Tired of the the supermarkets' little games with pricing!

Chrissie72

I use Sainsburys, Asda and Tesco, and all three of them are guilty of it; making individually priced items expensive, but cheaper in bulk.

Yesterday, I went to Sainsburys, to buy some fruit corners, and they were 70 pence EACH (they are normally 50 to 55 pence each,) and even the six-packs were almost FOUR POUNDS. (They are normally about two pounds seventy.)

HOWEVER, they were five pounds for two six packs. I didn't want TWELVE fruit corners: I only wanted a couple. :mad: I am sick and tired of being coerced and bullied into spending more than I want and buying more than I need. Why the hell would I want TWELVE fruit corners?! The damn fridge would be half full for a start!

Then they had a pack of 4 tubes of smarties in Tesco the other week for one pound twenty, and then the following week it was one pound EIGHTY, and then the FOLLOWING week, it was two packs for two pounds! AGAIN, making you buy stuff you don't want or need.

All of them seem to have one item for two fifty (for example) or three for a fiver, virtually making it unreasonable and illogical to buy just one.

I am sick of it now. Just have one price for each item and quit making individual items so costly, that it forces people to bulk buy!

oldagetraveller

I try to avoid their buy "x" of something for £y. I don't want "x" - I want 1!
Also keep an eye on the, e.g. price for 100g (Tesco), written on a little label attached to the shelf. A larger box/pack of something is not necessarily cheaper.
One recent example, there are usually lots more, - Kellog's Cornflakes. 1kg box 36p/100g. 750g box 33p/100g.

brettcta

no one's 'making you' buy anything though are they? if you object to buying 8 tubes of smarties for £2, don't buy them (or buy an alternative).

brettcta

i, for one, buy in bulk to take advantage of bulk buy offers (i do a monthly big shop at costco - only using asda/tesco for short-dated items or stuff they don't do, such as lactofree cow juice, etc.)

Azari

brettcta wrote: »

no one's 'making you' buy anything though are they? if you object to buying 8 tubes of smarties for £2, don't buy them (or buy an alternative).

Why cannot people understand that one of the purposes of this forum is to vent?

The OP is not suggesting that supermarkets are doing anything illegal or immoral. He just finds these pricing gimmicks annoying.

And he's not alone.

When people go to a supermarket they want to get a good price buying the amount they want to buy, not the amount some marketing drone has decided everybody needs to buy if they want optimum value.

I presume the reason they do it is down to perception. Nobody really trusts 'XXp off' stickers any more, but if they can see that a good is actually being sold for £1 then they perceive that 2 for £1.50 must be a good price. (Although, of course, there are tricks the supermarkets can employ to make it seem a better deal that it is.)

Mallotum_X

Try and avoid the big supermarkets the smaller ones are much better at pricing.

The likes of Tesco have got worse at these games lately and also seem to be introducing more weird pack sizes to make comparisons harder - i.e. they are now selling 8 packs of coke or 250ml cans in packs. When most people are used to the 330ml in 6 packs these other sizes then take you a moment to work out if they are good value.

meer53

On the Muller Corners point. They last far longer than the sell by date, we regularly eat them when they're two or even three weeks out of date, no problems. My daughter ate one yesterday that was dated use before May 3rd.

I'm an Aldi fan, can't bear to shop in any of the big supermarkets now.

vuvuzela

The co-op is the one that annoys me the most. I can always tell when a product will be on special, as they hike the price dramatically for a short period and then reduce it and claim it's now half price. Winds me up

peter_the_piper

One of the ones that gets me with the price label are apples. Bag of six and they are X per apple, go to loose (all same size) and they are Y per 100gram. Without weighing an apple there is no way to compare.

battleborn

I think its ridiculous that you let yourself get all sick and tired over a dessert.

Surely there are more important things to get sick and tired over.

ThumbRemote

battleborn wrote: »

I think its ridiculous that you let yourself get all sick and tired over a dessert.

Surely there are more important things to get sick and tired over.

The OP said they were sick and tired of the supermarkets pricing. The dessert was simply an example.