Most of France’s "Competing" PC Hardware Retailers Are the Same Company

24 days ago by iluvdata to c/technology

LDLC Group owns LDLC.com, Materiel.net, TopAchat and Rue du Commerce. What that means for French GPU prices, measured against Germany over 6 months.

Turns out a lot of "competition" is the same company under different names, and it shows up in the price data too.

Noodle07 60 points 24 days ago

I'm french, there is a very simple way to buy a gpu in France, you buy it from a German online shop 👌

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Wfh 22 points 24 days ago

20 years ago, if you wanted a decent guitar in France, you bought it from Thomann.de

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LightDelaBlue 5 points 23 days ago

and still do!

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Wfh 1 point 23 days ago

Cool. I have to admit I haven't bought anything there for more than a decade, there was a non-zero chance they went to shit.

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AllNewTypeFace 11 points 24 days ago

In the EU, buying online from Germany (or occasionally Poland) is generally the best value option.

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Frettchen 1 point 21 days ago

Damn. I always buy German I thought you guys will have a better alternative

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ViscloReader 2 points 23 days ago

Any recommendations?

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ogeist 2 points 23 days ago

Idealo and Geizhals cover most of the sales spectrum. But there are also smaller online shops around

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iluvdata 1 point 15 days ago

yes, this is exactly why i built pricesquirrel too, to see the price gaps between countries since i'm finnish and its often cheaper to buy from germany..

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eleijeep 16 points 24 days ago

It's not a secret: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupe_LDLC

When I'm buying components I check 17 different stores of which 3 are in the mentioned group.

The article is suggesting that the consolidation of these 5 store-fronts is responsible for the higher prices of components in France compared to Germany. Given how many other (large) retailers there are, including all of the other stores in Europe that ship to France, this surely cannot be a significant contributor to the price difference. You'd need to produce some pretty solid evidence to make that conclusion, and this isn't it.

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iluvdata 1 point 24 days ago

fair, and honestly a fair correction on the causal claim, I showed that consolidation exists and that a price gap exists, but I didn't actually isolate consolidation as THE cause versus other factors (retailer density generally, market size, logistics, etc). Given how many other stores exist like you said, it's likely one factor among several, not necessarily the main driver. should have been more careful with that framing rather than implying a direct causal link I can't actually prove with this data. good catch.

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eleijeep 7 points 24 days ago

You should show this to your LLM: https://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

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schipelblorp 5 points 24 days ago

Don't y'all have anti-trust over there?

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couldhavebeenyou 6 points 24 days ago

They call it le anti-trust