MSE News: Surge in supermarket bargain hunting

terra_ferma

smod123 wrote: »

dont know if people can help . basically this is my problem. I am always on the look out for a bargain . what i did do was I shop at asda and i always do there price check to see if I save money on my shop.while doing this I also look in the shopping trolleys and see if people have left there receipts. when i started doing this i asked security and also customer services if i was allowed to do this and basically they said yes no problem .i started 3 months ago and there was no problem .......until friday when i was doing what i normally do and basically a security guard came to me and said i was needed to come to the security office with my 8 year old son .when in there they said it was illegal and I would be banned for life for what i was doing . when i argued my case they totally ignored my pleas and i asked why couldnt i have been told when i started this .I hope someone can help .

if what they said to you was wrong, and asda are taking a firm stance on this, no way the people who told you are going to own up.

but at the end of the day you've simply being banned from a store (branch or all of them? you don't say), it says lifetime, but maybe in time when a new manager comes along they will have changed their mind?

at the end of the day they have the right to ban anyone they like, they are not prosecuting so the matter will end here, and at the end of they day what you were doing didn't sound quite right, so it's going to be hard to convince them that you were the 'victim' here.

I would write to head office if I were you, a polite, well written (paragraphs will help them understand your point) letter/email and see what happens.

Edwardia

rickbonar wrote: »

Have agree about the pork and strawberry "conserve" that's sold in Waitrose.
Oxbridge graduates all the way!:rotfl::T

Bonne Maman conserves were on offer offer when I was in Waitrose yesterday.

It's all very well telling people that Waitrose isn't expensive, but if people went in my local Waitrose expecting an aisle of crisps or an aisle of cheap chocolate bars they just wouldn't find them. There's a relatively small chocolate section in one aisle and it stocks Lindt, Valrhona, Montezuma, Green & Black's, Divine etc and very little cheap chocolate like Cadbury's Dairy Milk and Wispas.

The ready meals are way more expensive, I've certainly never seen any for 99p as I have in Tesco. Generally veg is more expensive too. Certainly far more expensive than Lidl.

Waitrose doesn't have big yellow stickers for reduced food, in fact it doesn't do big labels to distinguish organic from non-organic in the veg section either. If you grabbed a cucumber in zombie mode you could find yourself paying 1.39

rickbonar

I didn't know "conserve" was jam.

Jam is Jam. Snob value however is a valuable commodity!

Edwardia

rickbonar wrote: »

I didn't know "conserve" was jam.

Jam is Jam. Snob value however is a valuable commodity!

As a college trained former chef I can tell you that conserves and jams are not the same, especially when made commercially.

A conserve is made with the whole fruit which may be steeped in syrup or sugar first depending on the fruit/manufacturer. It may have the pips and skins removed before bottling or it might not.

Jam doesn't have to be made from whole fruit, it can be made from fruit juices with pips added to make you think it's whole fruit. It may have pectin added to it to make it set, rather than using pectin in the fruit as in home-made.

It's like the difference between home-cooked and home-made in a pub. Home-cooked can legally mean a catering ready meal reheated in a microwave. Home-made has to be made on the premises.

European_Citizen

Edwardia wrote: »

Waitrose doesn't have big yellow stickers for reduced food

It has red ones though And yes, I see more people looking at the reduced to clear section at Waitrose than before.

Edwardia

The reduced to clear section must be well hidden in my local Waitrose cos I haven't found it yet in 4 visits (normally get it delivered)

gallygirl

Edwardia wrote: »

The reduced to clear section must be well hidden in my local Waitrose cos I haven't found it yet in 4 visits (normally get it delivered)

I don't think they have anything so common . I've only seen the red stickers on the ordinary shelves.

Edwardia

gallygirl wrote: »

I don't think they have anything so common . I've only seen the red stickers on the ordinary shelves.

That's what I thought, as I've not seen any reduced section scrums.

I don't know why other supermarkets don't get rid of reduced sections and keep reduced food in it's own sections. That way the bargains go to the people looking for that particular item not people trying to vacuum up all the bargains for restaurants for example.

European_Citizen

Edwardia wrote: »

That's what I thought, as I've not seen any reduced section scrums.

I don't know why other supermarkets don't get rid of reduced sections and keep reduced food in it's own sections. That way the bargains go to the people looking for that particular item not people trying to vacuum up all the bargains for restaurants for example.

Mine has a dedicated reduced to clear section (more like one bottom shelf) next to the 'to go' food aisle where they keep sandwiches etc.
I like having the reduced food in a separate section as I don't have to go all over the store looking for bargains. For example, I rarely visit the ready meals section but I do buy ready meals when they are reduced to clear and freeze them.

terra_ferma

European_Citizen wrote: »

Mine has a dedicated reduced to clear section (more like one bottom shelf) next to the 'to go' food aisle where they keep sandwiches etc.
I like having the reduced food in a separate section as I don't have to go all over the store looking for bargains. For example, I rarely visit the ready meals section but I do buy ready meals when they are reduced to clear and freeze them.

mine does a bit of both, they all all over the place, reduced section, usual shelves and even on shelves used for promotions only (when the item reduced is also on promotion).
Not only there is a mini-scrum at the reduced section, but near closing time there is a small group of people following the shop assistant who is taking stuff there for final reductions (trying to , as things are taken off her hands before she gets there).
Bread is particularly difficult to get as a few seconds after it's been reduced most of it is grabbed by a small number of people who have been waiting for it.