Tesco fricking Club Card / two tier pricing

[Fahbeep]

AIBU to hate Tesco Clubcard App and the two tier pricing in store. It rely annoys me on principle that Tesco actively sets out to overcharge customers in store if they haven't got the app handy or the card, in which case, massive palaver at the tills. They do this so they can scrape your personal data. It just puts me off shopping there TBH.

Moan over. I'm in Tesco's car park as a I write as I've flounced out in outrage!

Presumably because OP says this happens in the absence of having the card handy. So presumably customers asking to be looked up on system etc.

Is it that the Clubcard deals are bargains or do they just hike up everything else?

I’ve always done scan and shop since they brought it in. Couldn’t imagine self checkout or queuing at a til in Tesco ever again. Price comes down automatically as you have to scan your club card to release the hand scanning machine.

Exactly! If you feel that strongly.

If Tesco are deliberately inflating prices in order to reduce them, they are being very smart about it.

120 Tetley teabags are cheaper than 80, and a pack of 8 fruit shoots are only slightly more expensive than a pack of 4. So are they increasing the price of the smaller pack sizes to make the clubcard price seem like a good offer?

I find the pricing a bit bonkers and i think it is intentional so you lose track of the real value of things. My local small Tesco supposedly has great club card prices which are basically the usual price with a much, much higher price next to it to make it look like good value. I shop at Aldi and Asda and occasionally Sainsburys, so I know the true value of most things. I guess it works if you are in a nice market town and Tesco and Waitrose are the only options, but anyone where I live (surrounded by all of the big supermarkets) would be an utter numskull to fall for Tescos weird pricing.

We were on holiday and shopped there recently. Didn't have a club card, but it didn't effect what we were shopping for as we just avoided the weird pricing system, but I still found it pricey. Can't say it's two tier system has convinced me to swap supermarkets.

My mother was very computer literate. She was using a computer in the 1980's, had a mobile phone from 1990. Unfortunately, age has a tendency to remove the ability to remember and use things. She's well over 80, and like most of her friends, in getting increasingly forgetful and confused by things.

But excellent that YOUR mother could use it fine.

My mother could use a computer before I could. Age means she now struggles. It is common for cognition and fine motor skills to decline. It is rare for that to happen in your sixties though, most people are still working.

Using a computer in the 80s is VERY different to using a smart phone or tablet in 2023. It was all keyboard and numeric menus, i.e. press 1 for data entry, press 5 for reports, press 9 for settings. Things changed massively in the 90s and noughties with "point and click" either with mouse or touchpad. You really can't compare a 80s PC with a modern smart phone or tablet, especially if your mother didn't move with the times or didn't regularly use a (more modern) PC in latter years.

My mother was the same. Extensive use of PC in office work in the 80s, but when she retired, she didn't have a home computer, and continued using an old fashioned mobile phone until a couple of years ago (keypad for text etc) rather than a touch screen. The phone broke as it was over 10 years old, and she got a new style iphone but has never got to grips with it because she just can't understand the idea of using a touchscreen. That's not because of her age (well it is as she can't learn anything new), but more because the way you make a phone call or send a text is completely different that she was used to.

It's like comparing the keyboard driven old Lotus 123 spreadsheet with the mouse/touchscreen driven Excel spreadsheet. Same thing, but very different user interface. My mother could probably still use Lotus 123, but she'd not know where to start with Excel. That's not her forgetting how to use a computer, it's the user interface moving on and leaving her behind because she's not kept up, and as time passes, the chasm gets bigger. The earlier versions of Excel
incorporated the backslash \ menu driven system to help people move over from backslash menu to mouse, but if you weren't actively transitioning and kept using Lotus 123 and then ultimately stop using it, you'd have a much harder job coming back and starting to use Excel 20 years later.

80s computers and original mobiles are nothing like modern ones. Unless you move with the times and replace old tech with new, then you're going to fall behind whatever your age. Sadly, a lot of older people saw no need to keep up and continued using old tech (or no tech at all) despite all the warning signs that literally everything was going more and more "techy" so have caused themselves to fall behind. Use it or lose it!

Yes, but muscle memory keeps your skills. My mother has dementia and can't learn anything new, but she can still use "techy" things that she uses every day, such as the Sky TV remote and programmer, electronic timers, electronic microwave, telephone banking, electronic chess game, pocket electronic crossword solver, etc etc - all the things she does regularly! She's not lost the ability to do any of that, and she's in her 80's. It's the "new" stuff that she struggles with, mostly because she didn't want to do "new" things in the last 10/20 years. If she'd been more amenable to new tech, before dementia, then she'd probably be capable of learning it and still doing it today.

What I meant was, until she was about 82, my mother was perfectly comfortable with modern technology, having used it since the 80's. And before. She did keep up, as did her friends. She's never been a technophobe.

But her mid 80's have robbed her of this. She literally has a wallet with cash and one card in because have multiple cards ends up with her confused. This is pretty common as people get very elderly.

But thanks for the super patronising message on how technology has changed since the 1980s

It’s a shame for your mum. My mum is the same, she wouldn’t be able to use loyalty cards, she would get very confused, even though she could reel off the exact dates things have happened in the past few years. But we do her shopping for her or with her so in her case it’s not an issue. I do feel for people who have to manage alone.

But the wheels of progress have to continue to run. it does raise the question of whether Tesco should automatically give elderly and other vulnerable customers their best available price for items, regardless of whether the customer has a Clubcard or not.

If enough people write to them they may take notice.

Sorry not read the whole thread.

Last time I was at Tesco, the woman at the till in front of me asked if she could use my club card for her shopping. She got the discounts, I got the points. Win, win!

@user1497207191 remote controls are pretty simple to use. But using new apps on a smartphone does require new learning. Although my mum struggled a lot with techy things she had already been using. She was slow and kept making mistakes.

The truth is our society does not care about elderly and disabled people. The message is always, tough life moves on.

She could give them her Coop divi number from the 70's!

The previous system they used was OK as the prices weren't increased for non clubcard holders - you just got a 'bonus' if you used it. But basic checks shows that the clubcard price in tescos is the 'normal' price, and it's increased for non clubcard holders, and I do object to this as there are people unable to easily use a clubcard, whether others will admit it or not.

But surely they'd still need something to identify them as elderly or vulnerable and if we are rightly not going to start tatooing them it would be, let me guess, a card they need to carry. So why not a club card.

All of us who are elderly carry our ID at all times. It’s called our face.

All the supermarkets have discounts for people using their apps, your delusional if you think it's Tesco's only, if anything they are more open about it.
You need loyalty cards and aps to

from Aldi

if you sign up to the Aldi newsletter it will email you special promotional offers and competitions, so you can get in there first. Supermarket coupons. Make sure you look out for coupons in store as well as newspapers to save on your shopping.

LIdl

https://www.lidl.co.uk/c/lidl-plus/s10023095

Sainsbury - Nectar
Boots - loyaltly card been going for ever
M&S - sparks
Morrison - Morrisons More
Asda - Rewards

All of which you either have to sign up for a card or a newsletter to access cheaper prices

But elderly people and those with dementia etc can struggle with "non" techie things too!

My mother (in her eighties with dementia) can't even cope with "real" money anymore. We didn't realise how bad she'd got until she tried to pay for her weekly shopping, costing around £30 with a 50p coin, thinking it was "50" so bigger than "30". We thought that was a blip until a few weeks later she tried to buy a paper costing 90p with a £10 note, and expecting only 10p change. It certainly dawned on us how she was burning through money each week despite not buying much, she was either putting notes in charity boxes thinking it wasn't worth much, or she was being conned by shop workers giving her the wrong change and her not noticing it!

How long is it since 50p coins and £10 notes were brought into use??? Because she didn't go shopping much anymore, she'd "forgotten" the meaning of notes and coins and somehow got into the mindset that "paper" was worth less than coins.

Do we radically overhaul paper money and coinage, because elderly people with dementia lose sight of how to use it and what it means? There's only so far that you can accommodate them - at some point, you have to accept that they can't do things on their own, and that's not just "techie" things, but also non-techie things too! Hence the need for carers etc.

ALDI sends coupons if you sign up to their newsletter. This is not based on what you buy. It is the same as coupons you used to get in newspapers. Totally different.

But this discussion was about Tesco, and the change they have made. Tesco is the only food shop within walking distance for my Mum, and she no longer drives, so talking specifically about Tesco's is pertinent in this case.

And as i said, loyalty card is different. Earning points or what ever. It's when a price is inflated to over twice what is paid when using a clubcard that it feels very unfair. I sadly had to use Tescos recently and the price with clubcard was £25 more, on a £60 shop (so £85 without a clubcard).

A. Tesco is not the only company that does this, so you are not right to concetrate on Tesco when
B. There is no difference at all. Discounts are achieved by producing a loyalty card either by earning points or gaining a cheaper price, it is still the same whether you have £20 worth of points or buying food using a club card promotion.
Your DM is missing out either way if she is not using the loyalty cards

@justteanbiscuits

But this discussion was about Tesco, and the change they have made. Tesco is the only food shop within walking distance for my Mum, and she no longer drives, so talking specifically about Tesco's is pertinent in this case.

It's just luck of the draw as to which supermarket(s) you have near you.

Some people only have a Waitrose, M&S or Booths, or even just a small independent, so will be paying more anyway.

Some people only have an Aldi or Lidl, so won't have access to branded goods.

Some people are "lucky" and will have a nearby Tesco, Morrisons, Asda and Sainsbury.

It's just life really - some people are "luckier" than others as to what shops and other facilities they have nearby.

I think there is a difference. Saving points takes MUCH longer, whereas a Tesco Clubcard can shave off £4 of an item there and then.

But the nectar card gives immediate savings on items in Sainsbury's, and I'm pretty sure Morrisons do that too now.

So how are they different?