MSE News: Supermarkets agree to fairer pricing

Kite2010

Doc_N wrote: »

With you on DFS - you can add Thorntons to that too these days. Totally unbelievable pre-discount prices.

Add on Sports Direct as well, has anybody ever paid £20 for a £5 top?

JimmyTheWig

temporary1 wrote: »

Whatever the price/offer label says, decide for yourself if a product's actually worth that amount of money it took you to earn. If it isn't, don't buy it - whatever they say.
You're not stupid enough to buy something just because a supermarket tells you it's a good deal, are you? You've received an education and you're perfectly capable of working this out for yourself.
Take control of your spending - decide, and spend only, on what you actually need - and don't be taken in by marketing gimmicks.

But it takes more than common sense these days. The supermarkets are using tricks to get more money out of us.
A packet of cornflakes may be good value compared to the amount of work it took to earn it, but if you can cope without buying them this week and expect them to be cheaper next week then it is worth buying them next week instead.
But that's not easy to determine, unless you _know_ the average price of cornflakes, when the shops may put a special offer label on them even though they have recently been available for less.

jenniewb

Am I alone in thinking 'so what'? All I see is one of many ways supermarkets try to lure money from people, either they do it in secret (eg labelling a smaller packet "new size" yet keeping the price the same- or rising the price) or they will just be a bit more obvious about it. Either way we will always pay more and they will always gain more and more profit each year.

Fairer pricing means nothing when fat cat business owners live from cruise to hotel and workers are paid less then the living wage -and don't get me started on the fact the tax system picks up the bill through paying for tax credits and so on for the under paid workers yet so many avoid paying into this very tax system wherever they can!...

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver

I don't trust ads advertising the latest offers...

JimmyTheWig

jenniewb wrote: »

Am I alone in thinking 'so what'? All I see is one of many ways supermarkets try to lure money from people, either they do it in secret (eg labelling a smaller packet "new size" yet keeping the price the same- or rising the price) or they will just be a bit more obvious about it. Either way we will always pay more and they will always gain more and more profit each year.

Fairer pricing means nothing when fat cat business owners live from cruise to hotel and workers are paid less then the living wage -and don't get me started on the fact the tax system picks up the bill through paying for tax credits and so on for the under paid workers yet so many avoid paying into this very tax system wherever they can!...

I totally agree with your second paragraph.
But I think you are slightly missing the point in the first paragraph. Really we are talking fairer labelling rather than fairer pricing, per-se. With fairer labelling it would be easier to compare like with like. If we can easily compare like with like then it will lead to greater competition on what matters (price, quality, etc) rather than competition on deceptive labelling.
Greater competition, all things being equal, should mean lower prices and lower profits for the businesses involved.

geordie_joe

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

If we can easily compare like with like then it will lead to greater competition

Not where I live! Here I only have Tesco and Morrisons, don't count the coop, and they match their prices.

Tesco put the price os something up, the next week it goes up to the same price in Morrisons. Morrisons put the price of something up, the next week it goes up to the same price in Tesco.

A good example this week/last week. Last week Tesco put their value corned beef up from £1.54 to £1.80. So I went to Morrisons to stock up on a few tins, it was out of stock. But when it came back in on Monday it had gone up to £1.80.

The manager was standing near it, talking to another memeber of staff, so I said in a loudish voice "B@gger, I was going to buy a few tins of that, but as it's gone up to the same price as it is in Tesco I'll go to Tesco for it".

He took the bait and asked why i would go to Tesco to buy something that was the same price in Morrisons.

I told him that I have two list, one of items I buy in Morrisons and one of things I buy in Tesco. Every time Morrisons put their price up to match that of Tesco, I put that item on the Tesco list.

He asked why I preferred to buy at tesco when his store was the same price. So I said "I get club card points at Tesco, the more I buy there the more points I get"

I doubt it will do any good, but you never know, it might filter up the management chain that if Morrisons price match Tesco then people will prefer to buy at Tesco to get the points.

[Deleted User]

I'm afraid I distrust all of the supermarkets, and no matter what they 'sign up to' they are at the end of the day in business to make money for their shareholders
They really aren't that fussed about the hard pressed customers .So I pick and choose what I want, and just don't believe a word of any advertising sales gimmicks

I remember years ago when I lived in Peckham there was a shop in Rye Lane that had a 'closing down sale' notice in the window for the three years that I lived there .For all I know its probably still 'closing down' 46 years later :)

EnglishMohican

So when is all this improvement going to happen?

I asked the Duty Manager in Sainsbury's on Saturday and the store had had no steer from head office and he had not seen the news. They had four packs of orange juice (no price on the shelf) that was £3.49 when you got to the checkout. Buying three individual packs was £2.50 on special offer. Per unit, its cheaper to buy the individual one than the multipack.

Went into Waitrose this morning - A pack of rechargeable batteries was £12.49 - though the price on the shelf that looked as if it applied was £7.00!!!. The nearest equivalent pack I could find on Amazon was around £6. A little bit lower down the shelf Waitrose were offering two packs for the price of one on some other batteries - but the price of one was half as much again as the price I would expect to pay.

So by my sample these companies that have agreed to honour the OFT's agreement are really leaping to get on with it - not.

Doc_N

antrobus wrote: »

But Tesco aren't "haemorrhaging customers". In fact they're doing a little bit better now than they were at the beginning of the year, when their market share actually dipped below 30%. The 'losers' at the moment are Morrisons and the Co-Op.

5 December:

"Tesco's crown as the UK's most successful retailer has slipped further as the company called time on its loss-making US business and unveiled dismal sales figures in the UK and other countries for the last three months"

Lynsey

It will be interesting to see the Tesco figures after Xmas.
I've noticed a massive push on promotions and the till ops are always asking if you have any coupons, they must have to ask of late.
I personally think their Xmas figures will be up, but maybe not the profits by as much. They do appear at least to want to get back some of the lost ground.

Lynsey