6 ms·

Unsure if it's law in the UK - but every UK supermarket I've visited has price per 100g / kg / litre / 100ml on every product. Rather amusingly (to me!), lavat

Unsure if it's law in the UK - but every UK supermarket I've visited has price per 100g / kg / litre / 100ml on every product. Rather amusingly (to me!), lavatory paper has a price per sheet, which is abbreviated "sht"... https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/304782328 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/304782328

lozenge 3y ago
It is the law, with an exception for small shops, food "to go", etc. But, it only applies to the ordinary price. Any multibuy or conditional offer is excluded. Now stores have started putting the real price behind a free loyalty card without a unit price, and a ridiculous fake price (like, 2x or more) on the ordinary price tag. The Competition and Markets Authority has started an investigation.
- globular-toast 3y ago
  That's good to know an investigation has been started. I can't believe anyone would fall for the "clubcard price" nonsense but requiring a clubcard and displaying a fake ridiculous price should both be illegal.
  - maxehmookau 3y ago
    It's not a case of "falling" for it. It's a case of being effectively forced to sign up for these schemes to pay a reasonable price for shopping. I hope the CMA comes down hard. It's disgusting.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  Tesco pioneered some of the most hilariously sharp practices that mean you really need to have your wits (or enough money to not care) with you. "30p each or only 3 for £1" isn't a joke. I saw this in a London store when they tried making multi-pack offers near the checkout actually more expensive than picking up separate items. "Meal Deals" are a fantastic scam that charge you more for eating less. If you don't take the crisps or drink it doesn't "count" as the meal-deal, and the individual items cost more. I end up buying an extra bag of crisps I don't want and giving it to the homeless person outside. Like many British supermarkets they operate a three tier pricing structure, normal, discounted (with yellow labels) and "Clubcard" prices. These are applied to similar items on proximate shelves, so you're never quite sure which ones the offers apply to. Sometimes those little yellow stickers don't scan, and surprise.. you pay the original price. And don't get me started on automatic checkouts, which are basically "mugging robots" designed to rob humans. Supermarkets are playgrounds for screwing people over with little mind games. What a desolation of human life for those who waste their days thinking up this shit.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    > "Meal Deals" are a fantastic scam that charge you more for eating less. If you don't take the crisps or drink it doesn't "count" as the meal-deal, and the individual items cost more. How is "If you add a third item the price sometimes goes down" a scam?
    - globular-toast 3y ago
      The real price is the "meal deal" price. The individual prices are scam prices which buyers will often pay if they aren't paying complete attention.
      - baz00 3y ago
        M&S run the real scam. They don't even do a meal deal. It just costs you £7.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        I don't think that's quite true. If I just want a bottle of water I wouldn't buy a meal deal to get the real price. Some of the meal deal items are subsidised more than others, it's true, but that doesn't make it a scam. Paying £3.50 or whatever for quite a lot of stuff is pretty amazing.
        globular-toast 3y ago
        You don't honestly think the supermarkets are letting you have it our of the goodness of their hearts do you? It's obvious what is going on: * £3.50 is the price. That means they'll make a profit on that. It's a "low" price because it's garbage, tasteless, low-quality junk food, * The supermarkets know which items are more likely to sell separately. Like your bottle of water example. So those items are individually priced higher while others that rarely sell separately (like sandwiches) will be individually priced low. Whatever it really is, the supermarket has all the data, they know how to win. Similarly, it's like how people think shoplifters steal from the supermarket. The supermarket knows how much stuff gets stolen each year. They price accordingly. Shoplifters steal from you.
- extraduder_ire 3y ago
  When the unit price is only shown for the non-discounted price, I usually pull up my phone's calculator out of spite if I don't know what it works out to mentally. Another thing that annoys me is there being no indication of how long a sale or promotion is running. Lidl does this correctly, and puts a to/from date on the price tag in tiny text. (for internal use, I assume. but still super useful) "Clubcard prices" somehow avoid the laws on misleading discounts as well, where the price you're discounting from needs to be the lowest price that product was on sale for for the preceding 30 days.
baz00 3y ago
The units are disingenuously applied in Tesco at least though which makes it difficult to compare. For example you might have price per sht (well you need at least 4 per sh*t ;) but there will also be a 2 for 1 offer with no price per sht and then a multi pack with no offer on it with a different price per sht. So you have three factors to compare to work out how many sh*ts per sht are best value. And then there's the confusion of loyalty card only prices. I have got to the point I'd rather shop at Waitrose because they don't pull that sht. On that note I think I'll go to Morrisons today and be mugged differently.
- gilleain 3y ago
  > I think I'll go to Morrisons today and be mugged differently This is a beautiful sentence, i think. Same sh*t, different day I suppose.
  - baz00 3y ago
    Yeah it is nice to at least have a little variation in sh*t though sometimes.
2Gkashmiri 3y ago
In india, very recently they started mandating small value comparisons. /g, /ml because its easier to say Rs. 2.04/g as compared to Rs. 204/100g. This makes so much more easy to compare

lozenge 3y ago

It is the law, with an exception for small shops, food "to go", etc. But, it only applies to the ordinary price. Any multibuy or conditional offer is excluded. Now stores have started putting the real price behind a free loyalty card without a unit price, and a ridiculous fake price (like, 2x or more) on the ordinary price tag. The Competition and Markets Authority has started an investigation.

globular-toast 3y ago
That's good to know an investigation has been started. I can't believe anyone would fall for the "clubcard price" nonsense but requiring a clubcard and displaying a fake ridiculous price should both be illegal.
- maxehmookau 3y ago
  It's not a case of "falling" for it. It's a case of being effectively forced to sign up for these schemes to pay a reasonable price for shopping. I hope the CMA comes down hard. It's disgusting.
nonrandomstring 3y ago
Tesco pioneered some of the most hilariously sharp practices that mean you really need to have your wits (or enough money to not care) with you. "30p each or only 3 for £1" isn't a joke. I saw this in a London store when they tried making multi-pack offers near the checkout actually more expensive than picking up separate items. "Meal Deals" are a fantastic scam that charge you more for eating less. If you don't take the crisps or drink it doesn't "count" as the meal-deal, and the individual items cost more. I end up buying an extra bag of crisps I don't want and giving it to the homeless person outside. Like many British supermarkets they operate a three tier pricing structure, normal, discounted (with yellow labels) and "Clubcard" prices. These are applied to similar items on proximate shelves, so you're never quite sure which ones the offers apply to. Sometimes those little yellow stickers don't scan, and surprise.. you pay the original price. And don't get me started on automatic checkouts, which are basically "mugging robots" designed to rob humans. Supermarkets are playgrounds for screwing people over with little mind games. What a desolation of human life for those who waste their days thinking up this shit.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > "Meal Deals" are a fantastic scam that charge you more for eating less. If you don't take the crisps or drink it doesn't "count" as the meal-deal, and the individual items cost more. How is "If you add a third item the price sometimes goes down" a scam?
  - globular-toast 3y ago
    The real price is the "meal deal" price. The individual prices are scam prices which buyers will often pay if they aren't paying complete attention.
    - baz00 3y ago
      M&S run the real scam. They don't even do a meal deal. It just costs you £7.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      I don't think that's quite true. If I just want a bottle of water I wouldn't buy a meal deal to get the real price. Some of the meal deal items are subsidised more than others, it's true, but that doesn't make it a scam. Paying £3.50 or whatever for quite a lot of stuff is pretty amazing.
      - globular-toast 3y ago
        You don't honestly think the supermarkets are letting you have it our of the goodness of their hearts do you? It's obvious what is going on: * £3.50 is the price. That means they'll make a profit on that. It's a "low" price because it's garbage, tasteless, low-quality junk food, * The supermarkets know which items are more likely to sell separately. Like your bottle of water example. So those items are individually priced higher while others that rarely sell separately (like sandwiches) will be individually priced low. Whatever it really is, the supermarket has all the data, they know how to win. Similarly, it's like how people think shoplifters steal from the supermarket. The supermarket knows how much stuff gets stolen each year. They price accordingly. Shoplifters steal from you.
extraduder_ire 3y ago
When the unit price is only shown for the non-discounted price, I usually pull up my phone's calculator out of spite if I don't know what it works out to mentally. Another thing that annoys me is there being no indication of how long a sale or promotion is running. Lidl does this correctly, and puts a to/from date on the price tag in tiny text. (for internal use, I assume. but still super useful) "Clubcard prices" somehow avoid the laws on misleading discounts as well, where the price you're discounting from needs to be the lowest price that product was on sale for for the preceding 30 days.

baz00 3y ago

The units are disingenuously applied in Tesco at least though which makes it difficult to compare. For example you might have price per sht (well you need at least 4 per sh*t ;) but there will also be a 2 for 1 offer with no price per sht and then a multi pack with no offer on it with a different price per sht. So you have three factors to compare to work out how many sh*ts per sht are best value. And then there's the confusion of loyalty card only prices. I have got to the point I'd rather shop at Waitrose because they don't pull that sht. On that note I think I'll go to Morrisons today and be mugged differently.

gilleain 3y ago
> I think I'll go to Morrisons today and be mugged differently This is a beautiful sentence, i think. Same sh*t, different day I suppose.
- baz00 3y ago
  Yeah it is nice to at least have a little variation in sh*t though sometimes.

2Gkashmiri 3y ago

In india, very recently they started mandating small value comparisons. /g, /ml because its easier to say Rs. 2.04/g as compared to Rs. 204/100g. This makes so much more easy to compare