Grms v Kgs

Mickey666

Pollycat said:

maman said:

I think it's all done to try to fool the customer. I've always assumed that prices per 100g are because the price per kg is eye wateringly expensive. As in the price of fish! 

I find it easy to work out but not everyone is the same.

I was looking at 3 sizes of wash liquid, 2 had offers, 1 didn't.

A chap was stood next to me (pre-covid).

I picked one up and remarked 'no brainer'.

He asked why I'd chosen that one, he really didn't know which one worked out the cheapest.

Also, watch out for multi-pack offers.  I’ve seen examples where two packets of biscuits in a single ‘special offer’ wrapper was more expensive than buying two individual packets of the same size.  It pays to be alert.

Bacman

Pollycat said:

I was looking at 3 sizes of wash liquid, 2 had offers, 1 didn't.

A chap was stood next to me (pre-covid).

I picked one up and remarked 'no brainer'.

He asked why I'd chosen that one, he really didn't know which one worked out the cheapest.

Exactly, that is what I was meaning. Shops rely on people either not reading things or who have trouble working things out. You and I can do it fine but as you say, some people struggle - those people are the ones the shops aim at by definition. If you have trouble with mental arithmetic then you can take a calculator with you to the shop after all, or use the calculator app on your phone.

jon81uk

Having worked in retail the issue is probably that a different person typed the details for each item into the system. The stock system would have an option to choose to display the price per XXX unit and the people doing data entry on each item made different choices. Its simple human error, I don't think they are trying to deliberatly mislead.
Sainsburys could change the stock system to default to price per 100g which would stop the error in the future, but I guess there are some very heavy items where per kg is needed.

maman

jon81uk said:

Having worked in retail the issue is probably that a different person typed the details for each item into the system. The stock system would have an option to choose to display the price per XXX unit and the people doing data entry on each item made different choices. Its simple human error, I don't think they are trying to deliberatly mislead.
Sainsburys could change the stock system to default to price per 100g which would stop the error in the future, but I guess there are some very heavy items where per kg is needed.

Maybe. 🤔 I'm more cynical. 😉

Pollycat

jon81uk said:

Having worked in retail the issue is probably that a different person typed the details for each item into the system. The stock system would have an option to choose to display the price per XXX unit and the people doing data entry on each item made different choices. Its simple human error, I don't think they are trying to deliberatly mislead.
Sainsburys could change the stock system to default to price per 100g which would stop the error in the future, but I guess there are some very heavy items where per kg is needed.

Is that really how it's done?

Sounds very labour intensive in these days of technology.

jon81uk

Pollycat said:

jon81uk said:

Having worked in retail the issue is probably that a different person typed the details for each item into the system. The stock system would have an option to choose to display the price per XXX unit and the people doing data entry on each item made different choices. Its simple human error, I don't think they are trying to deliberatly mislead.
Sainsburys could change the stock system to default to price per 100g which would stop the error in the future, but I guess there are some very heavy items where per kg is needed.

Is that really how it's done?

Sounds very labour intensive in these days of technology.

It may well be that the supplier/manufacturer sends a list of their products that get imported into the supermarkets stock system, but someone still needs to make the data go into their system. Don't forget its probably just done in head office for the whole chain. I worked for Selfridges so with four stores its relatively small but there was often poor descriptions on the stock system for items.
The photography for the online store could be more labour intensive.

GaleSF63

Some people probably don't have time to faff about doing arithmetic at every shelf, or just don't want to. 

At least there is something to work out if you want to; comparing online prices when you can't see the size of the item, between price per Kg/gr and "each" is particularly unhelpful.