Waitrose Easter Eggs

[Cotswoldmum70]

AIBU in expecting to pay £11 for these Easter eggs in my local store in Stratford upon Avon? According to the manager and supervisor I am being not only unreasonable but proper stupid because I didn’t read the small print which says the price depends on the weight. The eggs on the display are the extra big ones and cost £15. Silly me! I gave them back their eggs together with quite a large piece of my mind which may result in me being banned in future. But honestly, isn’t it a gigantic con?

Ha! Not remotely. I'm just rational.

And I don't believe for a minute that the store manager told you that they deliberately mis-label shelves in order to trick customers into buying the wrong, more expensive item.

No but he absolutely said, and I quote ‘it is perfect legal, although it may not be considered great customer practice.’ Which I thought was pretty damning.

You need to get a new job if you can't cope with customers querying prices when a whole display is blatantly priced incorrectly. She has a valid point.

So you are knowingly working in a shop that sets out to trick people as to the prices they will be paying? I’m not sure I’d be admitting that in public if it was me…..

YANBU at all! But I couldn’t even believe they’re charging £11 fucking quid for them! (Which they’re not evidently) minuscule amount of chocolate for maximum profit just because it’s shaped like a bastard egg! £15!!! Fuck right off.

Unless it's a mistake, it's deliberately misleading to the point where it's basically lying. Any reasonable person would assume the eggs are £11.

Are we actually saying NONE of the eggs in that huge pile cost £11? If so that surely needs go to trading standards.

Put it on twitter too.

Where were the slightly smaller £11 ones?

Very dodgy. Sales of goods act covers product labelling - to me, this is misleading on the price. Several labels saying eggs are £11 with no eggs available for that price on the display.

Whilst contract law covers offer and acceptance, the offer must be reasonable. And given there are multiple labels saying £11 on that display, it was reasonable for you to offer £11. Waitrose did not have to accept that offer, as £11 referred to a different size egg which, although not displayed, was indicated on the label. They are not obligated to sell you a £15 egg for £11.

That said, going back to sale of goods act, the display not matching the labels is misleading and, as the store manager did not immediately take corrective action, could be deliberately misleading (accidents happen, someone may have made a lovely display with the wrong eggs, but once pointed out this needed to have been corrected).

I'd report to your local trading standards.

I suspect someone has fucked up.
It's not a conspiracy.
The laws are well known.
Supermarkets are under huge personnel pressure. Some 16 yo will have been told to make the display.
And used the wrong stock. Nobody will have checked.

Yes, if that advertising was there, with the smaller eggs behind, you either get the egg at the advertised price or they withdraw all the stock from sale.

Not that I know about supermarkets.. ahem.

That’s fake advertising! I would be doing exactly the same as you ! Keep us updated

You can call it first world problems but I hate Waitrose with such passion now. Some years ago, it was amazing but the last few years have become a bloody joke. I’ve written to them but they ignored me.
They went from a decent supermarket to horrible quality, messy messy stores and prices you’d think, you shop at Selfridges deli. What the hell were they thinking? They changed that inexperienced CEO now but it’d take years to get back to where they were, if they ever do.
And it’s not the first time, they do dubious stuff.
I walked out the other day whilst looking for particular ice cream that was on offer. They removed it from its usual place next to the rest of the ice-creams and put it between the frozen tarts/cakes and the fish. When I enquired I was told they do it so “customers can look for it and find other things they might wanna buy”.
Tell me that’s not some shitty practise of a rubbish double glazing salesman you see in trading standards tv series.

Literally nowhere to be seen. That’s why I was so bloody cross.

There were literally no smaller eggs to be seen - obviously that would have made me think twice, possibly? Just a great tower of large luxury eggs plastered with the £11 sign. This thread is the best thing I could have done to vent. Thanks so much for the positive affirmations 🙏

I visit this particular Waitrose when I'm down at my sons who lives nearby. I've noticed issues with misleading shelf labelling on a few occasions and have been caught out. I've very careful about double checking now.
Continue your crusade OP, let us know how you get on.

I can see why you're irritated and I think they should have been polite. This is at the very least, misleading.

But also I think staff are increasingly being so poorly managed:treated that this may well have been poor communication from whoever was responsible for this display.

I'm unfailingly polite with anyone who works with customers - I almost always get treated absolutely perfectly as a consequence.

Having worked with customers for the last few years - it hard to describe how rude people can be.

But still the customer should be treated as if they're right regardless unless they are being abusive.

OP, I'd be curious to know if they've changed the display if you went back today.

But no, you are not being unreasonable. It is a reasonable assumption we make as shoppers that the price we are paying is the one the product is next to. Obviously there will be mistakes, or times when people have put products back in the wrong place, but this is not a mistake. Or if it was, the manager should have acknowledged it and given assurances the display would be changed.

This. The polite thing to do would have been to honour the price they were clearly being advertised for. No, they don't legally have to but customer service is important.

Again infairness to the shelf stacker both the £11 eggs and £15 ones look exactly the same. One has truffles and one has mini eggs but there’s no huge difference in either size or packaging.

I didn’t understand why they didn’t honour it though (although if you had made a big public fuss I can see everyone behind you grabbing one and getting their bargain).

I would go in and check to see it’s been changed. If they haven’t there’s a case for taking it further.

mistakes happen, but the key issue here is the way this was managed by store management. Preferred outcome: apologise to customer, sell the eggs at £11 to the customer and then change the display to ensure correct eggs are under the sign.

Predictably luke warm response. Over to trading standards.

Good for you @Cotswoldmum70

Your email address is on display here. Also not sure what you were expecting they've said they will contact the store manager to rectify it. Your fight for the visually impaired also seems disingenuous and I say that as the mum of a visually impaired little boy. I get that it wasn't ideal but there's a lot going on in the world to get this angry about mis priced Easter eggs.

Seems a perfectly decent reply to me. I really don't know what you're looking for here, OP. This just isn't the massive deal that you seem to think.

Nothing disingenuous here. Apologies if I have upset you. I’m genuinely angry on behalf of all vulnerable customers. And yes I agree that this is a trivial issue in the grand scheme of things. I wish your little boy all the best.

No it’s really not a massive deal, if you take it in isolation, but it does represent a shift away from good old fashioned honest retail towards somehow that just feels a little bit sinister and dishonest. We can agree to disagree. I will be a bit more savvy in future.