To think that Supermarkets try and 'cheat' their shoppers with false 'offers'

[Mrsdavidcaruso]

I went into one of the big supermarkets today (not sure if I am allowed to name them).

I actually needed dishwasher liquid tabs so was interested in a large display at the end of an aisle 'offering' a pack of 51 tabs for 14 quid. Now there was no RRP ..... or special offer sign but the way they were displayed looked like it was some sort of deal.

However when I went to the aisle where all the dishwasher stuff is kept I saw the same brand in smaller packets of 32 1/2 price at £6.00.

Of course I bought two packs thus getting 64 tabs for £12.00 but if I hadn't checked I may have been tempted to buy the £14 pack in the mistaken belief I was getting a 'good price'.

I wonder how many people were taken in

i do not have the maths level of an 'average 8 year old' thanks

Dealer, I'm a primary teacher, and that specific strand of mathematical knowledge is taught in lower key stage two. Who knows, in another few years they may drop it into what the 6 year olds should be learning.
It wasn't an insult, it was a fact.
Dyscalculia has only been recognised as a diagnosis very recently, unlike dyslexia. Let's see if that has an impact on schools and methods of teaching.
Supermarkets get away with bamboozling people because they rely on a combination of people shopping under pressure and poor maths skills. They make a lot of money that way.

But Goblin, having dyscalculia isn't just not being able to 'do maths'.

A colleague's dd has it and, even as an adult, she struggles to recognise numbers over 20.

Dyslexia is much more widely diagnosed and there are all kinds of brilliant programmes out there that can help but the same cannot be said for dyscalculia because so often people will just write someone off as not being very good at maths rather than looking to deal with it.

FWIW, many people with diagnoses of dyslexia would struggle plenty with this sort of thing. You can have a perfectly decent ability to understand the concepts (ie., which bit of arithmetic you need to do), and still find you reverse or mix up the numbers while you try to do it.

But I don't get this argument anyway. Surely even if someone is badly educated or of low intelligence, it's kinda horrible to be dismissive of them falling for a trick other people can spot and avoid?

exactly LTD why dismiss me because I am terrible with numbers? does that make me less 'worthy' or something?

Independent living adults with SN could find it very hard to convert to price per 100g to price per kilo, and they are among people least able to afford it. Also, someone with a low level of education who is out of work might not be able to do that.

Yes, Goblinchild that is something required of an 8 year old, however that is no reason to be rude to someone who can't do it. I have a number of parents who are illiterate. If there are any important letters going home I make sure I tell them the content. I also help parents fill out the forms. I certainly wouldn't tell the that they should be able to do it and leave them to suffer.

I agree that poor maths skills are not something to be proud of, but equally it shouldn't be shameful.

YY, pip, that's something I don't like the thought of.

Obviously it's not good when people take a bizarre pride in saying they're no good at maths, but I don't see that that's what this is about.

How recent is recent? I remember hearing about dyscalcula when I was being assessed as dyspraxic 20-odd years ago? I agree that 'bad at maths' isn't considered as problematic as functional illiteracy, but unless she's 8, Nigella is probably not benefiting personally from the current focus on improving maths teaching. I know I've had to patch some fairly basic holes in my knowledge, and a lot of it isn't instinctive to me. There's no need to be arsey.

Leaving that aside, it's why I only shop online now. I can't be having with walking up and down an aisle trying to juggle 4 different offers with the time pressure of needing to get home - this one's 3/£10, that's 4/£12, there's a BOGOF and a Buy X get Y. I just want some cheese! Mysupermarket.co.uk, sort by price per unit, buy what I actually want, not what's been gussied up to look tempting.

i do wonder how people who are even worse than me manage, I mean those with real LDs.
Also I have even seen some prices in metric and others in imperial! How sneaky is that? I challenge you mental arithmetic boffs to get your heads round that one!

Pibbin, I've done all that too, and translation for parents who struggle with English for whatever reasons. I taught in a community school for 8 years and this was something all the staff did, to enable a mostly immigrant community to access the basics they were entitled to.
Likewise, I have an adult child with AS who believes that adverts tell the truth and is vulnerable to the endless crap and claims of that industry.
It's those people that need specific support to be able to live in the wider community, and to be protected from those that would defraud them based on their gullibility and lack of knowledge.
How does that change the fact that the deceptions are based on people not checking, being too time-pressured or not being able to work out basic calculations? They are purely in it for the profits to be made, however dubious the methods used.
Are we advocating legislation to control and regulate the selling?
Look at the shambles that ensued with the simple traffic light system to indicate food content. Seemed a good idea, got screwed up by individual firms.

www.nationalnumeracy.org.uk/news/116/index.html

'The National Numeracy Challenge is launched against a backdrop of recent OECD research showing the UK failing to keep up with other countries. Government figures also show that virtually half the working-age population have the maths skills expected of children at primary school and over three-quarters are below the level equivalent to the maths GCSE that many employers regard as necessary for work.'

'Also released today is a YouGov online poll showing that over a third of adults (36%) feel they have sometimes been held back by poor maths skills in some aspects of their lives. The most common difficulties involved weighing or measuring, understanding statistics in the media and helping children with maths schoolwork. Of those who rated their own skills as poor, nearly a third (30%) said it had affected their work and nearly a quarter (24%) had found it hard to work out the best deals in shops. However nearly a third (31%) of all those surveyed wanted to improve their maths skills; this rose to 50% among those who rated their skills as poor.'

It's a huge problem in this country, and the puzzle is why it is not so in many other countries.

I don't really see why legislation would be a bad idea?

The fact that you don't find the traffic light system helpful (and some do, despite its faults) doesn't mean it's impossible to introduce useful packaging. The units on alcohol and calorie labels are really good, so it's obviously not impossible to make it work.

We all understand that the idea is to target those who don't check or are too busy/unable, I think. But understanding it doesn't mean it has to be accepted. There are plenty of cases where businesses are not allowed to use any means possible to make profit.

goblin, do you think that clear labels on food would suddenly make all children decide not to bother learning arithmetic?

I don't get this at all.

I think the think is Goblinchild that what you said:

If pricing in kilos and 100g units confuses you, then that's a basic problem you need to sort out. It's the maths required of an 8 year old.

comes across as a bit 'ffs an 8 year old can do that, get your shit together', which is not how you meant it I'm sure.

I don't think there will ever be legislation in place to combat it as the supermarkets will get round it.
Like putting one product in the 'end on' which makes you think that it's on an offer.

Another tip is never buy the naan bread from the aisle with the curry sauce, always from the bread aisle. Same with salad dressing, the dressings with the salads is always the more expensive.

The traffic light system was designed to be simple and unambiguous, giving a clear indication of fat/salt/sugar content in food.
So far so good.
Then certain chains decided that they didn't like their customers knowing so much, and designed their own version, which lacked the clarity of the original idea and obscured the information.
They could do this becaise the TLS was not made compulsory for all, in law. They were allowed to self-regulate, relabel sugars as less obvious materials, not use the red/orange/green etc.
If supermarkets are to be forced to be more clear on their pricings, there would have to be a clear system of weight/price labelling, and it would have to be enforced by law so that all of the chains followed the same system, and in every store.
Which would probably be a good thing, but what about competition and the free market and the rest?

Yes, I get it, you don't like it and have concerns that other packaging rules could be equally problematic.

But, as I said, there are examples where food packaging is really helpful.

So why assume that this would also follow the (rare) bad example?

What about competition and the free market? There are already plenty of laws about how clear you can or can't be with labels. The world hasn't ground to a halt.

I find the best way to spend less in the supermarket is to make a list and then completely ignore all the offers. Just buy exactly what's on the list.

Sainsbury's tends to vary the units it uses for it's price by weight. Across a shelf some things will be price per kg and others price per 100g. It's very obviously designed to make it more difficult to compare the prices. Just because I can do the arithmetic, doesn't mean I want to.

The other thing that annoys me is the having the same product in different places at different prices (not the same brand). Tins of chickpeas in the 'ethnic foods' aisle are very much cheaper than the ones in the beans and pulses aisle, but it's difficult to compare because they're far away from each other. Same with giant cous cous. The stuff in the rice aisle is much more expensive than the stuff in the beans and pulses aisle (which is always on the bottom shelf too).

I'm sure the same is true for loads of products. I've taken to informing people about the chickpeas if I happen to see them grabbing some of the more expensive ones. They're always surprised that there are 35p a tin ones elsewhere in the store.

That's probably true!

sounds like we need some accessible maths courses for those who didn't listen, weren't taught or have forgotten.

this won't help those who have learning disabilities but it could help a lot of other people.

the other thing of course is to shoot down the attitude that having maths or science skills makes you a geek.

I like the traffic light system.

yes maybe the supermarkets could offer the maths courses on a BOGOF basis?

'the other thing of course is to shoot down the attitude that having maths or science skills makes you a geek.'

Yes.
Or that they are only for men, and that girls and women don't need to worry about those areas.

But we shouldn't need to be offering basic maths courses just because supermarkets are determined to confuse as many people as possible. A consistent rule of always displaying price per 100g would make things easier for everyone.

The basic maths courses are still a good idea for many because arithmetic is a useful skill in lots of situations.