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MSE News: Morrisons to begin price matching Aldi and Lidl

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  • Cornucopia
    Cornucopia Posts: 16,471 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    edited 24 October 2014 at 11:04AM
    Of course they can, they just choose not to.

    Like most retail outlets in this country they charge what the market will stand and take the profit. They have plenty of room to lower prices when they need to. But why should they when people keep shopping there and paying the higher prices.
    And that position is increasingly unsustainable. Asda is nipping at the toes of the other Big 3, and Aldi & Lidl are there setting the real underlying trends in the industry. Tesco are evidently in real trouble, and I suspect it's no coincidence that they are the biggest.

    I have slowly migrated from Tesco to Asda to Lidl and now Aldi, and I am not going back. The figures show I am far from being alone in that.
    It can, if it couldn't then every person who claims a supermarket has over priced products is wrong.

    You can't say products are over prices and say they can't lower them.
    This doesn't make sense. The issue is the fundamental greater efficiency of Aldi & Lidl, which enable them to have lower prices - not just on basics, but (as a general rule) on everything. Want venison burgers or truffle-flavoured ham... Aldi is the place.

    My argument is that the goods in the Big 4 are over-priced relative to A & L. Whether there is scope within the accounts of the Big 4 to properly address that is open to debate, but the omens are not good, IMHO.
    The real question is can aldi and lidl lower their prices?
    I watch Aldi prices, and whilst there is no big fanfare, they are actually highly competitive. As an example, their basic Pizzas have been 99p for several years. And then they got reduced to 89p... at the same time as an Iceland 89p promotion.

    They will also trim a few pennies off here and there, presumably when the supply chain allows them to. I also like the fact that when things inevitably go up, it is often by a few pennies, too, rather than the swingeing 20-30p you might see elsewhere.
    Yes but the stores that do deliveries make more sales and more profit.
    Sure, but as an in-store customer, am I happy to subsidise people who have their groceries delivered?

    What is tortuous about it, you buy the things you went in to buy, swipe your card, and if the item was cheaper in one of the other stores you get the difference back.

    Hardly what I would call tortuous!
    Perhaps tortuous is the wrong word.

    Maybe I mean that it is not as straightforward as simply reducing the price. In the first place, the various schemes focus unduly on famous brand goods - when the core of Aldi & Lidl is "own" brand, and they are not particularly well-stocked or competitive with famous brand stuff.

    Secondly, they have many restrictions: you have to spend £x or have a minimum number of products, or whatever.

    Then you might have to claim somehow, and you may only get the benefit in store credit or points.

    All of these things detract from the basic "price match" proposition.

    Come back to me when I can walk into Sainsbury's for 400g Ham slices and pay something approaching the Aldi price of £1.69, rather than today's JS price of £3. Because whilst they persist with price-points that are nearly twice as much, I am simply not going to shop there.
  • I have applied online for one (lot easier than faffing with a long written form then posting) so I can test out for myself. If nothing else I might claw back a bit of what it will cost me when buying the non comparison items etc.

    I usually buy the savers items but notice some of those disappear from time to time... If I shop carefully on reduced offers I do save money (eg when things that are usually £1.89 are down to £1 I stock up, you couldn't get them cheaper anywhere else. Takes a bit of discipline and you have to be comfortable with funny looks when you turn up at the till with a cartload of quorn fillets or tins of tomatoes, ha ha!
  • So....
    1. Morrisons can't get their own prices right half the time never mind anyone else's.
    2. Only branded, and "own brand" products are included, meaning that the really cheap unknown brands stocked by Lidl and Aldi won't be included. So it's a price match on everything apart from the cheapest stuff.
    3. The price match is applied to the total of all comparable products, rather than individual items. So if I buy a few things I could have got cheaper at Aldi, but also a few things that were cheaper in Morrisons, they'll cancel out, meaning I get a voucher for a lower amount.
    4. The voucher doesn't print until the next time I shop, so if I manage to get to 5,000 points on one week's shopping, I get a voucher I can't use until the week after next.

    Anything I've forgotten?
  • So....
    1. Morrisons can't get their own prices right half the time never mind anyone else's.
    2. Only branded, and "own brand" products are included, meaning that the really cheap unknown brands stocked by Lidl and Aldi won't be included. So it's a price match on everything apart from the cheapest stuff.
    3. The price match is applied to the total of all comparable products, rather than individual items. So if I buy a few things I could have got cheaper at Aldi, but also a few things that were cheaper in Morrisons, they'll cancel out, meaning I get a voucher for a lower amount.
    4. The voucher doesn't print until the next time I shop, so if I manage to get to 5,000 points on one week's shopping, I get a voucher I can't use until the week after next.

    Anything I've forgotten?

    It price matches your complete shop so in theory your trolley should cost the same or cheaper as if you had gone elsewhere. Obviously you can still get things cheaper if you go to multiple shops but not everyone has time for that.

    True the voucher doesn't print on the same transaction, but nothing stopping you putting something else through straight away afterwards to trigger the voucher print.
  • rosy798
    rosy798 Posts: 494 Forumite
    This morning I got 2 more bottles of Hardys Stamp for the points, only they didnt go on. I went to customer service and what a kerfuffle!!!! They tried telling me a load of rubbish, points will go on in 72 hours, you cant have 2 lots of points for one item etc. After half an hour I said lets just forget it, please just give me a refund. I was told they couldnt do that as they have no way of taking the 4860 points back. I said its not my fault, and you are stopping my consumer rights by not letting me return items I dont want. After ages I got the refund and lady said I could phone them up and ssk for the points to be taken off. I said there is no way I am doing that.
  • red0209
    red0209 Posts: 125 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    I forgot to take my card to Morrison's last night, and it said on my receipt: Your comparable shop would have been £0.75 cheaper elsewhere today. You could have earned 750 match points".

    Can you take the receipt to customer services and have the points added later like you can with Tesco Clubcard?
  • It price matches your complete shop so in theory your trolley should cost the same or cheaper as if you had gone elsewhere. Obviously you can still get things cheaper if you go to multiple shops but not everyone has time for that.
    True. And it's standard for any supermarket's price match. Which is why they're never as good as they might appear at first sight.
    True the voucher doesn't print on the same transaction, but nothing stopping you putting something else through straight away afterwards to trigger the voucher print.
    From the T&Cs:

    4.3 It may take up to 72 hours for points you have earned to be added to your Match & More Card
    5.2 It may take a further 24 hours for your £5 voucher to be allocated to your account, on top of the time it takes for your account to be updated with the transaction in which you save up your 5000th point.

    So that's up to 4 days for the voucher to be allocated. I realise that "up to" allows for a lot of variance, but I very much doubt you'd be able to get it by buying something else straight away.
  • red0209 wrote: »
    I forgot to take my card to Morrison's last night, and it said on my receipt: Your comparable shop would have been £0.75 cheaper elsewhere today. You could have earned 750 match points".

    Can you take the receipt to customer services and have the points added later like you can with Tesco Clubcard?

    T&Cs again:

    4.6 If you do not have your Match & More Card with you during an eligible transaction, you have 30 days to claim your points via any in-store Customer Service desk. You will need to keep your receipt to do so. You may not add points from more than 2 receipts in any 14 day period.
  • diceydeb
    diceydeb Posts: 158 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Photogenic Combo Breaker
    I use Aldi every time now unless I have received a good sized money off coupon for Tesco which seems to come my way when I dont shop there for a few weeks. Being less loyal to one particular store makes them more generous to you I find.
  • Cornucopia
    Cornucopia Posts: 16,471 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Problem is... that's pretty much all untrue. Or at least not representative of Aldi & Lidl generally.
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