3 ms·
Would be great if they standardised on 'price per year of use' like they do now in australia where food always has to have the $/100g or $/100ml in addition to
by bobbles 12y ago
Would be great if they standardised on 'price per year of use' like they do now in australia where food always has to have the $/100g or $/100ml in addition to the unit price.
(Many supermarkets were basically rorting people by charging more for the 'bulk' items but labelling them as best value)
- eru 12y agoIn Britain they also have some unit-price law. But Tesco blatantly abuses it: eg one kind of apple is priced by piece, the next goes per 100g (or per 1kg, but converting between 100g and 1kg is simpler).
- johnchristopher 12y agoFor what it's worth we have a unit-price law in France and Belgium as well. I can't be certain but I am pretty sure we had that before the Euro currency was introduced and it was mandatory after that.
- joshvm 12y agoI believe that's because you have situations where you're buying multiple items that have variable weights, but a fixed total price. For instance, a bag of apples will not be exactly 200g, it might be 205g or 195g. However, you know it will have 4 apples in it so you're paying per apple. If you buy apples loosely then you can pick the weight and pay accordingly. You can see the same for the fixed price chickens vs the organic/free-range that are priced by weight. Although Tesco will no doubt try to game the system, it is in their interest to show you understandable unit prices because they want to flog their stuff cheaper than the brands.
- eru 12y agoOh, I don't mind if they would price all their apples either by unit or by kg. It's just the mix and match that's designed to confuse you. > Although Tesco will no doubt try to game the system, it is in their interest to show you understandable unit prices because they want to flog their stuff cheaper than the brands. I'm not sure Tesco makes more money on the cheaper stuff. People who care about price and quality go to Lidl and Aldi anyway (if available in the vicinity).
- thaumasiotes 12y agoIn Shanghai there's a brand of milk, Ubest, that comes in 500 mL, 950 mL, and 1350 mL containers. The best price per mL is always the 950 mL size. This always bugs me -- what's the point of buying larger sizes if it's not cheaper?
- eru 12y agoCould be more convenient in the fridge? Though I guess it's just a ploy by the retailer. Perhaps they are trying to hit certain magic price points. (Like 0.99 of local currency.)
- thaumasiotes 12y agoThey're definitely not going for special price points; pricing for the two larger sizes is quite odd. I think I generally pay 16.8 yuan for a 950 mL carton.
- imjustsaying 12y agoPeople may have become accustomed to assume that the larger product is a better deal, so perhaps this is a way to achieve the higher profit margin of the two options through understanding consumer behavior. Note that this most likely not Ubest's pricing decision, but the convenience store or grocer retailer that sells the product to the end consumer.
- thaumasiotes 12y agoI tend to suspect that Ubest's pricing decisions play into it, because it's easy to observe the price of Ubest milk varying between convenience stores, wal-mart, supermarkets in poorer areas, supermarkets in richer areas, etc, but the fact that the largest size is more expensive per unit weight than the second-largest size never changes.