Are UK Supermarkets dishonest when they say they are selling strawberries etc., at ½ price at £1.99 a punnet.

Question

Since they set the price surely the full price is £1.99. Otherwise they would be making an extortionate profit if they charged £3.98.

Answer 1

They would have sold it at the high price for a day or so then put the half price offer on. that way its still legal and some people actually think their getting a bargain.

go to a PYO farm. lot better and more fun with the kids

Answer 2

I bought 3 x 500gr punnets for £2 today from my local veg market.

Answer 3

Have you ever went into any supermarket that was honest.

Answer 4

It's all lies in supermarkets, have you only just realised?

Answer 5

The law says that an item must first be advertised at its usual price before it can be reduced. I'm not sure how long for though. Could just be a few hours and they're home free.  I'm sure some of the people with trolleys carrying a mountain of groceries in Sainsbury's don't even look at the price anyway.

Answer 6

They get away with it if they have previously sold at that price within the last 28 days.

Therefore a store in shall we say Inverness sells them at £3.98 on July first only. Then that store and every other store in the chain can sell them at half that price for the next 27 days.

Then it all starts again and is perfectly legal.

Answer 7

yes and they do the same with buy one get one free. the first item is double its normal price  so the second one isnt really free.  im banning supermarkets where ever possible. they are out   to rob us.

Answer 8

They can play about with prices quite a lot and still be inside the law.  The oldest one is the 'loss leader'  where they sell something at a very low price and actually make a loss.  But the idea is to get people inside their stores knowing that they will buy other things as well.

Answer 9

I agree with you to some extent, the other example is that they've been having a promotion on *Buy One Get One Free* - 200 gr Cooked and Peeled King Prawns and get another pack for free at £5.

Answer 10

yes - well answered

Answer 11

It's disingenuous if not actually illegal, as others have said.  

Re the mention of BOGOF deals, they're often not good either.  You have to check the unit price (look on the tag on the shelf) to see the best price, also do some math and compare prices.  Example:  A store (no names) was selling a pro-biotic drink x8 pack for £4.50, BOGOF (16 bottles total).  But just around the corner on the aisle end cooler shelf, there was the same product x4 packs on sale for £1 each.  So it was actually 50p cheaper to buy 4 4-packs (also 16 bottles total) at the sale price than to get 2 at the BOGOF price!

Supermarkets are relying on shoppers to not pay attention to what they buy, or to get us to *think* we're getting a bargain when we often aren't.  It pays to shop carefully!