Feeling ripped off by Sainsbury's 'special offer' pricing scam

Tofu_eater

Recently I was buying 'Brown Rice Milk' by the brand Rude Health at Sainsburys.It was priced as being on special offer with 50p off at £2 a carton saying that it was usually £2.50 (well,not those specific words actually but you see what I mean)As it is a new 'health shop' type of product which you cant buy many places at the moment I enthusiastically put it in my trolley thinking I would be getting a good deal.
The other day I went in to buy it and it is now on the shelves priced at £1.85,no mention of it being on special offer or anything,it would seem that this is now to be the 'normal' price at which it will continue to be sold.
I feel ripped off

Lipstick99

15p difference. So unless you bought a pallett of them it's not worth worry about.

tomtontom

The irony is that you didn't feel ripped off by paying £2 for a litre of milk in the first place!

deely

Maybe it sold better than expected so Sains can demand a better price from the manufacturer? Or the price of production has decreased and passed onto the consumer?

alanq

Tofu_eater wrote: »

I feel ripped off

Is this "Brown Rice Drink"?

This product is 2 for £3 until 06/01/2015 on Tesco web site.

I suggest that in future you check MySupermarket.co.uk where you can see current prices of products at various stores AND histories of what average prices have been previously charged in those stores at a given time.
http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/Shopping/FindProducts.aspx?Query=Brown+Rice+Milk&Store=Sainsburys

That site shows that the average price of Brown Rice Drink at Sainsbury stores has not been recorded above £1.99 in the past year. It has been £1.50 at times during the summer. However, prices are not always the same across all stores in a chain so £2.50 may have previously been charged at some of its stores.

geordie_joe

Tofu_eater wrote: »

I feel ripped off

I hate to see people feeling ripped off, so I've emailed Sainsburys and asked them to put the price up to £2 for you.

HowMuchIsThat

However, prices are not always the same across all stores in a chain so £2.50 may have previously been charged at some of its stores.

Are you sure about that?

I thought the internet had levelled the prices. If Tesco have an online price of £2 for a four tin pack of baked beans, that is the price you pay in any Tesco shop from Aberdeen to Brighton, from mini to mega size etc.

robin58

I thought Sainsbury's prices are constant throughout all their store due to some form of legislation they agreed to.

I say this because I have a Sainsbury's very large store near where I live and a smaller store ( not a express!) which charge the same prices for everything.

You may get a special offer at the large store if they carry more extended lines of an item.

Also to me Sainsbury's are very fond of doing deals on things which are say buy 1 for £2, then the next week it's buy 2 for £6. That to me is more of a ripoff than the price going down.


Plus always think this- Supermarkets always lie about their prices but just to the right side of the law so they don't get nicked.

tomtontom

robin58 wrote: »

I thought Sainsbury's prices are constant throughout all their store due to some form of legislation they agreed to.

I say this because I have a Sainsbury's very large store near where I live and a smaller store ( not a express!) which charge the same prices for everything.

You may get a special offer at the large store if they carry more extended lines of an item.

Not that I'm aware of - London prices are generally higher than those up north

alanq

HowMuchIsThat wrote: »

Are you sure about that?

I am sure that online prices are not necessarily the prices charged in store and that larger branches can be cheaper than convenience sized stores of the same company. There are at least some instances of chains (perhaps not the major supermarkets) charging different prices in different parts of the country.

For example I saw Wilko online had batteries cheaper than elsewhere but when I went to my local store I was informed that not only was the branch price different to the online price but that different branches may charge different prices. I could however have ordered my batteries online by Click And Collect and collected from the same store to obtain them at the online price! Madness.

It certainly used to be the case that price reductions were claimed if an item was sold at a higher price for a short while at a branch in the middle of nowhere. I think that practice is no longer permitted.

Update: ASDA Price Guarantee: 16.3 "Where prices and promotions are found to be different across stores or across website postcodes sampled (in the case of ASDA, Tesco, Sainsbury's,Waitrose and Morrisons), the most commonly occurring price is used."
http://www.asdapriceguarantee.co.uk/Administration/Terms-And-Conditions.aspx

This would seem to support my understanding.

Inner_Zone

HowMuchIsThat wrote: »

However, prices are not always the same across all stores in a chain so £2.50 may have previously been charged at some of its stores.

Are you sure about that?

I thought the internet had levelled the prices. If Tesco have an online price of £2 for a four tin pack of baked beans, that is the price you pay in any Tesco shop from Aberdeen to Brighton, from mini to mega size etc.

Not true, Tesco Express stores can and do charge higher prices than say an Extra store.