JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Shufersal, the large Israeli supermarket chain, has been running two online sites – one for secular Israeli consumers and one for chareidim, with the chareidi sites selling the same items substantially cheaper, according to a Channel 12 investigation.
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In the wake of the publication, outraged consumers said that they would boycott the regular site after spending thousands of shekels more than their chareidi counterparts. Additionally, Israeli lawyer Uri Keinan filed a 0.5 billion NIS suit against the company, claiming that consumers had been discriminated against due to their being secular “for the sake of profits.” Another class action suit for 10 million NIS was submitted Wednesday to the court by attorney Hany Tannous, who wrote that “we were astounded by the boldness of Shufersal which apparently maintains a secret site for chareidi consumers where it sells items at much lower prices.” The clip demonstrated that the same items with the same bar codes are being sold at hugely different prices on the two different sites.
One irate secular person estimated that the average difference between prices on the site were 23%, meaning that he spends 5000 NIS more per year on the secular site.
The lawyers claimed that this constituted unfair discrimination against the secular public which should not have to pay more due to its different beliefs.
In response, the company admitted that the “details as they were presented in the news clip are not simple” and elected to close the activity of the Mehadrin chareidi site until “we can learn the amount of discrepancies which exist between the Mehadrin site and the general site.”
Ridiculous, The online site was open to Chareidim and non Chareidim alike. The non religious were loyal to their websites and failed to compare prices. Many businesses have same products sold for different prices based on location, accessibility and competition. The freierim, excuse me, secular public have no leg to stand on. If they felt the prices were too high, they could have bought elsewhere.
Isn’t it called Super Sol?
Maybe they just discounted the prices on the chareidi website, rather than hiking them on secular website.
I honestly cannot believe that one person here would be defending this if it was the reverse. Everyone would be screaming it’s discrimination and that it just shows how much they hate chareidim. The lack of honesty and objectivity is mind blowing. Happens to a non religious Jew nobody could care less, happens to a frum Jew than you want our version of Al Sharpton down there screaming and crying and yelling about being a victim and discrimination and lawsuits and anti semitism… whether it’s about people singing songs on a plane or someone being sent to jail or someone being scammed on the internet. If he is part of my particular circle then it’s a crime against humanity. If he belongs to any other group then throw him under the bus because it’s 100 percent his fault because corporations and lawyers and and ex-wives and cops/judges never lie or are corrupt or make mistakes… so lock him up and throw away the key forever. Disgusting.
The site was essentially hidden from the secular public, marketed under a different name, and only mentioned in haredi publications.
Added to that, if Supersol was able to nevertheless make money at these lower prices, then they are suspected of overcharging everyone else, taking advantage of near-monopolies, etc.
Sure they can say these customers were buying in large quantities and we had economies of scale, multiple deliveries to each apt building, etc, but they have not yet made that claim and have instead shut it down.
Not simple at all, as the issue is overcharging others, with no explanation as to why.
What is wrong with discriminate pricing? We exercise and experience discriminate pricing, not just in commerce, but in the rest of our lives, all the time.
From a business perspective, special pricing aimed at special groups is done all the time (in North America) in order to entice the normally reluctant special group to change their entrenched habits and turn to a new vendor for product. Hareidi habit is to buy only from their own, and this is just a sales gimmick the store is using to entice Hareidi customers to switch – and in fact may be intended more to hurt and remove competition (like Kolel stores and Hareidi shopping co-ops) than to make any immediate profit. (And I would imagine that the concentration of buyers in the Hareidi areas – along with the large quantities of purchases – makes the delivery and volume discount worthwhile, as Yossi points out).
Aside from that self-evident (at least in North America self-evident) fact, “e.g.” is correct in that the site was open to everyone, and as “thejewishpress” writes:
> a scant examination of the Yashir La’Mehadrin online store reveals that it requires registration and functions as a shopping club – insiders get better prices.
And while delivery was limited to specific locals – I already pointed out the volume concentration is requited to make delivery worthwhile, so those secular locations with such concentration also get delivery, again to quote “thejewishpress”:
> includes non-Haredi locations such as Or Yehuda and Rehovot.
Is there anything in Israeli law prohibiting giving discounts to to a single group of people – or even for anyone visiting their “discount” site?
Also, isn’t it Super Sol?
The name is supersol
It’s very simple,
If you’re part of the elite club, you get better pricing, same as all site’s as Costco etc.
Don’t see what th he issue is