MSE News: Top ten supermarket pricing blunders

iAMaLONDONER

Nada666 wrote: »

Where do you shop? Clearly not the UK. Otherwise you would have starved to death. Marks and Spencers have just announced they are saved by their food results - and they have joined in with this nonsense. Clearly no-one else is like you or I and do not buy such lines.

Excuse me, but I always get the best deal -even if I have to have a full fridge/cupboard

I'm just saying no wonder we have so much food wastage

Perelandra

Some years ago I worked for a well-known retailer (sorry, no names!), and frequently ran "buy 2, get one free" offers on my £5 software range.

Unfortunately, our systems were pretty rubbish, and were strictly limited in terms of the number of concurrent offers that could be run- and I was told that for one particular season I couldn't run any of these slots for my ranges (which would've killed my sales...)

So I simply ran a "3 for £9.99" promotion on some big-box titles. It was a genuine offer, in that the normal retail price would've ben £5 on those titles, but for the duration of the offer the price was simply knocked down to £3.33 each. That is, if you bought 1, it would cost £3.33. If you bought 3, it was £9.99.

Of all the units I sold over the 8 week period, over 90% were bought in a multiple of 3...

Nowhere did the signage say "3 for the price of 2" or anything like that- it just said "3 for £9.99". Shoppers are incredibly easy to 'programme'...

honeythewitch

Percy1983 wrote: »

Its a good offer, but its wrong that buying 2 is cheaper than 1, its encouraging waste.

What is wrong with people deciding how much they want to buy for themselves?
The example used here is rice, which keeps for ever so unless you have never had rice before, buy two and find out you hate it it is very unlikely to be wasted.

DaveAA

What is wrong with people deciding how much they want to buy for themselves?

The simple objection is that an item that was sold singly for 99p last month is now £1.50 so that the store can do a 2 for £2 deal and make it look like it is a saving. Sure, it's a "saving" on the current "fake" single price, but in reality it's a con to make you buy two at a time when you might only want one. There are several things we buy occasionally, but which would go out of date before we had used them if we had bought a larger amount.

Nada666

iAMaLONDONER wrote: »

Excuse me, but I always get the best deal -even if I have to have a full fridge/cupboard

I'm just saying no wonder we have so much food wastage

So you are part of the problem and do nothing to forward a solution.

shinkyshonky

inicholson wrote: »

I guess the price used to be above it, that's how it's a price drop..

currently 2 for 99p in the 99p shop if your near one

stephen77

iAMaLONDONER wrote: »

Excuse me, but I always get the best deal -even if I have to have a full fridge/cupboard

I'm just saying no wonder we have so much food wastage

They are only good deals if you do not get throw food away.

If I see a item and its £1.50 for 1 item but 2 items for £2.00. If i will not use up the second item in time. I will just pay the £1.50 for one as that is 50p wasted.

You can blame supermarkets but people do not have minds of their own.

stephen77

DaveAA wrote: »

The simple objection is that an item that was sold singly for 99p last month is now £1.50 so that the store can do a 2 for £2 deal and make it look like it is a saving. Sure, it's a "saving" on the current "fake" single price, but in reality it's a con to make you buy two at a time when you might only want one. There are several things we buy occasionally, but which would go out of date before we had used them if we had bought a larger amount.

I rate the value on the price shown in front of me. If I thinks its worth £1.50 I will pay it. If not I will not. Promotion or not.

If i go in to a furniture store which always have a sale on. I will look soley at the price of the item at the time of purchase. I will not care if its on sale or not. Makes no difference to me it was X price last month as I can not go back in time to purchase it.

fionajbanana

Nada666 wrote: »

And in the original article - what is wrong with two packs of £2.19 rice being sold for £2? I don't understand the problem. That appears to be a genuine offer (unless they are 250g packs.)

I can't see what is wrong with that either! I bet the tweeter doesn't agree with B1G2F offers or buy 2 wines for £11.99 each for £10.

fionajbanana

iAMaLONDONER wrote: »

Excuse me, but I always get the best deal -even if I have to have a full fridge/cupboard

I'm just saying no wonder we have so much food wastage

I sometimes shop with a friend and we share deals. For example, I live alone and sometimes just want one meat on 3 for £10 and she only needs two. If we bought them as a 1 and a 2 on different transactions, it comes to £12-13.50, depending on which combo of meats we buy. I like the extra lean beef mince Sainsburys does and that is £4.50 for a pack. Sharing the deal, means I save £1.17 - a quarter of the price.

Perhaps more people need to do sharing deals. You don't need both parties together to shop, providing if any is fresh or frozen, the other party picks it up, the shopper drops it off or stores it in the right place (chilled - fridge)