Amid outcry, Shufersal suspends cut-price website for haredim

• Author: Michal Raz-Chaimovitz
• Published date: 04 November 2021
• Publication title: Globes (Rishon LeZion, Israel)

On the website, called Yashir Lamehadrin, Shufersal, through its sub-chain Yesh Hesed, sells products at deep discounts on the prices on its general website through which it makes most of its online sales. Reporter Maayan Parti, who revealed the website's existence to the general public, displayed identical products, pulled from shelves at the same branch, sold at different prices on the two websites. The Yashir Lamehadrin website is aimed at the haredi (ultra-Orthodox Jewish) public, and the findings showing consistent price differentials in favor of customers shopping on that website apparently indicate discrimination between consumers on a sectorial basis.

Shufersal is the strongest supermarket chain in Israel in online sales. About a fifth of the company's sales are online, double and even quadruple the proportion at its competitors. Abercohen said recently, "In 2019, turnover from online sales was NIS 2 billion. The coronavirus pandemic hit, and in 2020 we reached NIS 3 billion. At the rate sales are going in 2021, we are maintaining the 2020 figures. We lead the food and non-food segments online, and we shall continue to lead."

After the "Tochnit Hisachon" program was broadcast, the storm was not long in coming, and hundreds of people posted angry responses calling for a boycott of Shufersal, and displaying the gap between the prices of products they bought regularly on the main Shufersal website and prices of the same basket of products on the "Yashir Lamehadrin" site.

"Transparency and fairness and important to Shufersal"

The Yashir Lamehadrin site will now be suspended. In his videoed response to the exposé, Abercohen said, "Figures were recently published on price gaps on the Yashir Lamehadrin website of Shufersal's Yesh Hesed chain, which is aimed at a sector that seeks a high standard of kashrut, and in which there are families with many children in comparison with the population in general.

"The figures as presented in the report are problematic. In the light of this, I have decided to halt the...