Tesco misprices and discussion thread 11

zildjian

I just done Business Law in university.

On shelf = invatation to treat

Thus, the vendor can decline to sell it if it is mispriced.

Im saying that and i havent really read anything haha.

jessicar

LizzieS wrote: »

taxiphil is right - offer & acceptance are done at the till.

Due to the number of items you may purchase, you don't really get the chance to check the till price is the price you were really expecting to pay - for this reason, supermarkets normally back down if you show you were misled into the price of 1 item off your list by the SEL on display.

Not really sure I get your point - I wasn't saying anything contrary to taxiphil. I was just explaining how the till is more likely to be 'correct' - ie the price the retailer intended to charge. I used to design SEL IT systems for retailers which produce their SEL's and they're generated by the computer system which is the source of the POS (Till) price. There is just an obvious time delay in the SEL getting onto the shelf, and room for human error and any number of things to happen.

Retailers back down because they know that their SEL's are often out of date as Princess Coupon also says.

I've phoned up stores before and whole pages of SEL's have gone missing, especially if they are printed at a central warehouse and sent out overnight.

ben500

See I've been missing some fun with the bookworm

ben500

jessicar wrote: »

Not really sure I get your point - I wasn't saying anything contrary to taxiphil. I was just explaining how the till is more likely to be 'correct' - ie the price the retailer intended to charge. I used to design SEL IT systems for retailers which produce their SEL's and they're generated by the computer system which is the source of the POS (Till) price. There is just an obvious time delay in the SEL getting onto the shelf, and room for human error and any number of things to happen.

Retailers back down because they know that their SEL's are often out of date as Princess Coupon also says.

I've phoned up stores before and whole pages of SEL's have gone missing, especially if they are printed at a central warehouse and sent out overnight.

In essence your right, it is most certainly the price the vendor intended to charge that comes up on the till, however legislation states that the vendor cannot charge a higher price than the LOWEST displayed price for that item, they may prior to contract withdraw the items from sale, but if they fulfill the contract and charge the higher price they have commited an offence. Therefore the correct price in respect of the law is price displayed or in event more than one price advertised the lowest of those displayed. It is designed specifically for vendors such as Tesco who quite willingly tolerate tardy housekeeping in the knowledge that it enhances profit.

ben500

paul.carter wrote: »

When you're in a hole you should stop digging. Please.

Sometimes it can be more amusing to hand the digger a larger spade.

ben500

PMSL Dizzy you're madder than a box of frogs!

jessicar

:rotfl:I think that's giving Tesco more credit than they're due - I'd say inept more than anything else. Prices move both ways - at the start and end of promotional periods - so it doesn't always enhance their profits.

The retailers I've worked with do put a lot of emphasis that SEL's have to be kept up-to-date because they're fully aware that it's illegal and they're subject to fines - I've known of tickets being sent by courier out to branches if they've accidentally been left behind at a warehouse.

But with any manual procedure where you've got somebody wandering around very early in the morning blearily putting out tickets, or loading bags of tickets onto lorries very late at night - things will go wrong. Plus, most shopfloor staff I've known weren't exactly highly motivated to care about SEL's being correct.

But yes, I can see what you're saying - it comes down to what you mean by 'correct' price - the legal definition which as you say is the lowest, or the one that the retailer intended to charge.

ben500

jessicar wrote: »

:rotfl:I think that's giving Tesco more credit than they're due - I'd say inept more than anything else. Prices move both ways - at the start and end of promotional periods - so it doesn't always enhance their profits.

The retailers I've worked with do put a lot of emphasis that SEL's have to be kept up-to-date because they're fully aware that it's illegal and they're subject to fines - I've known of tickets being sent by courier out to branches if they've accidentally been left behind at a warehouse.

But with any manual procedure where you've got somebody wandering around very early in the morning blearily putting out tickets, or loading bags of tickets onto lorries very late at night - things will go wrong. Plus, most shopfloor staff I've known weren't exactly highly motivated to care about SEL's being correct.

But yes, I can see what you're saying - it comes down to what you mean by 'correct' price - the legal definition which as you say is the lowest, or the one that the retailer intended to charge.

Let's take both possible scenario's.
Toilet roll normal price per pack of four £1.69
Offer price £1
POS displayed early, customer sees toilet roll for £1 picks it up and pays £1.69 net gain 69p black profit.
POS left on display late customer sees toilet roll for £1 picks it up and pays £1.69 net gain 69p black profit.
POS displayed early does not result in the customer getting the product at the cheaper rate as tills are regulated centrally same in late display scenario.
The only negative effect is if the POS is displayed late or removed early which is far rarer than the above given scenario's and only results in loss of sales enhancement.

Incorrect signage innevitably means enhanced profit.
Tesco could be far more pro-active in it's pursuit of price integrity, it isn't because there is no incentive for it to do so. Inherrant complacency encourages poor performance and lack of pricing integrity. It is quite deliberate.

Complacency and implied consent are the reasons behind most of the means by which Tesco extort money from it's customers, evidenced by the vast array of applying their so called policies, you're overcharged so you go to the customer service counter to get your double the difference, however your in a catch 22 situation, if you don't know the policy you are merely fobbed off with a few sympathetic um's and ah's and promises of resolution before being curtly despatched with the money just stolen from you, if you do know the policy you are an "irregular shopper" this term applied to basically all those that go against the grain amongst it's number: shoplifters, vagrants {in for warmth and a nibble} unaccompanied teenagers, hoodies, incontinents, or even persistent complainers, in short if you know the policy you are not welcome.

If they could find a way to get you to throw your money in a bucket at the entrance and f*** off without entering the store they would.

jessicar

The Tesco near me got investigated and fined by Trading Standards though for incorrect pricing and food being displayed past the point where it should be taken off shelves - which was widely reported in the local press.

That surely can't do much for their profits.

And it's the same as pretty much anything though - from shopping to banking - if the consumer isn't informed or is too lazy then they're at risk of being cheated in some way or another.

I'm personally pretty sure that I've not been cheated by Tesco in years now as I'm always careful to check what I'm ending up paying. And it works both ways because I'm informed enough about how their systems work to try and make it work in my favour.

Most retailers are at the mercy of their IT systems - they're totally dependent on them, fixing bugs in code takes time and IT is expensive. The larger their operation, the more complex their IT, the more expensive and inflexible those systems tend to be.

I've seen a lot of it from the inside point of view where I see how much money is wasted by incompetence - so I'm not as convinced that these large firms are as clever as you think :rotfl:

willi01

I thought this was the tesco misprice thread....................

Loads of threads all saying a variety of things that could be said somewhere else, but not a recent misprice anywhere.........