Tonight With Trevor McDonald...

trafalgar_2

And being good MSEers ...........we all knew that:D

I thought I was going to find out some revelations and there wasn't ANY....................funnily enough hubby and I had been having a looooooooong discussion the night before on how this 'half price sale ' stuff works across most retail,it's all in the mind.................there are very rarely great 'BARGAINS' out there,just perceived ones

Ticklemouse

Mr TM's favourite phrase - " Perception is everything"

fairenoughclough

Spendless wrote:

Another thing i dislike about Tescos is with regard to their staff. There is a Tescos nearby and whenever they advertise jobs the hours you are there for and the hours they say the contract is for never seemed to work out - then i realised they do not pay their staff for tea-breaks (i don't mean a lunch time i mean a coffee break). Not since i was a Saturday girl long ago have i come across a company that does this.

It's disgraceful and they are getting away with it under a supposedly Labour government.

Tony Blair hide your face in shame !


Is it something to do with contributions towards the upkeep of your helicopter ?



Hypocrite, what me living rent-free in a council house (No 10) and claiming for mortgage payments on my other houses.

defend that.

darbooka

Overall I was disspointed with the program, although Martin's presentation skills were indeed entertaining and well-done. The program would have been more legitimate if the investigative techniques were applied to various UK supermarkets and not just one chain. I don't believe for a second that there isn't similar available data on the other competitors. I think that the fact that Tesco is a) immensely successfull ; and b) more 'international' in its approach than other traditionalist competitors like Waitrose or Sainsburys made it tempting prey for the producers.
In my close proximity there are at least four other chain stores, two markets and two different small-town shop streets and I use most of them but vastly most of all I use Tesco for the convenience, the 24hour opening, the fact I can use vouchers for products I don't buy there, and other temptations.
If an item is promoted as being any amount less than the original price, I would look at the price at the time and not rely on the seller's depiction of what the original price is - and that goes for ANY retailer or seller, not just Tesco's. The 'original price' presented may be a useful guide but on most products retailers and sellers are allowed to sell at any price they want anyway so the RRP is quite irrelevant in practise.

Shez

Where I live I am surrounded by Asda, Tesco and Sainsburys - whilst they are convenient, I too find I spend more and more in them.

Yes you do have to keep tabs on prices to see if you are really getting genuine 2 for 1 offers, sometimes BOGOF at Tescos is the same price as buying 2 at Asda anyway.

Also, I find that the Fruit and Veg at Asda recently is getting shoddy for the price, I cant believe what they display sometimes? and I also find that the meat (especially beef, steak, lamb chops) is very expensive and crap.

I would dearly love to have a local butcher and greengrocer but there arent many about now! My local high street seems to have become clothes shops and fast food chains.

So if anyone knows where there is a decent butcher and greengrocer in East Ham/Beckton Area - I'd be glad to know!

Happy Shopping All!

Munki_2

trafalgar and darbooka, you're both right. I don't see why this program was focused simply on Tesco. Yes they may have been pulled up more by the governing bodies, but as they said, most misselling problems were brought to their attention by rival stores.

I find it hard to believe that Tescos are the only ones doing this sort of half-price scam. We see half price deals everywhere, and can we be truely sure that all of these are genuine bargain deals?

I think we all switch off and go into superficial bargain mode. We see half price... we must have (not all the time, but let's be honest, most of us are suckers for it).

The programmes intent was to damage Tescos reputation. All it ended up doing was highlighting the shallow, blinkered and biased view that the researchers of the programme have. Tesco will not get damaged by this - ITV will.

Anyway... rant overwith. BTW, there was nothing wrong with your part in the programme, Martin. I just can't believe that the programme only targetted Tescos, when in retaliation I have a feeling Tescos will drag up some examples of rival stores using similar tactics.

Besides, it should be up to us to spot these sneaky marketting techniques anyway. Also, we would only buy the goods if we thought it was a good deal. WE make the choice. If we think that 14.99 is a good price for a pack of beer, then why shouldn't we buy it? It's just clever marketting, not misleading. Perhaps it's the recommended retail prices that should be looked at. They are obviously so high in the first place, if Tescos and other stores are able to buy in bulk and offer such huge reductions off the RRP and STILL make money.

Come on MSE'ers... we're the ones who should know about these sneaky marketting techniques and just simply side-step them and use our MSE brains to spot the REAL bargains ;-)

Rant over with now. Need coffee.

Munki.

mrapps

My Wife used to work in the 'price changing' back office bit of Tesco and regularly used to tell me what a scam the big price launches were. She always said she was putting up as many if not more prices than she was dropping.
For people not aware of how the industry works the program will have had some value but in general my opinion of TwTMcD is that its often like a TV version of the Daily Mail.

lipidicman

I agree that the Tonight show comes out of this looking worse than Tesco. Martin's info was great as ever but Maitland's attempted points scoring interview was very weak. Not examining the other supermarkets made the show look very unbalanced. The issue of the beer is fine to me, so they have had two promotions and a previous one was slightly better than the new one. You dont expect a supermarket to put was £1.69 now £2 when an offer ends. The customer must decide if a price is good and if they want to shop in a supermarket that has offers or consistently low prices. The show would have brought some things to the attention of less savvy consumers than 'us lot' so that has to be good.

I shop in morrisons and somerfield (on the walk home from work) and waitrose and asda (when i get into town at the weekend) and 'big shops' at tesco if me and the girlfriend get organised and go in the car. I really should do a price survey on the things I buy as even a tart like me gets caught out with some 'not so good' offers. This would be better than 'the grocer' or tesco's own research

shrek101

What concerns me is that in small towns there is a distinct lack of competition and supermarkets then exploit this, its just not Tesco's..

I remember many years ago in my home town at one time we had 3 Tesco's, as Tesco took over Hillards supermarket which was for many, the only other supermarket.

I am sure the authorities allowed this to happen because they may of felt that in large towns and cities it wouldn't effect competition but in small town is did effect prices.

Thankfully we now have more choice, but even to this day I resent Tesco's for exploiting the situation and the department of trade and industry to have some sort of safe guard where competition is less.

One thing I noticed about the report is that Tesco are similar to B&Q who have most of the market in what they sell. They have lose leaders to attract people into the store but inflate there prices on other goods.

lipidicman

Dont get me started on B&Q - support your local hardware store - if you are lucky enough to have one