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    DF VIP Member flumperino's Avatar
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    Default How Supermarkets rip you off

    Just found a very interesting article from the Daily Mail

    Shopped! How supermarkets rip you off

    By JOANNA BLYTHMAN

    Think you're making a saving by shopping at a superstore? Joanna Blythman reveals the devious tricks the big supermarkets use to make rip-offs look like bargains. Fall for one con - get another one FREE:
    Every little helps! The very best for less! Everyday low prices! Quality food attractively priced! Listen to our supermarkets' slogans and you might be persuaded that they all compete madly to give price conscious shoppers the very best deal.
    But do they? Earlier this week, it was revealed that Tesco's 'half-price' fruit and veg promotion in the New Year was not all that it seemed.
    The price of the produce was doubled for one week, making it twice as expensive as normal, before being cut back to its usual price, thus enabling the supermarket to claim that it was offering a 50 per cent discount.
    So what other marketing gimmicks and sly pricing strategies do the supermarkets use to fool the customer? Here, Joanna Blythman - a leading food campaigner and author of Bad Food Britain: How A Nation Ruined Its Appetite - explains how its done.
    THE DAZZLE FACTOR
    Supermarkets know that shoppers form their impression of whether or not a chain offers good value largely on the basis of a few benchmark staples like milk, bread, baked beans and bananas.
    The trick is to make sure that these 'price-sensitive' lines appear cheap and so pull us into the store.
    Dazzled by low prices on these basic necessities, we are encouraged to believe that these are representative of everything else in the store. The reality is often rather different.
    Supermarkets know that they can subsidise these value items by hiking up margins on other lines. So they mark down the price of sliced white bread and mark up the ciabatta to compensate; or slash the price of bananas while charging over the odds for banoffee pie.
    Most of us simply won't notice that what we seem to be given with one hand is being taken away, many times over, by the other.
    FRESH FOOD GOLDMINE
    People tend to assume that because of their massive buying power, supermarkets will beat independent shops on price. This can be the case with will beat independent shops price. This can be the case with popular brands of processed food and drink, but the opposite is often true of fresh, unprocessed food.
    Few supermarket shoppers crosscheck prices with small, independent shops, but a trip to a greengrocer, butcher, fishmonger or market stall can be a revelation.
    Swop your fresh food shopping to the independent sector and you can expect to save anything from 20 to 40 per cent.
    Incidentally, you may have noticed that when one supermarket chain brags about its cheap prices, it will make a comparison with a competitor chain - not with independent fresh food shops.
    That's because in these key fresh food categories, supermarkets are nearly always pricier than traditional High Street shops.
    THE VITAL ECO IMAGE
    Supermarkets love to put organic and Fairtrade products on their shelves because it makes it seem as if they have a social and ethical conscience. In reality, though, they have a hard-nosed financial incentive to stock them.
    Organic and Fairtrade lines sell for more than the standard equivalent because they retail for a premium price. And as supermarkets expect to make a profit margin of at least 36 per cent on anything they sell, the higher the cost then the greater their net profit.
    So while the shopper imagines they are primarily helping small, ethical suppliers by choosing Fairtrade and organic goods, they are actually handing an even greater chunk of money to the supermarket giants, thank you very much.
    SQUEEZING
    Buy one, get one free. Three for the price of two...Who can resist these sorts of offers? But these bargain deals generally don't cost the supermarkets anything - because they make their suppliers pay for them instead.
    In order to be an approved supplier to a supermarket, farmers and food producers are expected to underwrite the cost of any special promotions themselves.
    The supermarkets claim that this benefits the supplier in the longterm - because customers will be tempted to try products they would not normally buy.
    In reality, most suppliers know that it doesn't necessarily work that way. More likely, shoppers with an eye for a bargain will stock up on the lines when they are reduced, but ignore them when they are not.
    For suppliers, that means a brief period of big sales but reduced profits when they are forced to underwrite the promotion, followed by a sudden plunge in sales when the price returns to normal. It makes it very hard for suppliers to manage production levels effectively.
    But if they don't jump to the supermarkets' tune and agree to fund these special offers, the farmer or supplier risks being axed altogether.
    SPEND, SPEND, SPEND!
    Supermarket shopping, with its emphasis on stocking up with all your food for the whole week, encourages consumers to buy more than they actually need as a matter of course, encouraged by deals that offer reduced prices for buying items in bulk.
    The result? A staggering 40 per cent of all food bought in the UK is thrown out uneaten. Good news for the supermarket, not good news for their customers' bank accounts.
    A NUMBERS GAME
    What with stopping the kids doing somersaults out of the shopping trolley, and racking your brains about what to cook for the next seven days, few shoppers tour the aisles with a calculator in hand, checking out supermarket arithmetic or rummaging for reading spectacles to squint at the small print on the price tag.
    But there are lots of traps for the unwary. For example, that eyecatching 'Half-price' or '£1 off' banner might relate to the price-per-kilo, rather than the price-per-pack, meaning that on relatively light items, such as spinach, the heavily-promoted reduction is, in fact, utterly insignificant.
    Equally, when you rush to buy those two-for-the-price-of-one punnets of blueberries, you may not notice that the pack size has been reduced from normal - leaving you paying the same price by weight as before, while thinking you've got a bargain.
    Incidentally, while greengrocers, butchers and fishmongers tend to advertise their prices in kilos, supermarkets specialise in arbitrary pack sizes, like 225 grams.
    This makes it far harder for customers to work out how much they are paying for what quantity.
    CHANGING PRICES
    If you thought that supermarket chains charge the same for any product in all their stores, then think again. Supermarkets are allowed to use 'dynamic pricing' - varying prices to take account of different markets.
    In practice, some supermarkets use this to charge more where they can get away with it - for example, in a more affluent area.
    Even within one town, a supermarket chain's prices can vary, so a box of cornflakes in one of their city centre convenience stores may well cost you more than if you bought it in their superstore nearby.
    THE FEELGOOD FACTOR
    It's so appealing, isn't it - the idea that, at no extra expense to you the shopper, the money you spend on food is helping to give local schools new computers, sports equipment or the like?
    But if you look at the small print in the terms and conditions and calculate the amount you would have to spend to generate that 'free' benefit, then it soon becomes apparent that they are primarily just another way to buy customer loyalty and encourage shoppers to spend more.
    For example, last month the Mail revealed how in order to qualify for a 'free' trampoline worth £3,000 from Tesco, parents would have to spend the equivalent of £1 million at the supermarket tills.
    THE SHOPPING 'SNOOP'
    Ever wondered why the person at the check-out is so keen to scan your 'customer loyalty card'? It's not because they're desperate for you to collect as many loyalty points as possible. No, it's so the chain can collate information about your shopping habits - where you shop, what you buy, how often and so on.
    When linked with the personal details you gave them when you signed up for the scheme, this enables them to target you with promotions by post that are tailored around your shopping habits.
    JOANNA BLYTHMAN is author of Shopped: The Shocking Power of British Supermarkets.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...79&in_a_source

    I'm a bit of a pikey penny pincher when it comes to shopping, so didn't particularly find any revelations in the article....but I did find the bit about loyalty cards quite interesting....

    Shooooooo-ryuken!

  2. #2
    DF VIP Member marcode's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Supermarkets rip you off

    what the fuck did you think they were doing with clubcards? giving you a point on the pound for fuck all? lol

    its pretty obvious that they keep all that buying info for data mining purposes.. thats why i never use a clubcard or anything..

    loyalty card my arse.. information collection card is closer to reality.

    all the other stuff is fairly well documented and not in the slightest surprising or shocking.. these are for profit companies.. they just happen to be getting very good at it.

    tesco et al started out from humble beginnings just like other small grocers and shops...

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    DF VIP Member burner1's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Supermarkets rip you off

    Interesting read in some ways, it's a lot more about marketing than managing these days. I found out not too long ago how much better it was to buy a lot of my food at local shops than the chains..I can buy as much or little as I like rather than a prepack chemically treated one that is usually too much for what I want and some of it ends up getting thrown in the bin. Trouble is, many of us simply become conditioned to the strategy that the big 4 are ultimately cheaper without taking our blinkers off.
    "An evil exists that threatens every man, woman, and child of this great nation. We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland." - Adolf Hitler, 1933

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    DF VIP Member elephantsoup's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Supermarkets rip you off

    Typical trash journalism.. make statements but dont back up your Facts.
    "Swop your fresh food shopping to the independent sector and you can expect to save anything from 20 to 40 per cent." .. Weres the evidence this is true?
    and
    "A staggering 40 per cent of all food bought in the UK is thrown out uneaten".. Wheres the source of this statistic?

    Im no lover of the big supermarkets.. but until we got the likes of tesco and sainsbury here the local shops were charging 85p for a loaf of bread then they dropped to 29p to match the new boys.

    Anway once again we have a piece of sensationalist journalism with no sources quoted to back up the facts.

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    DF VIP Member flumperino's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Supermarkets rip you off

    What annoys me most about supermarkets is when you have finally worked out where all the stuff is that you regularly buy....they move it all around to make you have to look for it again (and find other things you want to buy while looking....)

    Shooooooo-ryuken!

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    DF Techie drunkn_munky's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Supermarkets rip you off

    But why do you care if they know if you buy Cheerios or Cornflakes??! As long as it's saving me money, I couldn't give a rat's arse if they know my shopping habits.
    Note: I am not an admin. I just have a red name :happy:

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    Default Re: How Supermarkets rip you off

    Well this is basic economics really, learn a lot of this in AS eco. Very good to read this or be aware of it, most people would judge tesco as being the cheapest for everything/most things associated with supermarkets, however (in my area at least) the practically forgotten Asda has a LOT cheaper goods and a larger selection for alcohol and many other product lines.

    Its all about psychology from the location of products in the store, where they are on the shelf, no empty spaces, first impressions walking in the store and a basket of goods.


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    DF VIP Member Nikki's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Supermarkets rip you off

    Quote Originally Posted by drunkn_munky View Post
    But why do you care if they know if you buy Cheerios or Cornflakes??! As long as it's saving me money, I couldn't give a rat's arse if they know my shopping habits.


    That a good although thinking from a business point of view we knew that they are making their £s in many ways and just thinking of their profit, fcuk the customers, we will just add fancy names cards and try and make them think they are important we will reward them

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    DF VIP Member urbsy's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Supermarkets rip you off

    I felt well ripped off in asda yesterday when I got a mothers day card and some flowers and still had change from a fiver.

    urbsy
    Drugs are only a problem to people who can't afford them.


    urbsy's cat says destroy all censorship on cat porn!

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    DF VIP Member burner1's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Supermarkets rip you off

    Quote Originally Posted by urbsy View Post
    I felt well ripped off in asda yesterday when I got a mothers day card and some flowers and still had change from a fiver.

    urbsy
    It gets even cheaper when they're dead mate, can't moan about the quality
    "An evil exists that threatens every man, woman, and child of this great nation. We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland." - Adolf Hitler, 1933

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    Default Re: How Supermarkets rip you off

    Only a million for £3k of equipment? That's more than I thought it would be.

  12. #12
    DF Techie drunkn_munky's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Supermarkets rip you off

    Quote Originally Posted by evilsatan View Post
    Well this is basic economics really, learn a lot of this in AS eco. Very good to read this or be aware of it, most people would judge tesco as being the cheapest for everything/most things associated with supermarkets, however (in my area at least) the practically forgotten Asda has a LOT cheaper goods and a larger selection for alcohol and many other product lines.

    Its all about psychology from the location of products in the store, where they are on the shelf, no empty spaces, first impressions walking in the store and a basket of goods.
    Tesco were selling TVs for the price that Safeway were buying them for Tesco is cheaper, and the fact that it's the biggest retailer in the UK doesn't hurt either.
    Note: I am not an admin. I just have a red name :happy:

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    Default Re: How Supermarkets rip you off

    Quote Originally Posted by marcode View Post
    its pretty obvious that they keep all that buying info for data mining purposes.. thats why i never use a clubcard or anything..
    Me too mate. I'm going for a £10 specsavers eye test soon, it's only a tenner so they can pester me with crap through the letterbox forever. I'll be using the folks address, or a fake one

    p.s. I always check the fine print to keep my details off databases etc. Not that I'm overly suspicious of my details being passed around (but I am) I just hate having unwanted mail. Yeah, f-off staples, f**k me I only ordered one reel of sellotape to get some free scales you tossers.
    No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...

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    DF VIP Member marcode's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Supermarkets rip you off

    Quote Originally Posted by drunkn_munky View Post
    But why do you care if they know if you buy Cheerios or Cornflakes??! As long as it's saving me money, I couldn't give a rat's arse if they know my shopping habits.
    in that context it doesnt sound like much, but over the years the amount of info they glean through what you buy builds up..

    maybe im paranoid, but i dont like the thought of all that information and marketing crap being held for fuck knows how long and being sold to any cunt who asks.

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    DF VIP Member burner1's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Supermarkets rip you off

    Quote Originally Posted by drunkn_munky View Post
    Tesco were selling TVs for the price that Safeway were buying them for Tesco is cheaper, and the fact that it's the biggest retailer in the UK doesn't hurt either.
    Pink Floyds 'Welcome to the machine' comes to mind
    "An evil exists that threatens every man, woman, and child of this great nation. We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland." - Adolf Hitler, 1933

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    Default Re: How Supermarkets rip you off

    My cousin made a documentary about Tesco a few years ago & it had some great points about clubcards etc. like they sell the information on to third parties. They don't give a toss about the consumer but frankly if they weren't number one whoever else was would be doing the exact same thing.

    The one thing I might do is get an asda credit card because I fill up there every week & it will get me 5p off. They will be able to make a log of my purchases which will be petrol-petrol-petrol etc.

    There was a report a couple of years ago about tesco chemists sending a woman reminders of when to buy her sanitary towels, based on clubcard data.
    No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...

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