month for 10 hours a day?

While your Thai friend is in the US (always assuming he survived the obnoxious staff at the US embassy who probably wouldn't issue him a visa in the first place), have him wile away his time writing letters to the editor and posting on message boards a laundry list of things he dislikes about the US and how much nicer it is back in Thailand.

LOL

However, as for those W-M workers, most of them probably do...and for minimum wage and minimal, if any, health benefits

[Soboringtochooseaname]

Don't talk without knowing.

Big C is going to sell all the French products brand Casino (Carrefour Thai has been bought by Casino).

So i guess that you will find all the western food of your dreams, and French food is always better than our shxt UK food...

[koiwaolao]

Like someone already said: Extra = extra costs! Went there yesterday and today and noticed quite some hikes. For example sushi pieces have gone from 10 baht to 15 baht each. The low priced salmon fish has gone from 450 baht per kg to 560 baht. At this rate they will quickly recover the purchase price they paid to Carrefour. I for one will take my custom to other stores, even if some items cost slightly more, if only to protest against shameless profiteering

[koiwaolao]

........................ only to protest against shameless profiteering

It's your consumers right to go somewhere else, but I doubt it (however I don't have any proof, neither do you btw) that it is profiteering. Everywhere around you see prices hikes, so not only in Carrefour Big C Extra. I for one, still will do my shopping there, as it is very convenient and not as crowded as the other places

Fair enough but price hikes of 50 and 25 percent from one day to the other? And this on products which have been drawing cards of Carrefour for quality and value for a long time? Me thinks they consider the Carrefour customers they took over a captive ( mostly farang) audience and giving them a good working over

And BTW crowded or not, the check out services at Foodland and Friendship have always been and still are superior to Carrefour/Big C Extra.

[phuketrichard]

when they changed to Big C here in Phuket, service and selection went down and it seems the bread is not the same as well. to bad

[FarangBuddha]

Like someone already said: Extra = extra costs! Went there yesterday and today and noticed quite some hikes. For example sushi pieces have gone from 10 baht to 15 baht each. The low priced salmon fish has gone from 450 baht per kg to 560 baht. At this rate they will quickly recover the purchase price they paid to Carrefour. I for one will take my custom to other stores, even if some items cost slightly more, if only to protest against shameless profiteering

Maybe that's why CF couldn't make a go of it...they were pricing their goods too cheap. Maybe Big C is just pricing in a decent profit margin.

[janverbeem]

Like someone already said: Extra = extra costs! Went there yesterday and today and noticed quite some hikes. For example sushi pieces have gone from 10 baht to 15 baht each. The low priced salmon fish has gone from 450 baht per kg to 560 baht. At this rate they will quickly recover the purchase price they paid to Carrefour. I for one will take my custom to other stores, even if some items cost slightly more, if only to protest against shameless profiteering

Maybe that's why CF couldn't make a go of it...they were pricing their goods too cheap. Maybe Big C is just pricing in a decent profit margin.

Just take into consideration,in Pattaya there are now 3 Big Craps within 5 Km.In Chonburi it is exactly the same story,3 Big Craps within 5 Km,and probably in many other city's similar scenario.I don't know about other city's but the Pattaya south branch is empty of customers for years already,the north branch is busy due to it's location in the middle of the tourist center with people who go buy a bottle of coke or something similar a tourist would buy.The central pattaya branch is deteriorating at a fast pace and soon the majority of their customers will be the ones who change from the north branch because more convenient.So how do you think they can keep these Hyper Shopping centers running without customers if they don't inflate the prices?It's not that this is just one more branch of a 7/11 convenience store.

[tropo]

They appear to have lost a number of customers judging by the fact that during the week, when there are fewer Thai visitors, there are more available parking spaces. Yesterday I had a problem over a price and it took ten minutes to sort it out. Under the old Carrefour policy I would have got the item concerned free however that was not the case now. I was just charged the correct lower price.

The shelf pricing is atrocious. It is very difficult to find the price on many items which are often not marked or marked wrong. You really have to watch out when they go through the checkout. Today an item marked 59 baht on the shelf was checked out at 89 baht.

[Derifo]

It wasn't really wise allowing Big C to take over Carrefour.

I'm just going to be buying my fresh products from a local market.

[tropo]

I had a funny experience the other day there. It was magnified because I recently returned from the US.

I was looking at a computer electronics item and they were locked in a case so I needed service. They were indeed very surly from the start. Now I don't expect everyone to speak English in Thailand, but there was someone there who spoke English well enough. I really wasn't expecting anything, but there were four brand choices for the item I wanted. So I asked him for info, such as why is this one priced double this one, when it looks the same function. He just laughed incredulously and said SAME SAME. The point is this guy presumably works in this store most everyday and no motivation at all to learn the tiniest thing about the products he should be pushing. I guess there's no incentive, bad management, etc.

Anyway here's the contrast. I went to a bunch of electronic stores back in the US and every clerk I met sounded brilliant, and massively overqualified. The most amazing, I met a Singaporean-American working there who had an advanced engineering degree and I asked him for help with selecting the right cable for my needs. Let me tell you, I learned more about cables from this guy than I would ever need to know! BTW, these stores had incentive programs for staff, so a dumbo wouldn't even be hired in the first place.

If you were Thai I'm sure you would have gotten much more information about the devices. It would not be easy for a Thai who speaks only basic English to discuss the technical aspects of the devices you want.

It's also possible that the devices were basically "SAME SAME" despite the big difference in prices.

[janverbeem]

They appear to have lost a number of customers judging by the fact that during the week, when there are fewer Thai visitors, there are more available parking spaces. Yesterday I had a problem over a price and it took ten minutes to sort it out. Under the old Carrefour policy I would have got the item concerned free however that was not the case now. I was just charged the correct lower price.

The shelf pricing is atrocious. It is very difficult to find the price on many items which are often not marked or marked wrong. You really have to watch out when they go through the checkout. Today an item marked 59 baht on the shelf was checked out at 89 baht.

I have to agree about prices marked wrong,a few days ago I bought some milk which is always sold at around 50 Baht a pack for 69 Baht for 2 packs currently.Of course at the check out it showed up as 98 baht for 2 packs,so actually they create a promotion where there wasn't one.I got 2 packs free and the next 2 packs at 69 Baht.So I'm a happy customer in this case however it took almost 20 minutes for the lady on the skates to sort out the problem,because she was that busy solving umpteen of similar problems.

Also take a look at the fridge with the soon to be over due date articles.Before those items were clearly priced but currently it is impossible to figure out at what price they are sold.Only today I bought a bottle of drink youghourt because the due date was still 3 days away and it took 2 shop assistants to figure out which was the price among the many numbers written on the ticket . At the check out it took another 3 cashiers for the same problem.

[Jingthing]

If you were Thai I'm sure you would have gotten much more information about the devices. It would not be easy for a Thai who speaks only basic English to discuss the technical aspects of the devices you want.

It's also possible that the devices were basically "SAME SAME" despite the big difference in prices.

I don't believe you are correct but you seem strangely biased that the Thai is always right, so never mind. You are talking generally anyway. I was there. The guy spoke half decent English and it was totally clear to me that the one thing he DID know what they all had the same space and it was also clear he thought that was the ONLY thing anyone would want to/need to know. I could be wrong, but at least I was there.

Edited July 10, 2011 by Jingthing

[tropo]

I don't believe you are correct but you seem strangely biased that the Thai is always right, so never mind.

Perhaps your complaint needed some balance because you always think you are right.

I made 2 reasonable points:

1. Speaking technical English and basic English are not the same.

2. The 2 devices may have been "Same, same". It wouldn't be the first time a particular item was discounted.

Are you disputing these points?

[tropo]

They appear to have lost a number of customers judging by the fact that during the week, when there are fewer Thai visitors, there are more available parking spaces. Yesterday I had a problem over a price and it took ten minutes to sort it out. Under the old Carrefour policy I would have got the item concerned free however that was not the case now. I was just charged the correct lower price.

The shelf pricing is atrocious. It is very difficult to find the price on many items which are often not marked or marked wrong. You really have to watch out when they go through the checkout. Today an item marked 59 baht on the shelf was checked out at 89 baht.

I have to agree about prices marked wrong,a few days ago I bought some milk which is always sold at around 50 Baht a pack for 69 Baht for 2 packs currently.Of course at the check out it showed up as 98 baht for 2 packs,so actually they create a promotion where there wasn't one.I got 2 packs free and the next 2 packs at 69 Baht.So I'm a happy customer in this case however it took almost 20 minutes for the lady on the skates to sort out the problem,because she was that busy solving umpteen of similar problems.

Also take a look at the fridge with the soon to be over due date articles.Before those items were clearly priced but currently it is impossible to figure out at what price they are sold.Only today I bought a bottle of drink youghourt because the due date was still 3 days away and it took 2 shop assistants to figure out which was the price among the many numbers written on the ticket . At the check out it took another 3 cashiers for the same problem.

This is very frustrating.

Here's a good one: I saw some coffee I wanted but the price was not displayed. The supervisor ran off to get a price for me. He came back with 285 baht. It checked out at 261.

Fortunately they have new bold and bright checkout displays. It pays to keep your eyes glued on it as they scan the items.

[PolPat]

They appear to have lost a number of customers judging by the fact that during the week, when there are fewer Thai visitors, there are more available parking spaces. Yesterday I had a problem over a price and it took ten minutes to sort it out. Under the old Carrefour policy I would have got the item concerned free however that was not the case now. I was just charged the correct lower price.

The shelf pricing is atrocious. It is very difficult to find the price on many items which are often not marked or marked wrong. You really have to watch out when they go through the checkout. Today an item marked 59 baht on the shelf was checked out at 89 baht.

They have removed all the self scan price check machines so you can't check the prices before you check out. I thought Carrefour was poorly run, but Big C is really horrible.

[tontraveller]

Sunday afternoon car park at former Carrefour completely full...

Seems we're maybe not happy with loss of Carrefour but BigC was smart enough to keep same standard at fresh food department.

Chapeau