Literally no possible way Austrian grocery stores are pulling in 43% margins. That's more than Apple makes. I can't tell if this price fixing talk is the product of overactive imaginations or a gigantic lack of imagination.
If grocery stores were suddenly capable of 43 percent margins there would be absolute pandemonium in the markets and stocks would skyrocket. Retailers in every industry would be switching to food sales en masse. People would be flying food in by aircraft. You see just the opposite. Food retailers' stocks are down a lot year-to-date.
There is a lot of cross border shopping, both online and offline, so, yeah. You seem to severely underestimate shipping costs though. For perishable goods, of which you buy max €30 every few days, you’d pay at least €10 express shipping fees. And then you have no control over which pieces you‘ll get (hard avocados & soft apples). Also, shipping heavy stuff like sparkling water crates is obviously prohibitively expensive.
Shipping costs are price fixing now? We're talking about the brain dead price fixing theory. Stay on topic. I'm not the one underestimating shipping costs. The theorists are.
A retailer can ship way cheaper from Germany to Austria than an online retailer using postal service. The price difference is not shipping costs for retailers, but postal shipping costs make cross border shopping often uneconomic for customers.
If grocery stores were suddenly capable of 43 percent margins there would be absolute pandemonium in the markets and stocks would skyrocket. Retailers in every industry would be switching to food sales en masse. People would be flying food in by aircraft. You see just the opposite. Food retailers' stocks are down a lot year-to-date.