A study into UK supermarket prices by Which? magazine has revealed the misleading nature of special offers like discounts and multibuys.
Utilising data from grocery shopping site mysupermarket.co.uk between 31 January 2011 and 1 February 2012, researchers identified several tactics used by supermarket to make deals look better than that they actually were.
These included making products more expensive than the original price despite being on a multibuy offer, as well as describing items as 'on offer' when they were sold at this discounted price for most of the year.
Which? also pointed to a practice of increasing the price of a product just before putting it on sale.
'For example, Ocado strawberries increased from £3.89 to £4.38 for 13 days,' the Guardian reported. 'They were then sold as 'was £4.38 now £2.19/£2.29/£2.25' for 112 days, although there were nine days within this period when they were sold at £4.38.'
Sometimes, the report found, the products were not even sold at the stated higher price prior to the discount.
The magazine argued that the government should tighten up its rules on pricing, adding: 'We think it’s time supermarkets sorted out their own pricing. We’ve been calling on them to show clear unit pricing – the price by weight, volume or unit – so that you can easily compare what you’re buying.'
Tesco and Asda responded that such errors were merely mistakes, a consequence of the vast number of price changes occurring each week.
Asda stated: 'We are only human, and occasionally we make mistakes.'
No comments yet