To say it's time supermarkets were stopped from doing this.

[cupidsgame]

It's the way they try and fool us into buying the dearer product rather than the ones on special offer. Tesco does it blatantly, they put certain products on special offer but the product immediately below the "special offer" is not the one being reduced,

Its more or less the same product but for example, if it's for shampoo the offer might be only for dry hair, but the price tag has the "dry hair" bit in very small letters. So you pick up the shampoo for "greasy hair" thinking you're getting a good bargain only to find at the checkout that it's the full price.

It's legal I know but I wonder how much they make from duping their customers this way. The trouble is as well the staff always try and blame you for not reading the offer properly and imply you're being a bit dim. Anyone else get annoyed at this. Surely they shouldn't be allowed with getting away with it.

Supermarkets stack their shelves tactically. They put the most expensive items right in your eye-line to make you spend more.

This also works on your kids sitting in the trolley. Items are positioned so they reach out and grab the top of the range products. It’s no coincidence that the finest range of organic cereal is at their eyeline when you’re looking for own brand cornflakes…

If it was nowhere near the sign, how the hell was it deliberate?! If you can't find the shade described on the shelf label, presumably that was because it was sold out of course it was deliberate, the ones that were advertised that were on offer should have been directly below the sign, but they obviously weren't, they wanted us to pick up the one the one that wasn't on offer. Nobody expects to "go hunting round the shop", just to expect to see the offer below the sign would have been ok. Btw if the offer had been "sold out" the sign should be removed, rather than leave it there all week Deliberate misleading.

It is always just a mistake

hahaha dying with laughter here :)

The supermarkets are slick moneymaking machine and EVERYTHING is about making you spend more. The layout of the store makes you spend more - milk and bread are always at the back, chocolate is always near the till.

The so called special offers are ALL about making you buy a premium brand instead of a bog standard one. Ever seen Tesco Value rice on offer? No I bet you haven't....

The free parking? Encourages customers to go more often and spend more. Ends of the aisles? Still a load of premium stuff there, preferably at kid-grabbing height so you don't even know its in your basket until you get to the till....

I can't believe the naivety on this thread!

Just saw this great offer in co-op.

EXACTLY Oysterbabe!

And the shelf is empty - people have fallen for it!

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-23755528
bulgarbunting No of course Tesco don't try to trick. Another example of their "trickery" above. Baffled that you think they're not capable of it.

"No it's the one who falls for the con who is thick, probably happened to you and you've not known. Good job we're not all "thick" isn't it"

Charming! FWIW I read the shelf labels and check the receipt and can count on one hand the number of times this scenario you describe has happened to me in the last couple of years of weekly supermarket shopping. Usually it's because the shelf label is out-of-date and they remove it as soon as I query it. The rest of the time is because I haven't read the flipping sign.

I can usually remember the price of 90%+ of my shopping items by the time I get to the till, so would query if anything was scanned through at an unexpected price. Fucking idiot that I am.

I can't believe the naivety on this thread!
Me neither, they are the shoppers that supermarkets just love. I'm amazed tbh.

I visited B&M the other day for the first time and was gobsmacked by how this is done, very clearly deliberately.

Copied from an article in The Guardian about supermarket tricks:

"1. Seasonal offers

Higher prices only applied out of season, when consumers are less likely to buy the item. A Nestlé Kit Kat Chunky Collection Giant Egg was advertised at £7.49 for 10 days in January this year at Ocado, then sold on offer at £5 for 51 days. In February 2014, a Cadbury’s Giant Creme Egg was £10 in Tesco and Sainsbury’s, then sold for £8 and £6.66 from March onwards.

1. Was/now pricing

The use of a higher “was” price when the item has been available for longer at the lower price. Acacia honey and ginger hot cross buns at Waitrose were advertised at £1.50 for just 12 days this year before going on offer at “£1.12 was £1.50” for 26 days. In 2013, the supermarket also increased the price of Waitrose blueberries to £3.99 for a week, before selling them on offer at £2.66 for more than a month.

In the same year, Sainsbury’s sold Carex Aloe Vera & Eucaluptus Moisturising Antibacterial handwash for £1.80 for seven days and then on offer at “was £1.80 now 90p” for 84 days. Asda sold Andrex Bold and Bright Toilet Rolls for 49 days at the higher price of £2.24 and then on offer for 81 days at “was £2.24 now £2”, and Tesco sold Flash All Purpose Cleaning Spray on offer for £1 for 47 days even though it had only been at the higher price of £2 for 17 days.

1. Multibuys

Prices are increased on multibuy deals so that the saving is less than claimed or non-existent. Asda increased the price of a Chicago Town Four Cheese Pizza two-pack from £1.50 to £2 last year and then offered a multi-buy deal at two for £3. A single pack went back to £1.50 when the “offer” ended. The supermarket also increased the regular price of Uncle Ben’s rice in 2013 from £1 to £1.58 as it went onto a “2 for £3” multibuy, then returned it to £1 when the offer ended. In the same year, Asda again sold Innocent Pure Fruit Smoothie for £2 and then increased the price to £2.78 as it went onto a multi-buy offer of 2 for £5 – this meant it was 50p more a pack when on offer.

1. Larger pack, better value

The price of individual items in the bigger pack are actually higher. Tesco sold four cans of Green Giant sweetcorn for £2 last year, but six cans were proportionately more expensive in its “special value” pack, priced at £3.56. Last year, Asda sold 12 rolls of Andrex Toilet Tissue for more per roll than the four-pack, with the larger Andrex pack marked as “great value”."

mackeral who called you thick, it was user146 who was calling people thick for not reading labels, my post was a follow on from that. It was nothing to do with you.

The Was/Now trick was my bugbear over Christmas.

My DS's birthday is November, so I'd literally just been trawling prices looking for birthday presents for him. I ordered a lot online so I had a clear online invoice showing me what I'd paid for the item in mid November.

The Christmas comes along and the very same lego is advertised as "50% off, usually 20,00". Then I look on my invoice and see that actually I paid 12.00 for it, so is it bollocks 50% off. Evidently if the price was set at 20 quid for just a handful of days in the last 12 months, the company hasn't done anything illegal.

The entire system is designed to confuse the customer and part him from his money.

It's called 'Selling'. Shops are out to obtain, legally, as much profit from you as possible, and you're in the game to obtain as much decent product as you can for your £. Constant and unremitting battle.

kitchenunit interesting article, but shame on us dozy shoppers for not having 3 hours to spare after a busy day at work to study it all while we rush to do our shopping. It must be all our fault, the supermarkets are above reproach of course.

If I'm running in to a supermarket after work with the kids then frankly I don't give a fuck which one is the cheapest bread etc... But I'm under no illusion that I'm not being ripped off as I hand over my crisp tenner :)

I agree. A few years ago Tesco had a large 3 for 2 sign for crisps at the end of an aisle. Below that were huge baskets of a few different flavoured crisps. In small print, the sign said the offer was only available on certain flavours, none of which were in the baskets below the sign. It's misleading.

mackeral who called you thick, it was user146 who was calling people thick for not reading labels, my post was a follow on from that. It was nothing to do with you.

You have implied a couple of times that those who don't think the 'putting the offer label on the wrong shelf' thing is a deliberate tactic are 'idiots', 'fools' or 'thick.' And I am one of those people.

Yes supermarkets do use a lot of dodgy, perplexing, unfair and misleading tactics to make things appear better value than they are. Undeniably so. But the sign being in the wrong place thing is at worst a mistake, and at best completely clear to anyone who reads it properly.

Plenty of reltail workers have come back and told posters that it is NOT a mistake though.

Supermarkets are carefully laid out. It's no accident which offers get put where.

I really do think that many people don't check their receipts and happily believe they've got a bargain. Not a bad idea really.

If it isn't deliberate though, why are the mistakes never in my favour?

they put the price per kilo/item under the unit price. that is how i compare actual prices. plus use the calculator if necessary

Tesco are a business. They exist to make money, they are not a philanthropic organisation. If people can't be bothered to read the bottom of the label and use the most basic maths to compare prices they only have themselves to blame

It is about playing on the psychology of people responding to certain triggers.

Stop. Read. Think. Is item X worth paying this amount for. If no then put item X back, no matter what the signage says.

Plus the baking smells that waft through the store.... "mmmmmm think I'll have a cake" think the customers.....

It's all manipulative. All of it. The colours, the sounds, the smells.

Some pricing is just weird. I used to shop for an old man as a care worker in a Tesco & he'd buy the smallest jar of coffee each week(think it was own brand label). One week I looked at the labels & the prices & the bigger jar was actually priced cheaper & it was double the size. The only time only I think the price was in the customers favour.

I shopped in Waitrose last week & got overcharged for washing up liquid. A promotion shelf, with non promotion items on it, very confusing. Spoke to customer service lady who said yes, you're right it is confusing, we've had complaints for weeks! And proceeded to give me a refund as she had to loads of other customers, a waste of all our time?

kitchenunit.

No they have not.

You are arguing a different point.

Of course supermarkets are trying to make money
Of course they offer deals on certain sizes - it's a deal on that size product, not a deal on that product. Per kilo/unit other size packages might still be a better deal
Of course they put premium items at eye level
Of course the less popular flavours/colours/types are on offer more than the popular ones

...and of course there is a store plan for tickets & products

No one is denying any of that.

But supermarkets do not advertise 'X brand, X size special offer' then tell the staff to put a different size product under the sign.

OP - you're being incredibly rude to those of us who can work out what's on offer and what's not without a big song & dance. Accusing US of being the stupid & gullible ones is rather pathetic.

It would help if the calculations were comparable. As someone said earlier how can you compare when so many different methods are used. Who has the time anyway. That's why online shopping is better sometimes because comparison pricing/offers are clearer and more consistent than in the shop.