Consumers tell Which? that special offers encourage them to buy products that they don’t really need. We identified four tactics that we believe were misleading, affecting products from fresh fruit to toiletries to pet food.
Products becoming more expensive than the original price per item when they go into a multi-buy offer – for example, Asda doubled the price of a single Müller yogurt from 30p to 61p as they went onto multibuy at 10 for £4.
The price went back to 30p when the offer ended. This meant the yogurt cost more per item when you bought 10 under the offer than when you bought one before or after it.
Products being sold on ‘offer’ when in fact they have been on sale at the reduced price for longer than the original price – for example, Tesco sold Beck’s beer for 190 days on discount and only 70 days at the higher price.
Prices being increased immediately before going on ‘offer’ making the discount appear more significant – for example, Ocado strawberries increased in price from £3.89 to £4.38 for 13 days. They were then sold as ‘was £4.38 now £2.19/£2.29/£2.25’ for 112 days, though there were nine days within this period when they were sold at £4.38.
The research found that almost two fifths of consumers said special offers encourage them to buy products that they don’t really need, and a third had bought a special offer they’d regretted. A quarter of people even try to avoid end-of-aisle displays so that they don’t get sucked into buying special offers.
Which? wants government guidelines on pricing to be tightened. While the existing rules are supposed to make sure that supermarket special offers don’t mislead shoppers, Which? feels they leave too many loopholes.
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