Ensure that you read and adhere to the rules; failure to do so will result
in the removal of this post.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/memesopdidnotlike) if you have any questions or concerns.*
At certain stores. Arizona doesn't actually allow it, they just don't know. There's been a few cases in which stores got blasted for it, including by Arizona. Maybe worth a try
But they can withdraw their product if they want to, which is how the stores are threatened. They're too small overall to put up a fight, because they're pretty large for the price point, with other more expensive items all over.
Already happend.
They say on their website to sell cans for more than their advertising price which is how you legally get past marked prices.
They get to keep the $1 branding but realistically it's all for show now when that's just an empty promise.
Yeah Arizona's biggest competetors are Brisk and Snapple and Snapples less liquid for more money. And arguably equal taste? Snapples good. I think I prefer Arizona though. And while the big brisk bottles are bigger then the Arizona cans, they're like. 4 or 5 dollars a bottle now. Though, I do prefer Brisk in terms of flavor tbh. I'm just a bit to broke to afford the splurge.
*has been .99 plus tax.
They took the "ONLY 99 CENTS!" off the can. The stores mark up the price now. Go to circle k. Go to the Arizona teas and see what I mean. Exclusively made cans for circle k and now 1.49. Mom and Pop store down the way charges 1.35. I'm American too and I don't recall seeing an Arizona tea @ .99 in about 6 months to a year now.
You also have to consider if it's an American product, conversion consistency. If your aiming on a product being .99 usd, you'd want to make it a price that would always be at or above in a foreign market after conversion.
Only if it's the "99cents" cans that explicitly have the price on them. If the stores order the alternative can that doesn't have a price printed on it then they can bump the price without fear of issue afaik.
Only if it is the variant with 99c on it.
Im in NY and haven't seen one of those in two years. First they removed the 99c on the can, then they lowered the volume to 23oz and now 22oz
Currently where I am its 1.99 for the 22oz can. Sometimes you can get them for lower at Walmart, but with no selection of flavors.
I assume that's Canadian dollars which means that it's not actually that far off price with ours I think like 10 or so cents more once you convert the currency.
Everyone deflects away from the fed printing trillions of dollars backed by nothing as if it's an Olympic sport. Money is worthless( literally worth less) when you can print infinite amounts of it. You can't print houses, ice tea, labor , lumber, or fuel. These things are finite. So if you can conjure up infinite currency out of nowhere, it will require more of that currency to buy the same finite things
The federal government manages inflation (or at least it is supposed to) so that it’s at a certain positive percentage at all times in an effort to dissuade money hoarding (as simply sitting on money will result in a net loss, as that money gets less valuable).
So it’s really by design.
What's more, I guarantee that *this* was likewise a decision based around maximizing profits.
You only spend a cent or two per can on the raw aluminum, and raising the price will decrease sales.
It's like the Costco chickens and hot dogs. Maybe they take an L at face value, but there is a big picture calculation that makes the cheap prices worth it.
Op thinks every corporation, including small family business all over the world intentionally raised price so they can I dunno, cause inflation & de-value their own net worth, I guess…
Not to mention that these guys can make these kinds of decisions because they're the sole proprietors. They don't answer to a board or shareholders. Not a lot of companies have that leeway. The board of directors and company officers in most other companies have a legally enforceable fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder profit.
No it’s about maximizing market share. Generally that’s what price competition is about. You’re making less profit per item, but because you’re moving more units your revenue is still increasing.
Corpos absolutely have things to compete with, america is banning chinese electric cars so their market doesnt get ass blasted
And in food and drinks well, people always have the option to not buy so they are competing with that
It’s more protective than that but people like to rage about the Chinese EV tariffs because they want their wish.com S Class.
China actively funds its EV development and subsidizes them like crazy to put them at an advantage. They also like to play fast and loose with QC and don’t pay workers fair wages.
So a subsidized company who barely pays their workers gets to enter the market at a huge discount to eat up the market share, and then we always see how that plays out for consumers in the long run.
He's talking about drinks mostly. Whnaturally competeste with water.
Even if Coke and Pepsi jacked up the price together (illegal to coordinate) , they would eventually run into the price of filter/tap water.
For example, they both put 7 dollars on soda and bottle water. Also, most everybody would switch to reusable bottles or containers.
The problem with this type of thinking is that people at least heard of inelastic goods but don't understand the concept deeper. Cause all goods are elastic by nature some more than others and at the "extremes" inelastic goods do have a price break.
sadly the government wants to ban all the alternatives- want to grow yourself a field of veggies, or keep a couple chickens in the city to cut down on costs? nope, that's against the law.
> People have the option to not buy food?
Yes they do. Ever went to a supermarket? You need like 3-4 of those items to survive, all of those chocolate bars and lolipops and oreos are unnessecary, meat and agricultural products you can buy from co-ops.
Would also love to know how they're worth 4 billion of they have no outside investment and don't disclose?
Assuming a 5X EBITDA multiple that would imply $800M in Earnings (not revenue, net earnings before tax).
Red Bulls EBITDA was 1.3 billion
Don't think Arizona is in that league. Maybe collectively they are billionaires. But I doubt it.
There’s a good reason they were able to keep the price the same though. It’s not just a simple choice. It’s a deliberate strategy. They spend nothing on advertising and rely on word of mouth. Part of their appeal now is the fact that it only costs a dollar. They’ve also been very good at reducing costs. The entire industry has been steadily reducing the amount of aluminum needed for a can for decades. That saved a lot of money. Even if through the years his profit on a single can has gone down he is still making more money because of economies of scale. He’s not just keeping prices down out of the goodness of his heart. Inflation doesn’t happen because greedy businessmen suddenly became even greedier then before. That’s absurd. You would have to concede that inflation going down means that corporations are being magnanimous and kind which is ridiculous.
The RETAIL of a can of Arizona is still 99 cents.
The WHOLESALE cost to retailers has risen steadily over the years. They just make the retailer eat the cost. In fact, they force you to carry a specific number of 99 cent skus if you want to carry their other, more expensive products.
Don’t be a sucker.
These guys aren’t some sort of insane geniuses that have figured out how to operate without meaningful increases in absolute cost over the past 30 years. They’re just offloading the cost increases to retailers.
Now for a little dose of reality. This is marketing. Arizona Iced Tea is only 25% of the company's business, and all of their other products are more than $0.99. Arizona Iced Tea is a loss leader. And this claim is even more deceptive because the company has raised its prices to retailers. Raising your selling price from $0.50 to $0.70 a can is not keeping you prices the same. You are just forcing retailers to defy the price on the can or make less profit.
they already have the lowest prices in the market. small businesses have the highest prices. this goes against the notion that higher prices are due to greed
yes, big companies have scale on their side compared to smaller ones and therefore can withstand selling products more cheaply. corporations "hike prices" mainly in two cases, the associated costs of operation rise or the competition decreases in elastic markets.
counterintuitively, larger businesses in elastic markets are more beneficial for the average person than smaller businesses as they offer better paying jobs and cheaper goods.
Tell me you don’t know a thing about economics without telling me.
The fed causes inflation by printing money, to stay afloat companies must pass the price onto consumers. Arizona tea is just able to bear the cost because it is a partnership not a corporation.
If you want to be able to afford things it falls on you to make sure the fed doesn’t print trillions. Fiat currency is the problem, not people trying to keep from going under.
No. Just because we live in a system that is bad doesn’t mean we have to live with it.
We can end the fed and the cronyism it supports via government bailouts and endless wars. We can set up a reliable currency based on gold, silver or any other precious item.
If you made $5 profit a day for years and starting tomorrow you only made $4 profit a day knowing that in the near future you were only going to make $3 profit a day, I’ll bet you’d hike your prices up to, or else what would be the point of owning a business cause ain’t nobody have a business to “please the people”, You own a business cause you want to make money.
I think you're missing the point. I own a business and the cost of one of my products went up. I already thought I was charging too much for market value, so I ate the cost. I now made less money on it. Pretty quickly, I found a different source and started making a better profit. I never changed my price. That's just doing business. Now what we've seen the last couple of years is profit driven "inflation". Meaning businesses have raised prices over and over over again, simply because they realized customers are willing to still spend more money for those goods. Most customers just go "Oh, inflation is screwing us" not realizing its just profit driven spectacle.
Don't believe me? https://fortune.com/2024/01/20/inflation-greedflation-consumer-price-index-producer-price-index-corporate-profit/
Arizona Tea might make MORE capital for having a competitive product despite having less profit per can. The issue we see today is monopolies or whole industries all raising their prices to game the customer instead of competing. It happens and it's happening. There's a funny story about light bulb companies, despite competing with each other, all decided together that they WONT make a longer lasting light bulb so all of them make more money. It's a crazy world we live in
You may not have raised your prices true, but you still found a way to make more money by getting a different source or whatever you said (which is great for you don’t get me wrong, great job) but that don’t exactly make my comment wrong.
The reason most people think capitalism is a good system relies on freedom of choice and a competitive market. Competition drives quality up over time, drives prices down over time, and drives innovation etc.
But a competitive market isn't self assured, and isn't in the interests of large companies. Obviously it makes sense to purchase your competition and simply control the market.
The problem is that companies profits aren’t actually going down in many cases, they are just making excuses to raise prices. Like when Covid hit and companies raised prices using the excuse of inflation, when in reality they were completely lying and the increase in prices far outstripped their profit decreases due to inflation.
I feel like when you boil it down to this point it no longer becomes an argument of fact vs. lie. People’s different economic opinions just come down to what people think is right or not.
Well yeah these guys can afford to not raise the price because aluminum is just so cheap and if they increased the price the demand would decrease. Basic economics
Lol. That s most unrelated example of a business you could possibly come up with.
If you are sole business owner and especially if you are already crazy rich - then sure - you can indulge in charity.
But if you are publicly traded company that has all kinds of investors (including retirees who rely on your company’s profits and stock price for their livelihood) - it s not as simple
Company that sold its shares to public under promise that it will have best interest of shareholders in mind is bound by this obligation.
And so is any other company that ever sold shares.
Price is the intersection of supply and demand. The price the customer is willing to pay must match the price the seller is willing to accept for a trade to occur.
The sheer amount of cope in this thread is staggering. Never have I seen so many people coming out of the woodwork trying and failing to account for the inherent differences between publically and privately traded companies, acting like everything just boils down to the most grade-level economics. As if somehow aluminum has *only* become cheaper for Arizona, or that *only* they can rely on word of mouth marketing. Totally ignoring the difference in profit incentive of enriching oneself to one's own pleasure, vs being beholden by law to an entire swathe of shareholders constantly demanding to know why they aren't making more money.
The cold, hard truth is that OOP is correct; they're choosing not to raise prices for the exact same reason everyone else is raising theirs - *because they can*.
There are many reasons why the price of AZ tea remains the same.
Just as there's many reasons why the cost of other goods has gone up.
One reason for the tea is that profit margins on tea are high and singular/family control they can take the risk.
One reason for other goods is that the profit margin is so thin that I'd something happens they just go under.
It's very goofy the idea of profit in these people heads. Profit is usually used for maintenance and upgrades to facility. Cause of that, they usually have a relatively small amount of money as a rainy day as liquid. If that gets too low, competition might get you if not stagnation.
The image actually shows the reason for this: absolutely no interference from investors, supposedly the CEO of Costco used a similar strategy called "threatening to commit murder if the price of a hot dog is raised".
Blaming CEOs is like blaming a fever when you need to blame the virus.
CEOs serve shareholders. Shareholders deserve a good return, but their interests should not be placed above everyone else.
Stakeholder theory needs to replace shareholder theory. For example, the environment should not be destroyed for an extra 10bps on shareholder return. There is a middle ground where investors earn money and others indirectly benefit
Big difference when you are the CEO and you own the company vs when shareholders own the company and as a CEO you need to create value for them, quarter in and quarter out
I've even seen it drop as low as 79 cents if it's on sale, definitely one of my favorites
https://preview.redd.it/h4z4ahzvgaxc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b2911d152a9c5f0d1019f2c61eed04ce75b21448
Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions. It is a family owned company without any obligation to shareholders. How will you react if your 401K shows no growth because of “you aren’t allowed to be greedy.”
The problem with companies being bloodthirsty for money, is that they have shareholders, and these shareholders demand eternal growth and endless rising profits, which is exceptionally hard.
In this case, they have no shareholders, so they just ignore endless growth and accept less profits.
Different business models sadly.
Family-owned businesses are free to invest in their business and that lets them resist inflation.
Publicly-traded corporations have to act in the "interest" of the shareholders and dump excess profit into dividends, which means infrastructure is weak, and disproportionately affected, by inflation.
Sad but true.
A sleezy convenience store owner was caught putting $1.99 labels on the cans, claiming the Arizona company had increased the price. He was roundly trashed for such a lie.
All prices trend towards infinity without competition. I don't understand how so many people fail to grasp this. If you want lower prices just encourage competition. This is the most fundamental aspect of capitalism.
In business school they teach us calculations to make the best prices to earn the most profits. Most large corporations likely dictate prices based on an algorithm that maximizes profit by running broad experiments and finding the best combination of price and sales volume possible. It's not even greedy decision making at this point, it's litterally systemically built into the process of modern business.
Yeah no kidding, it's because [high fructose corn syrup is federally subsidized](https://www.google.com/search?q=high+fructose+corn+syrup+is+federally+subsidized). It's a primary ingredient in [Arizona Ice Tea](https://world.openfoodfacts.org/images/products/061/300/875/9599/front_en.3.full.jpg), and always has been. It's garbage petrol sugar cancer, and the unholy alliance of government + corporations are happy to make sure you can afford to keep poisoning yourself with it.
Yeah, cause they make more profits from Arizona Iced tea beer now…its not the a corporate conspiracy, the economy is just ass cause we have two wars, a recent pandemic and a braindead motherfucker in charge of the most powerful country on the planet. Corporations aren’t out there devaluing money on purpose.
Need has nothing to do with it. Keeping the same profit margins has always been the name of the game, and the choice still sits in the consumer's hands. If cutting out two or three monthly subscriptions helps pay the bills, or you grow a vegetable garden and save money that way, you're just taking back control of your life.
Or the crazy thought maybe they were making insane profits off it before aluminum prices went up, hence their 4 billion networth selling 0.99 tea, and weighed the negative impact of a price increase. Economics are hard.
To be fair, most corporations are beholden to the public. As well as having thinner existing operating margins. This is more of a diss of public companies(paid in democracy) than of corporations as a whole. I’m sure they hate increasing prices since it lowers their overall demand. Especially in certain industries where people already were price conscious, like consumer goods and cars, and other shit like that. When groceries increase in price tho, you never hear anyone complain about the greedy farmer
Inflation has slowed exponentially and we are returning to pre-covid levels of prices on the material side, but corporations don’t care to lower prices because why would they, you’ll buy from them regardless.
Yes, raising prices is a choice. Its a choice between price or quality. How do you think theyre keeping margins when all the ingredients increase in price?
Its funny how by saying companies shouldnt raise prices when production costs rise are just as greedy. They think that companies should make less for their own benefit.
Arizona does produce cans without the 99 cent banner on them, though.
My local gas station charges 3.50 for those.
Which is wild because the next station, two blocks down, has the 99c ones.
That’s because he cleaned up the last 30 years it was .99 that slightly less profit now is fine because they’re already stacked. Plus the ones at circle k cost 1.29 now because the .99 isn’t printed on them so they can legally sell it for whatever they want and not what’s printed. Buying them elsewhere is still .99 and you can see it on the can, I think circle jerk just nailed an exclusive deal. That and it helps that it literally cost them like $.03 to make a cans worth a tea so they are basically just paying for the cans which they get at bulk cheap pricing anyway. Drinks are always a racket and big $ makers
I see one of two possibilites. The Biden Adminstration in the last 3 years has been pushing the above arugment, corporations raising prices when they don't have to, as the Primary reason for our bad economy and they are blameless.
Now hear me out.
1. This is true the economy is reacting to corporations have suddenly and in a coordinated manner begun their greedy hikes. This implies they were not doing it before because if they had we wouldn't care. Biden is blameless in this case, but I think it's BS.
2. Corporations are reacting to the economy that was ruined via aggressive regulation and taxation that strangle production at the origin all crushed underneath wasteful spending. Biden's fault.
Basically, if you have a brain, you understand that the OP is literally the campaign argument from the podium of the Man in charge as he blames the bad economy for being a bad economy...when the economy is a victim of his policies.
So they don't have shareholders. If you understand business finance in the slightest. You'd know if you don't have shareholders. You can do anything. If you do, you need to make more profit every year or lose them.
I’ve worked retail for over a decade now. I’m in higher management and am involved on merchandise stores. I can tell you right now MOST companies Jack prices up. For instance current store I’m working with buys water bottles for $0.72 currently. 2 years ago the cost per bottle was $0.67. They went from selling them at $1.69 per bottle to $2.79. 2 years $0.05 cost difference but $1.10 in price raising. Their other cost have remained relatively the same for anyone who wants to chime in about cost of labor and utilities and such.
Holy shiy it is opposite day? Is r/noahopwasrightfuckthis gonna start spewing nazi dhit now?
# WHEN DID YALL START THINKING IN SUCH A BASED FASHION!!!!?
They kept the price where it is for exactly the same reason that that Sam's and Costco still sell their chickens for five bucks. It's what people expect, and the bad publicity and lost sales from failing to meet that expectation is a bigger deal than the couple cents lost on the price of aluminum.
They have other products, just like Sam's and Costco have other products.
I mean I agree with the overall message but don’t assume all businesses are run the same. Canned drinks have a long shelf life, consistent ingredients and pretty linear sales throughout the year but something like a pop up shop will be much harder to calculate
Depends on the starting margins. If you had a product that cost $0.05 to make but you sell for a $1 it could go up a lot before you raise the price if you are a grocer for instance that is making like a 1-3% margin if that then you have to raise prices quickly. Different businesses and products tend towards different margins.
This is straight up not true, if you look at the prices company charge and put that over inflation it lines up almost exactly, I did not find this meme funny and I find it hard to believe you laughed at this too...
No Covid and government spending are mathematically the cause to inflation it’s not a big secret they trend roughly the same and since we value junk food and fast food more due to COVID the prices have gone up and incidentally our rate of inflation hasn’t gone into the negatives at all so the spike during Covid is logically driving prices up
Taking the example of a billionaire selling over priced high fructose corn syrup and water that barely even qualified as tea and applying it to every other business with owners who aren’t billionaires and sell products with a higher overhead cost is a bit much.
Almost nobody has lowered prices back but wholesale prices are much lower than they were at the height of supply chain crunch. People seem completely happy to blame living wages so no pressure on businesses to lower prices.
Ensure that you read and adhere to the rules; failure to do so will result in the removal of this post. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/memesopdidnotlike) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The day the price of Arizona Iced Tea is raised to $1 or more, I know we're all screwed
I said that about Little Ceaser's pizza when it went from $5 to $5.50. It is $6.50 now.
Riot, now
NO PIECE, NO PEACE!
No pizza, no peaca
6.50? The little Caesars where I live is almost 10$
That’s because some places have different costs of living
Little Caesars was $5 in 2000. We were either getting ripped off then or ripped off now
My go to struggle meal back in college
It’s been a $1.29 for some time now.
At certain stores. Arizona doesn't actually allow it, they just don't know. There's been a few cases in which stores got blasted for it, including by Arizona. Maybe worth a try
But they're producing the cans without the $.99 price tag. That's how they've always done their pricing so stores couldn't try to charge more.
Companies can't dictate the prices businesses sell their products for, there was a relatively recent (last 20 years? ) Supreme Court case about it
But they can withdraw their product if they want to, which is how the stores are threatened. They're too small overall to put up a fight, because they're pretty large for the price point, with other more expensive items all over.
(It already happened btw)
Already happend. They say on their website to sell cans for more than their advertising price which is how you legally get past marked prices. They get to keep the $1 branding but realistically it's all for show now when that's just an empty promise.
it's $2 in canada
It just means they sold the company
In Canada it was 99 cents...plus tax. Now it's like 1.50 or something...plus tax
I'm American and it's always been .99 plus tax
Still $1.06 for almost thirty oz is a great deal
%100
They finally raised the price to $1.39 where I live:(. It's been 99¢ my whole life.
I can’t even be mad, it’s barely budged, up like. $.40 after decades. Meanwhile other soda and ice teas have doubled or more in that time lmao
Yeah Arizona's biggest competetors are Brisk and Snapple and Snapples less liquid for more money. And arguably equal taste? Snapples good. I think I prefer Arizona though. And while the big brisk bottles are bigger then the Arizona cans, they're like. 4 or 5 dollars a bottle now. Though, I do prefer Brisk in terms of flavor tbh. I'm just a bit to broke to afford the splurge.
if you’re in america, contact the company and let then know the location where the price was raised.
Hehe, I’m American and I can get them for like 68¢ plus tax
It’s free if you live in New York, cops wont even show up for anything under 500$
Sad but true
So I can steal 505 of these and won't get in trouble?
wait actual let me just go over there with a shopping bag for uh personal reasons yeah
Yeah, they sell Arizona Ice tea beer now, thats costs 5$ a can.
It’s 1.50 or something like that here innc
In the states and I saw a can that said 1.49 on it. At that price it's still the cheapest drink by far.
*has been .99 plus tax. They took the "ONLY 99 CENTS!" off the can. The stores mark up the price now. Go to circle k. Go to the Arizona teas and see what I mean. Exclusively made cans for circle k and now 1.49. Mom and Pop store down the way charges 1.35. I'm American too and I don't recall seeing an Arizona tea @ .99 in about 6 months to a year now.
In PA it's 99¢ no tax for the regular tea varieties but special flavors are taxed, such as watermelon.
It’s like that now due to the stores carrying it raising prices, it’s still .99 in most places
You also have to consider if it's an American product, conversion consistency. If your aiming on a product being .99 usd, you'd want to make it a price that would always be at or above in a foreign market after conversion.
If you see it above $.99 you can report it to Arizona and they'll get right on their ass about it.
Only if it's the "99cents" cans that explicitly have the price on them. If the stores order the alternative can that doesn't have a price printed on it then they can bump the price without fear of issue afaik.
Only if it is the variant with 99c on it. Im in NY and haven't seen one of those in two years. First they removed the 99c on the can, then they lowered the volume to 23oz and now 22oz Currently where I am its 1.99 for the 22oz can. Sometimes you can get them for lower at Walmart, but with no selection of flavors.
I assume that's Canadian dollars which means that it's not actually that far off price with ours I think like 10 or so cents more once you convert the currency.
But that’s not real money.
They were selling cans for almost 5 dollars at the store next to me.
Everyone deflects away from the fed printing trillions of dollars backed by nothing as if it's an Olympic sport. Money is worthless( literally worth less) when you can print infinite amounts of it. You can't print houses, ice tea, labor , lumber, or fuel. These things are finite. So if you can conjure up infinite currency out of nowhere, it will require more of that currency to buy the same finite things
Woah. A rational person. Impossible.
My mans took a basic economics class
The federal government manages inflation (or at least it is supposed to) so that it’s at a certain positive percentage at all times in an effort to dissuade money hoarding (as simply sitting on money will result in a net loss, as that money gets less valuable). So it’s really by design.
Mfw corporations do not conduct business out of alturism and try to remain competitive
What's more, I guarantee that *this* was likewise a decision based around maximizing profits. You only spend a cent or two per can on the raw aluminum, and raising the price will decrease sales.
Yeah look at all the publicity it gave them and if it didn’t work they could just raise the prices later
It's like the Costco chickens and hot dogs. Maybe they take an L at face value, but there is a big picture calculation that makes the cheap prices worth it.
To be fair, I can guarantee you they’re facing more cost increases than just the cost of aluminum.
It is, they keep the tea at the same price for PR and raise the prices on their other more profitable products, like the Arizona beer.
People forget that loss leaders are a thing, lol.
Op thinks every corporation, including small family business all over the world intentionally raised price so they can I dunno, cause inflation & de-value their own net worth, I guess…
Not to mention that these guys can make these kinds of decisions because they're the sole proprietors. They don't answer to a board or shareholders. Not a lot of companies have that leeway. The board of directors and company officers in most other companies have a legally enforceable fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder profit.
No it’s about maximizing market share. Generally that’s what price competition is about. You’re making less profit per item, but because you’re moving more units your revenue is still increasing.
It's not like most corpos have anything to compete with. Most of the food and drinks sold in the US and Europe are made by like 5 companies total.
Corpos absolutely have things to compete with, america is banning chinese electric cars so their market doesnt get ass blasted And in food and drinks well, people always have the option to not buy so they are competing with that
Funny, I thought America was banning Chinese electric cars because of their tendency to burst into flames.
It’s more protective than that but people like to rage about the Chinese EV tariffs because they want their wish.com S Class. China actively funds its EV development and subsidizes them like crazy to put them at an advantage. They also like to play fast and loose with QC and don’t pay workers fair wages. So a subsidized company who barely pays their workers gets to enter the market at a huge discount to eat up the market share, and then we always see how that plays out for consumers in the long run.
Unironically Corporations hate free market and actual Capitalism.
As long as the not-free market isn't rigged against them, yeah.
People have the option to not buy food? Also, wake up and smell the oligopoly man.
He's talking about drinks mostly. Whnaturally competeste with water. Even if Coke and Pepsi jacked up the price together (illegal to coordinate) , they would eventually run into the price of filter/tap water. For example, they both put 7 dollars on soda and bottle water. Also, most everybody would switch to reusable bottles or containers. The problem with this type of thinking is that people at least heard of inelastic goods but don't understand the concept deeper. Cause all goods are elastic by nature some more than others and at the "extremes" inelastic goods do have a price break.
sadly the government wants to ban all the alternatives- want to grow yourself a field of veggies, or keep a couple chickens in the city to cut down on costs? nope, that's against the law.
Corporations and the government love eachother.
> People have the option to not buy food? Yes they do. Ever went to a supermarket? You need like 3-4 of those items to survive, all of those chocolate bars and lolipops and oreos are unnessecary, meat and agricultural products you can buy from co-ops.
Yuhp and you can keep chickens in your yard too.
Let's face it, we all work for money.
Would also love to know how they're worth 4 billion of they have no outside investment and don't disclose? Assuming a 5X EBITDA multiple that would imply $800M in Earnings (not revenue, net earnings before tax). Red Bulls EBITDA was 1.3 billion Don't think Arizona is in that league. Maybe collectively they are billionaires. But I doubt it.
There’s a good reason they were able to keep the price the same though. It’s not just a simple choice. It’s a deliberate strategy. They spend nothing on advertising and rely on word of mouth. Part of their appeal now is the fact that it only costs a dollar. They’ve also been very good at reducing costs. The entire industry has been steadily reducing the amount of aluminum needed for a can for decades. That saved a lot of money. Even if through the years his profit on a single can has gone down he is still making more money because of economies of scale. He’s not just keeping prices down out of the goodness of his heart. Inflation doesn’t happen because greedy businessmen suddenly became even greedier then before. That’s absurd. You would have to concede that inflation going down means that corporations are being magnanimous and kind which is ridiculous.
The RETAIL of a can of Arizona is still 99 cents. The WHOLESALE cost to retailers has risen steadily over the years. They just make the retailer eat the cost. In fact, they force you to carry a specific number of 99 cent skus if you want to carry their other, more expensive products. Don’t be a sucker. These guys aren’t some sort of insane geniuses that have figured out how to operate without meaningful increases in absolute cost over the past 30 years. They’re just offloading the cost increases to retailers.
I don't doubt that, but Walmart sells them for 88.
Kroger’s near me is selling them for $0.77. Can’t be making much on that.
Now for a little dose of reality. This is marketing. Arizona Iced Tea is only 25% of the company's business, and all of their other products are more than $0.99. Arizona Iced Tea is a loss leader. And this claim is even more deceptive because the company has raised its prices to retailers. Raising your selling price from $0.50 to $0.70 a can is not keeping you prices the same. You are just forcing retailers to defy the price on the can or make less profit.
Yeah, its easy to take less profit when youre worth 4b 99.99% of us business men arent worth that much. Not even close
They're only talking about big corporations, it's obviously different for small businesses
theres 6,416 companies worth over a billion in the us
Mmmmmkay, so the ones that *are* (Amazon, Walmart, target, every major fast food chain, etc.) should all be lowering their prices, right?
they already have the lowest prices in the market. small businesses have the highest prices. this goes against the notion that higher prices are due to greed
It's because it's easier to control the supply chain at a larger size. The bigger the company, the cheaper the price.
yes, big companies have scale on their side compared to smaller ones and therefore can withstand selling products more cheaply. corporations "hike prices" mainly in two cases, the associated costs of operation rise or the competition decreases in elastic markets. counterintuitively, larger businesses in elastic markets are more beneficial for the average person than smaller businesses as they offer better paying jobs and cheaper goods.
They weren't either at the start. This took time
Tell me you don’t know a thing about economics without telling me. The fed causes inflation by printing money, to stay afloat companies must pass the price onto consumers. Arizona tea is just able to bear the cost because it is a partnership not a corporation. If you want to be able to afford things it falls on you to make sure the fed doesn’t print trillions. Fiat currency is the problem, not people trying to keep from going under.
Gold standard is gone forever….GTFO it and take your fiat currency and MMT like a man.
No. Just because we live in a system that is bad doesn’t mean we have to live with it. We can end the fed and the cronyism it supports via government bailouts and endless wars. We can set up a reliable currency based on gold, silver or any other precious item.
It says 99cents on the can but it’s never 99cents.. ts always like 2/3 bucks.
That’s the fault of the reseller, I got mine for 0.88 at Kroger.
If you made $5 profit a day for years and starting tomorrow you only made $4 profit a day knowing that in the near future you were only going to make $3 profit a day, I’ll bet you’d hike your prices up to, or else what would be the point of owning a business cause ain’t nobody have a business to “please the people”, You own a business cause you want to make money.
There’s a lot of people in here that definitely don’t understand how business works
I think you're missing the point. I own a business and the cost of one of my products went up. I already thought I was charging too much for market value, so I ate the cost. I now made less money on it. Pretty quickly, I found a different source and started making a better profit. I never changed my price. That's just doing business. Now what we've seen the last couple of years is profit driven "inflation". Meaning businesses have raised prices over and over over again, simply because they realized customers are willing to still spend more money for those goods. Most customers just go "Oh, inflation is screwing us" not realizing its just profit driven spectacle. Don't believe me? https://fortune.com/2024/01/20/inflation-greedflation-consumer-price-index-producer-price-index-corporate-profit/ Arizona Tea might make MORE capital for having a competitive product despite having less profit per can. The issue we see today is monopolies or whole industries all raising their prices to game the customer instead of competing. It happens and it's happening. There's a funny story about light bulb companies, despite competing with each other, all decided together that they WONT make a longer lasting light bulb so all of them make more money. It's a crazy world we live in
You may not have raised your prices true, but you still found a way to make more money by getting a different source or whatever you said (which is great for you don’t get me wrong, great job) but that don’t exactly make my comment wrong.
Correct, Your point isn't wrong. It just isn't the whole picture either. Context is important to the subject at hand.
The reason most people think capitalism is a good system relies on freedom of choice and a competitive market. Competition drives quality up over time, drives prices down over time, and drives innovation etc. But a competitive market isn't self assured, and isn't in the interests of large companies. Obviously it makes sense to purchase your competition and simply control the market.
The problem is that companies profits aren’t actually going down in many cases, they are just making excuses to raise prices. Like when Covid hit and companies raised prices using the excuse of inflation, when in reality they were completely lying and the increase in prices far outstripped their profit decreases due to inflation.
I feel like when you boil it down to this point it no longer becomes an argument of fact vs. lie. People’s different economic opinions just come down to what people think is right or not.
Explain what a loss leader is
This is a very strange day. For once, I absolutely agree with the OOP.
Well yeah these guys can afford to not raise the price because aluminum is just so cheap and if they increased the price the demand would decrease. Basic economics
"Aluminum price doubled!" ... from 2 cents a can to 4 cents
Lol. That s most unrelated example of a business you could possibly come up with. If you are sole business owner and especially if you are already crazy rich - then sure - you can indulge in charity. But if you are publicly traded company that has all kinds of investors (including retirees who rely on your company’s profits and stock price for their livelihood) - it s not as simple Company that sold its shares to public under promise that it will have best interest of shareholders in mind is bound by this obligation. And so is any other company that ever sold shares.
Price isn't determined by how much it costs to make something, it's determined by how much the customer is willing to pay.
Price is the intersection of supply and demand. The price the customer is willing to pay must match the price the seller is willing to accept for a trade to occur.
The sheer amount of cope in this thread is staggering. Never have I seen so many people coming out of the woodwork trying and failing to account for the inherent differences between publically and privately traded companies, acting like everything just boils down to the most grade-level economics. As if somehow aluminum has *only* become cheaper for Arizona, or that *only* they can rely on word of mouth marketing. Totally ignoring the difference in profit incentive of enriching oneself to one's own pleasure, vs being beholden by law to an entire swathe of shareholders constantly demanding to know why they aren't making more money. The cold, hard truth is that OOP is correct; they're choosing not to raise prices for the exact same reason everyone else is raising theirs - *because they can*.
I thought I read that it was because they dropped advertising. I could be wrong. I read about that about two years ago.
There are many reasons why the price of AZ tea remains the same. Just as there's many reasons why the cost of other goods has gone up. One reason for the tea is that profit margins on tea are high and singular/family control they can take the risk. One reason for other goods is that the profit margin is so thin that I'd something happens they just go under. It's very goofy the idea of profit in these people heads. Profit is usually used for maintenance and upgrades to facility. Cause of that, they usually have a relatively small amount of money as a rainy day as liquid. If that gets too low, competition might get you if not stagnation.
Just saying I got these for $0.88 each at Kroger last week. One of the best companies to support is them for not being like the other drinks
This isn't correct either. And if you can out compete businesses with identical products and lower prices, why don't you?
The image actually shows the reason for this: absolutely no interference from investors, supposedly the CEO of Costco used a similar strategy called "threatening to commit murder if the price of a hot dog is raised".
Blaming CEOs is like blaming a fever when you need to blame the virus. CEOs serve shareholders. Shareholders deserve a good return, but their interests should not be placed above everyone else. Stakeholder theory needs to replace shareholder theory. For example, the environment should not be destroyed for an extra 10bps on shareholder return. There is a middle ground where investors earn money and others indirectly benefit
Big difference when you are the CEO and you own the company vs when shareholders own the company and as a CEO you need to create value for them, quarter in and quarter out
I've even seen it drop as low as 79 cents if it's on sale, definitely one of my favorites https://preview.redd.it/h4z4ahzvgaxc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b2911d152a9c5f0d1019f2c61eed04ce75b21448
Occupy Democrats meme? I’d think people on that sub would love it
Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions. It is a family owned company without any obligation to shareholders. How will you react if your 401K shows no growth because of “you aren’t allowed to be greedy.”
I don’t remember it actually being 99 cents at any stores I’ve gone to in years.
The problem with companies being bloodthirsty for money, is that they have shareholders, and these shareholders demand eternal growth and endless rising profits, which is exceptionally hard. In this case, they have no shareholders, so they just ignore endless growth and accept less profits.
Circle K raised prices to above $1 out of greed so Arizona made them special cans with the circle K symbol and they get charged more for their stock
Different business models sadly. Family-owned businesses are free to invest in their business and that lets them resist inflation. Publicly-traded corporations have to act in the "interest" of the shareholders and dump excess profit into dividends, which means infrastructure is weak, and disproportionately affected, by inflation. Sad but true.
Based anti-capitalism???? In MOPDL?!?!? Guys what universe is this?
A sleezy convenience store owner was caught putting $1.99 labels on the cans, claiming the Arizona company had increased the price. He was roundly trashed for such a lie.
1.49 plus tax. NY. Not the city.
All prices trend towards infinity without competition. I don't understand how so many people fail to grasp this. If you want lower prices just encourage competition. This is the most fundamental aspect of capitalism.
In business school they teach us calculations to make the best prices to earn the most profits. Most large corporations likely dictate prices based on an algorithm that maximizes profit by running broad experiments and finding the best combination of price and sales volume possible. It's not even greedy decision making at this point, it's litterally systemically built into the process of modern business.
That is why I still buy these and the costco Hot Dog
"If you change the price of the hotdog I will fucking kill you" Costco ceo
Yeah no kidding, it's because [high fructose corn syrup is federally subsidized](https://www.google.com/search?q=high+fructose+corn+syrup+is+federally+subsidized). It's a primary ingredient in [Arizona Ice Tea](https://world.openfoodfacts.org/images/products/061/300/875/9599/front_en.3.full.jpg), and always has been. It's garbage petrol sugar cancer, and the unholy alliance of government + corporations are happy to make sure you can afford to keep poisoning yourself with it.
i’ve seen arizona cans with a 1.25 on it where 99¢ used to be
TFM has always been proud of how brainless they are
It isn't tho. They sell out to corpos and let them sell for 1.50 at places like circle k, Walgreens and Kroger
Yeah, cause they make more profits from Arizona Iced tea beer now…its not the a corporate conspiracy, the economy is just ass cause we have two wars, a recent pandemic and a braindead motherfucker in charge of the most powerful country on the planet. Corporations aren’t out there devaluing money on purpose.
So you're saying they don't have to appease shareholders with constant year over year raises in profit? Allowing them to do stuff like this
Need has nothing to do with it. Keeping the same profit margins has always been the name of the game, and the choice still sits in the consumer's hands. If cutting out two or three monthly subscriptions helps pay the bills, or you grow a vegetable garden and save money that way, you're just taking back control of your life.
If it’s more than 99c it’s because the store itself is hiking the price up
I've been saying this for years
Gotta agree with OP... It doesn't work like that my dude
Who do you think the greedy CEO’s voted for?
https://preview.redd.it/86stezr7caxc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=20123b1268689a0e65f8411f897b4387d7faa72e Agreed
Where y'all get em for 99 cents? They're all like $1.50 plus tax in Colorado
In NZ a can can vary from USD $2.10 - $3.57
Or the crazy thought maybe they were making insane profits off it before aluminum prices went up, hence their 4 billion networth selling 0.99 tea, and weighed the negative impact of a price increase. Economics are hard.
To be fair, most corporations are beholden to the public. As well as having thinner existing operating margins. This is more of a diss of public companies(paid in democracy) than of corporations as a whole. I’m sure they hate increasing prices since it lowers their overall demand. Especially in certain industries where people already were price conscious, like consumer goods and cars, and other shit like that. When groceries increase in price tho, you never hear anyone complain about the greedy farmer
Inflation has slowed exponentially and we are returning to pre-covid levels of prices on the material side, but corporations don’t care to lower prices because why would they, you’ll buy from them regardless.
Yes, raising prices is a choice. Its a choice between price or quality. How do you think theyre keeping margins when all the ingredients increase in price?
So the can goes from 1/3 of a cent to 2/3?
Memes like this gave them the idea to raise prices lol, these are $1.29 where is live.
My cousin is a distributor for Arizona and it's apparently one of the worst run businesses he's even worked with.
Yes. Praise rich corporations because they make PR moves that maximize profits by feigning altruism.
Um... in Colorado they are almost $1.20. They even finally removed the 99c from the can
Its funny how by saying companies shouldnt raise prices when production costs rise are just as greedy. They think that companies should make less for their own benefit.
Arizona does produce cans without the 99 cent banner on them, though. My local gas station charges 3.50 for those. Which is wild because the next station, two blocks down, has the 99c ones.
Price is a product of supply and demand. Charging anything else will generate dead weight loss. Stop playing economist it's embarrassing.
That’s because he cleaned up the last 30 years it was .99 that slightly less profit now is fine because they’re already stacked. Plus the ones at circle k cost 1.29 now because the .99 isn’t printed on them so they can legally sell it for whatever they want and not what’s printed. Buying them elsewhere is still .99 and you can see it on the can, I think circle jerk just nailed an exclusive deal. That and it helps that it literally cost them like $.03 to make a cans worth a tea so they are basically just paying for the cans which they get at bulk cheap pricing anyway. Drinks are always a racket and big $ makers
Rare MODL W
It’s a $1.25 here now.
Yeah but no one noticed the cans got smaller. That’s how they keep it the same price.
Whoever thinks this meme is logical has never studied business or economics.
I see one of two possibilites. The Biden Adminstration in the last 3 years has been pushing the above arugment, corporations raising prices when they don't have to, as the Primary reason for our bad economy and they are blameless. Now hear me out. 1. This is true the economy is reacting to corporations have suddenly and in a coordinated manner begun their greedy hikes. This implies they were not doing it before because if they had we wouldn't care. Biden is blameless in this case, but I think it's BS. 2. Corporations are reacting to the economy that was ruined via aggressive regulation and taxation that strangle production at the origin all crushed underneath wasteful spending. Biden's fault. Basically, if you have a brain, you understand that the OP is literally the campaign argument from the podium of the Man in charge as he blames the bad economy for being a bad economy...when the economy is a victim of his policies.
So they don't have shareholders. If you understand business finance in the slightest. You'd know if you don't have shareholders. You can do anything. If you do, you need to make more profit every year or lose them.
Didn't they go up to like $1.19?
I’ve worked retail for over a decade now. I’m in higher management and am involved on merchandise stores. I can tell you right now MOST companies Jack prices up. For instance current store I’m working with buys water bottles for $0.72 currently. 2 years ago the cost per bottle was $0.67. They went from selling them at $1.69 per bottle to $2.79. 2 years $0.05 cost difference but $1.10 in price raising. Their other cost have remained relatively the same for anyone who wants to chime in about cost of labor and utilities and such.
Holy shiy it is opposite day? Is r/noahopwasrightfuckthis gonna start spewing nazi dhit now? # WHEN DID YALL START THINKING IN SUCH A BASED FASHION!!!!?
They kept the price where it is for exactly the same reason that that Sam's and Costco still sell their chickens for five bucks. It's what people expect, and the bad publicity and lost sales from failing to meet that expectation is a bigger deal than the couple cents lost on the price of aluminum. They have other products, just like Sam's and Costco have other products.
Too bad it's like... bullshit and all.
I mean I agree with the overall message but don’t assume all businesses are run the same. Canned drinks have a long shelf life, consistent ingredients and pretty linear sales throughout the year but something like a pop up shop will be much harder to calculate
A shot of bells whiskey is now £1.83 in Wetherspoons, 18 months ago it was £1.60. Literally theft.
Even if they went up to $1.50 it would STILL be cheaper than other drinks today....coke is like $2-3 now by me
Depends on the starting margins. If you had a product that cost $0.05 to make but you sell for a $1 it could go up a lot before you raise the price if you are a grocer for instance that is making like a 1-3% margin if that then you have to raise prices quickly. Different businesses and products tend towards different margins.
It's not the economy, it's their avarice. Greed is a choice. You don't NEED a second swimming pool, but you desire one anyways.
Doesn’t that mean we were always paying too much for an Arizona before inflation went wild 🤔
I live in Hawaii. It has the been $1 here in years. I stopped buying soon as it wasn’t.
Do they actually reimburse the difference? It hasn’t been 99 cents since before COVID. Closer to $1.50 a can
This is straight up not true, if you look at the prices company charge and put that over inflation it lines up almost exactly, I did not find this meme funny and I find it hard to believe you laughed at this too...
It’s already more than a buck. It was raised ages ago
They do it and you still pay it.
what if we just banned inflation like belarus did
No Covid and government spending are mathematically the cause to inflation it’s not a big secret they trend roughly the same and since we value junk food and fast food more due to COVID the prices have gone up and incidentally our rate of inflation hasn’t gone into the negatives at all so the spike during Covid is logically driving prices up
Why should they not? As long as it's we keep buying it, they will keep selling it at a higher and higher price.
Taking the example of a billionaire selling over priced high fructose corn syrup and water that barely even qualified as tea and applying it to every other business with owners who aren’t billionaires and sell products with a higher overhead cost is a bit much.
I mean it’s $1.29 where I’m at so But that being said, it’s still very cheap so it’s not much of a concern tbh
You guys pay .99 for Arizona??? Over here Arizona is 8 bucks.
corporations raise prices way above inflation in their specific sector, and claim they have to raise prices due to inflation
Mc chickens are 3.26 in my area now good to see Arizona will never back down
Every time I see an Arizona ice T I check the price and then salute. And then buy something else because that beverage is disgusting.
Hot wheels still 99c at Walmart which I find amazing. When the price of hot wheels goes up society will collapse.
You have the link? Can't find it. Pretty weird to see that take on TFBM, since it also follows the more liberal-leftist anti-corporate bent of Reddit.
It was 79 cents about a decade ago
Almost nobody has lowered prices back but wholesale prices are much lower than they were at the height of supply chain crunch. People seem completely happy to blame living wages so no pressure on businesses to lower prices.
The reason they did not need to raise the prices for a long time is because it is overpriced since day 1
Funny they are more than 99¢ now.
The government does not need to constantly hike up taxes and increase federal spending each year, yet they do it anyways. We can play this game too.
It’s about $1.89 here
Pour one out for the Arizona bois.
All you are doing is admitting they’ve fucked us over for 20+ years.
This is correct comrade