Supermarket tricks - watch out for these...

punkpink

Tamsin_Temrin wrote: »

Is loose always cheaper?

Potatoes are one thing i always find expensive loose, especially baking potatoes! But on the other hand sometimes loose is better value, normally i check the price/kg for both to decide.

Fen1

Look out for where in the shop a product is being sold. Nuts in the 'healthy eating' aisle are invariably more expensive than in 'baking', yet exactly the same product but with different packaging.
Brazil nuts can be a third more expensive in 'healthy eating' than in 'baking'.

anguk

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Another trick is that they frequently change the size of the packaging so we are not actually getting the amount that we were say 6 months ago

This week I bought a pack of value baby wipes in Tesco, the price seems to change often but this time they were the same price as the last time I bought them.

When I got home I put them in the cupboard next to the last pack I bought a few weeks ago and I noticed that the last pack has 80 wipes in it and the pack I bought this week only has 72!

learning_to_save

I have also noticed that they no longer have scales. When it says price per pack/ per item I would like to weigh the pack, to see if they work out cheaper or not but can't!

Piquant_2

The new design packs of Whiskas, less packaging to save the trees, same price as the old, but low and behold only 9 pouches rather the original 12!

BitterAndTwisted

I never accept that what is labelled as a "Special Offer" or whatever weasel-words they like to use is actually true. One particular supermarket is guilty of raising the price of something for a week or so somewhere in the country only to be able to reduce it again by a couple of pennies and make it seem like a really keen deal. It ruddy-well isn't and the only way to know is to have a very clear idea of what the "usual" price is and how much it is at other supermarkets.

Sometimes you need the housekeeping equivalent of a PhD to keep up with their mendacity. I'm fighting them with all my strength. There's one particular supermarket chain which I avoid like the plague because I loathe their underhand tactics so much.

building_with_lego

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Another trick is that they frequently change the size of the packaging so we are not actually getting the amount that we were say 6 months ago

Absolutely- but not everything is getting smaller. I noticed some pasta sauces in the co-op that used to be 99p for 500g jars are changing to 505g for £1.09. Sneaky!

Tins of value custard were 400g, then went to 396g, and now are 394g. (I may not have those figures exactly right but you get the idea!)

mo786uk

rosy wrote: »

Sometimes the price they quote per kilo etc isn't even accurate - on a couple of occasions recently I've thought the price per kilo seemed too good to be true. I got my calculator and worked it out myself using the weight on the packet and the actual price of the pack on the SEL- lo and behold the real price per kilo was actually a fair bit more than it said on the shelf.

That is almost certainly an offence and if it is happening regularly report it to Trading Standards - be sure to mention the retailer and the product manufacturer as it will be the manufacturer getting done not necessarily the retailer (if they are different).

Raksha

rosy wrote: »

Sometimes the price they quote per kilo etc isn't even accurate - on a couple of occasions recently I've thought the price per kilo seemed too good to be true. I got my calculator and worked it out myself using the weight on the packet and the actual price of the pack on the SEL- lo and behold the real price per kilo was actually a fair bit more than it said on the shelf.

I've seen that before, and when I alerted the dept manager to it, it took me ages to get him to understand that it was wrong - he honestly believed it was correct.

DundeeDoll

Of course some things are just ridiculously priced in SMs eg never buy glucose syrup (which makes very easy molding icing) in the SM. They do piddly little bottles in the baking section. Much better to get a large bottle for much less at the chemist