Getting value for money in remote areas

Some time ago, I wrote about using Bush Orders to do grocery shopping.  This is how we avoid being ripped off by price-gouging remote area stores, as we pay normal supermarket prices for our groceries in a regional centre, then pay freight to get it to our home.  This compares very favourably with prices in our local supermarket, and vastly improves the range and quality of goods we can access.

In general, I support the concept "buy local".  I'm even prepared to pay a premium to support a local store.  However, I am not prepared to support businesses who use a captive market to price-gouge, and often provide abysmal customer service as well.  It seems I am not alone in this.  A recent survey reported in CHOICE magazine found that NT has the highest per capita use of online shopping in Australia, and that's despite a significant portion of the NT population having little or no access to online services.  No longer can NT businesses sit back and treat their customers with contempt while charging them a large premium for goods.  We will simply order them online, and when this proves to be a positive experience, as it almost always does, we are unlikely ever to go back to the local business.

In my case, I can choose whether to buy a part for my 4WD locally and pay 2 1/2 times more for it, or order it online and wait a week for it to arrive.  In rare cases, I'll pay the extra because I can't wait, but mostly (about 98% of the time) I will take the online option.  If the local business kept their mark-up to even 50% compared to city prices, I would but it from them every time.  But a 150% mark-up is stupid!  Especially when their customer service is surly, unhelpful and often downright hostile.  Even for basic food items that I can't do without, I will wait a week to get them via freight from Alice Springs than buy them locally, mainly because the local supermarket charges between 200-400% more for many items.  Sure some items are as cheap as elesewhere, but they tend to be the junk food lines rather than the healthy foods.  Fruit and vegetables here are expensive and highly variable in quality, sometimes barely edible.  Yet the same items bought via Bush Orders from Woolworths in Alice Springs are fresh, excellent quality, and usually less than half the price even allowing for freight.

It's not all doom and gloom though.  I recently bought a tyre for the Transit van.  After days of searching online, I found 3 tyres that would do the job.  All were around $240, with between $30 and $100 freight to get the tyre to Tennant Creek.  I then went to the local tyre outlet to check what they had.  The pleasant helpful person on the front desk checked the computer and found the size I needed in a well-known brand for $250 including fitting and balancing, and it was in stock!  So here's one business that managed to get it right:

• Good customer service
• Competitive price
• Quality goods

So guess where my first stop for all my future tyre needs in Tennant Creek will be?  Yep, the local tyre outlet.  They could have charged another $100 for the tyre, and probably got away with it once, but this would have meant that all future tyres would be bought either online or while on a trip elsewhere.  By giving me value for money, they have ensured that I will support this particular local business.  And that's probably worth more to them in the long run than a quick $100 once-off.

Bush Orders - bringing competition to remote areas

One of my long-held beliefs is that people who live in rural and remote areas need to support their local businesses, or risk losing them.  After all, city-based people are not going to drive to the middle of nowhere for the privilege of paying higher prices for a restricted range of lower quality goods.  So if those of us who live outside the cities don't pay up, country businesses will go belly-up.  I'm OK with that, because as far as I'm concerned, the country life is worth the extra expense, especially when you often get to save money in other ways so it balances out.

However, there is a limit.  In Tennant Creek, the sole local supermarket has a captive market which they shamelessly milk for all it's worth.  A regular fortnight's shopping at Tennant Creek will cost me at least $800, and that leaves quite a few items that I can't get at all until I go shopping in Alice Springs.  A comparable shopping trolley full in Alice Springs costs around $500, and includes everything I need.  The quality of fruit and vegetables is highly variable, ranging from OK to inedible, and staples like milk powder and bread are nearly twice the price that they are in Alice Springs.  There have apparently been a number of attempts to start up a bakery in Tennant Creek, but each time the supermarket conducts a price war until the bakery goes broke.  Then the price of bread goes through the roof again.

This is where Bush Orders comes in.  I am a Woolworths customer, so can only talk about their service, but I know Coles do it as well.  Every fortnight I fax a list of what I need to Woolworths in Alice Springs.  The Bush Orders team do the shopping for me, for a $20 fee (which is being scrapped soon) and pack it into boxes.  Meat and bakery items are frozen, fruit and dairy goods chilled, and the rest packed as general goods.  Most times it takes 6 boxes to pack my order (2 frozen, 2 chilled and 2 general).  I then pay $6 per box to have them freighted to Tennant Creek where they are held at the freight depot for me to collect at my convenience.  I could get them delivered to my door, but since I work nights, it's better if I collect them myself.  Then when I get home, it's like Christmas!  Everyone is keen to see what came in the boxes.  I'm caught up in it too, even though I placed the order, because the Bush Orders team usually throw in some freebies as well.

So for me, the benefits of Bush Orders are:

• Avoiding the extortion of a monopoly business
• Ordering groceries eliminates impulse shopping, as all purchases are planned
• I can still buy specials, by referring to the specials catalogue online that applies to Alice Springs
• It saves me having to drive to Alice Springs to buy the items that are not available in Tennant Creek
• I save the cost of the $20 shopping fee just in the bread, and more than recoup the $48 freight on everything else. On top of that, I save over $200 by not having to drive to Alice Springs.

Disadvantages are:

• It is hard to explore new items that we might like to try, so this has to wait until we travel to a Woolworths store. I can browse Woolworths online, but not the Alice Springs store.
• I have to keep money available in my account for up to 3 weeks as it seems to take that long for Woolworths to deduct the payment.  If I change to using a credit card for these purchases, that will eliminate this delay.
• We end up with a mountain of boxes that need to be disposed of.
• I like impulse shopping!!  Not that it's good for me.

Overall then, Bush Orders allows us to enjoy the services, range and quality available from a major regional supermarket for a relatively minor fee.  While I would like to support local business, I cannot support extortion.  I understand that businesses need to make a profit, but they need to understand that we live in a global economy and if they can't compete, they're out.  If that means no local supermarket, so be it.  The reality of course is that there will always be a supermarket here, and if a second one opens, competition will bring prices down to a fair level.  The supermarket pay their staff a pittance and don't open long hours, and freight is very competitive, so that doesn't justify the high prices.  Therefore I refuse to accept them.  Long live Bush Orders!!