MSE News: All supermarkets should supply prices online, MP says

rogerbarton

Some unbelievable responses to this suggestion. We are talking about organisations that make BILLIONS OF POUNDS ripping off most of the idiots that are on here calling this idea "unnecessary bureaucracy" or "too much hard work for supermarket managers".

Come off it! There needs to be a much more transparent system for the consumer to be able to see exactly where they are being hit by these multi billion pound organisations and this proposal would give greater power to the customer and force companies who have made their fortune by crowding the market (mentioning no names, but a quick trip down the road and you'll find (E)very little help(s) nearby) to expose their own rip-off techniques.

Next step is to force the supermarkets to publish ALL of their products' nutritional information on packaging AND online.

Edwardia

Actually following on from publishing nutritional info I would ask that eggs, milk, butter, cream, yogurt etc from animals/poultry fed on GM feed should be labelled as well as meat and poultry cuts fed on GM feed. None of it is labelled because the EU says it doesn't have to be.

rogerbarton

Quite right Edwardia. And it's time that multi-billion pound organisations like TESCO took on some social responsibility in the same way that Sainsbury's and Waitrose have done and told the consumer WHAT IS IN THEIR PRODUCTS.

jamesey39

Hi there, i'm James from mySupermarket. I just wanted to say that you are dead right - the 'proper' or 'real' price is crucial. The information you describe is a new feature we have just introduced on our site. Just click on a product and you will see a graph of the previous years prices for that product and we'll tell you it if it is a good price or not. Some of the graphs are fascinating - many look like a heart monitor, such is the way prices fluctuate.

James

oldvicar wrote: »

It is less important to have pricing information across all stores, and more important to know what the 'proper' price of an item is.

Pricing information from just one of the supermarkets, with a chart to show how the item's price varied over time, very much like a share price chart, would show at a glance what the 'proper' price is and what the best offer price has been recently. This knowledge would allow the consumer to decide if an item is reasonably priced or not in ANY shop, without having to have knowledge of all the supermarkets current pricing online.

Given that Tesco, Sainsbury and Asda do publish prices online because they offer online shopping, this is sufficient without forcing supermarkets to do anything more. What is needed is the app to generate the price charts over time.

jamesey39

Hi there, I am James from mySupermarket. We could have what you need. Take a look at our site and let me know what you think. We'd love to have Morrisons on our site too but alas they will not share their data.

James

BAGGY wrote: »

I would love a price comparrison site for all s/ms. Taht way if bulk buying meat, fish, cheese etc for the freezer you'd know where to head. My mobile doesn't work in Morrisos so an app would be useless :-(