Do you find supermarket offers misleading?
Around four in ten of all products sold in supermarkets are on some kind of special offer as retailers fight for custom.
But are what are perceived as bargains, really designed to save us money or spend more than we intended to? Research has found that many multi-buy, 3-for-2 or buy-one-get-one-free offers are actually more expensive for shoppers.
Whatever happened to transparent, simple, pricing on everyday products, so that at a glance you can see how much something costs, and not be tempted to over-buy on a product and ultimately waste it? Well hopefully, with some recently approved new legislation, things are about to change!
Sainsburys has announced it would scrap the vast majority of multi-buy deals by August, with special offers on confectionary, crisps and other “unhealthy” snacks being phased out sooner. The supermarket giant said multi-buys are “out-of-step” with today’s shoppers, whose main priorities are cuting back on waste and staying healthy.
Tesco is moving away from buy-one-get-one-free deals in favour of price cuts on single items, in a bid to become more like its fast-growing competitors, Aldi and Lidl. However Ocado is the only major UK grocer to have increased its multi-buy promotions (by 5%) over the last 12 months.
What are your views? With many of the bigger supermarkets implementing change, have you noticed less offers yet? Can you easily calculate what is a genuine value for money saving and what is a rip-off? Would you rather buy something for half the price that to get an item free?
