Comment by lotsofpulp

> And yet overall profits remain high - they’re high-volume low margin businesses.

Why would they not be high? The purchasing power of the currency goes down day after day. If nominal profits are not hitting highs day after day, then you are losing purchasing power.

> It hasn’t matched my experience that prices fell as self checkouts were installed. I think profits went up, prices didn’t come down.

Profit margin is the relevant metric to look at for this context. It is possible prices would have gone up 10% instead of 5% if not for the automation. It is also possible the automation fails to reduce costs.

There are no guarantees in life, just bets that may or may not pan out. Long term trends will the story, but for now, the profit margins make me happy that I don’t invest in grocery stores.