{"id":2064,"date":"2015-03-12T00:35:37","date_gmt":"2015-03-12T00:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web02.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters2\/archives\/2064"},"modified":"2015-05-24T07:13:03","modified_gmt":"2015-05-24T07:13:03","slug":"the-oligopoly-acts-of-the-big-supermarkets2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/archives\/2064","title":{"rendered":"The oligopoly acts of the big supermarkets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\" lang=\"EN-US\">Dear Editor,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\" lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\" lang=\"EN-US\">I am writing to <\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-fareast-language: ZH-HK;\" lang=\"EN-US\">express<\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\" lang=\"EN-US\"> my opinions towards the oligopoly acts of the big supermarkets. Nowadays, it is common for the local small shops to be expelled from the current market due to the duopoly of PARKnSHOP and Wellcome. A lack of competition is resulted, which then arouses lots of concerns and worries in society.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-indent: 24.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\" lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\" lang=\"EN-US\">From my point of view, I concur that the monopolistic power of larger chain supermarkets indeed dealt a severe blow to the local small business. Thanks to the large-scale operations of supermarkets, which enable them to enjoy economies of scale, such as quantity discount in bulk purchase, they are granted with competitive edge in the market. The factor of reduced cost of goods sold contributes to the increase in the supermarkets\u2019 profits. With the accumulation of capital, not only can the supermarkets afford the skyrocketing rent increase nowadays, they can also seize the opportunity to expand their businesses in order to capture market shares. On the contrary, it is usually difficult for the small local shops to get financial support from banks since their operation scale is small and so their credit ratings tend to be low. Moreover, the round-the-clock operations of big supermarkets also lure customers from small local shops since they are prioritized by customers because of convenience. As a result, local shops\u2019 competitiveness plummets at the same time when the chain supermarkets enlarge their market coverage, causing the small local shops to be weeded out gradually. This would lead to a fall in consumer choice, as we have no choice but to buy the products in supermarkets even they raise the price as we have little bargaining power relative to the big supermarkets.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-indent: 24.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\" lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\" lang=\"EN-US\">To solve the monopolistic situation of the current market, in my opinion, it is necessary for the government to carry out intervention. It would be a good move of the government if it could solve the oligopoly exists in the current market by increasing the competitiveness of the small local shops. For example, the government could enforce laws on anti-competition for the sake of dealing with the duopoly by punishing the anti-competition actors, i.e. the big chain supermarkets. Not only could this eliminate the adverse effects of duopoly, it could also serve to protect consumers\u2019 interest so that their choice no longer be limited to the products offered by large supermarkets.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\" lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\" lang=\"EN-US\">Furthermore, we could also make a difference by choosing small local shops for patronage. If we pay our efforts in supporting the small shops, the current monopolistic situation will be better off. I sincerely hope that this problem could be addressed by the joining of hands of the government and the public.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\" lang=\"EN-US\">Yours truly,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12.1599998474121px; line-height: 1.3em;\">Pat Li<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-right: 18.0pt; word-break: break-all;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\" lang=\"EN-US\"> Pat Li<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\" lang=\"EN-US\">Dear Editor<\/span><\/p><p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\" lang=\"EN-US\"><\/span><\/p><p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\" lang=\"EN-US\">I am writing t<\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-fareast-language: ZH-HK;\" lang=\"EN-US\">expres<\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;\" lang=\"EN-US\">my opinions towards the oligopoly acts of the big supermarkets. Nowadays, it is common for the local small shops to be expelled from the current market due to the duopoly of PARKnSHOP and Wellcome. A lack of competition is resulted, which then arouses lots of conce.........<\/span><\/p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/archives\/2064\" class=\"read-more\">Read More<\/a>","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":8474,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","language-en","classlevel-others","schoolyear-36"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2210,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064\/revisions\/2210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}