When is a supermarket special really a special?

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sdav

846 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1050421 21-May-2014 12:45

itxtme: Was in at PaknSave on the weekend and was excited to see so much of there meat on special. Looked at the price tag more closely and alot of it was this kind of special

My sentiments are this is an attempt to use the special tag to get people to emotively purchase the products, a saving of 0.48% on the original price per kg - seriously!? While maybe its not strictly illegal it doesnt seem to be particularly ethical!

I'm pretty sure this could be contested. I think the Commerce Commission could look in to it because they would look at what is fair or misleading. To me, that is misleading because a special (esp. with words and a sticker that large) imply a decent discount which this is not. It would be better had they indicated the price change some other way. The Commerce Commission also take in to account how often this happens too I believe.

stagnant16

206 posts

Master Geek

#1050501 21-May-2014 15:02

I'm pretty sure this could be contested. I think the Commerce Commission could look in to it because they would look at what is fair or misleading. To me, that is misleading because a special (esp. with words and a sticker that large) imply a decent discount which this is not. It would be better had they indicated the price change some other way. The Commerce Commission also take in to account how often this happens too I believe.

Highly likely nothing more than a simple error.

mattwnz

20164 posts

Uber Geek

#1050512 21-May-2014 15:18

What is the legal definition of something being on special though? A minimum of 5%? You don't usually see any special promotion for less than 5%, and these days people expect 50% off.

ahmad

1937 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1050627 21-May-2014 19:50

sdav:
itxtme: Was in at PaknSave on the weekend and was excited to see so much of there meat on special. Looked at the price tag more closely and alot of it was this kind of special

My sentiments are this is an attempt to use the special tag to get people to emotively purchase the products, a saving of 0.48% on the original price per kg - seriously!? While maybe its not strictly illegal it doesnt seem to be particularly ethical!

I'm pretty sure this could be contested. I think the Commerce Commission could look in to it because they would look at what is fair or misleading. To me, that is misleading because a special (esp. with words and a sticker that large) imply a decent discount which this is not. It would be better had they indicated the price change some other way. The Commerce Commission also take in to account how often this happens too I believe.

Lol a quick phone call to the commission will confirm that you are wasting everyone's time here.

sdav

846 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1050675 21-May-2014 21:09

I'm not all bothered by it, I just think it is pushing it. Besides, I would have thought it would be based on what the normal person holds to be special. IMO I think people expect a special to at least be one percent of the original amount for it to be considered a "SPECIAL" haha

sdav

846 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1050678 21-May-2014 21:12

stagnant16:
I'm pretty sure this could be contested. I think the Commerce Commission could look in to it because they would look at what is fair or misleading. To me, that is misleading because a special (esp. with words and a sticker that large) imply a decent discount which this is not. It would be better had they indicated the price change some other way. The Commerce Commission also take in to account how often this happens too I believe.

Highly likely nothing more than a simple error.

I doubt a human was involved in this other than putting the sticker on.

Normally in these situations I just see a normal sticker placed over the old one, or slightly near it.

mattwnz

20164 posts

Uber Geek

#1050683 21-May-2014 21:19

KiwiNZ: We stopped buying meat from Supermarkets with the exception of Chicken. We have mostly found meat to be poor quality especially Lamb, the Lamb at Countdown stinks we you unwrap it. We travel over the hill to Greytown (Wairarapa for non Wellingtonians) to buy our meat from a great little
Butcher. His meat is awesome.

I know the one you mean. The only meat apart from chicken I buy is the Silverferns one. More expensive, but you just have smaller quantities. You get what you pay for with meat. Although the last one we got was quite tough.

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itxtme

2102 posts

Uber Geek

#1050691 21-May-2014 21:28

sdav:
stagnant16:
I'm pretty sure this could be contested. I think the Commerce Commission could look in to it because they would look at what is fair or misleading. To me, that is misleading because a special (esp. with words and a sticker that large) imply a decent discount which this is not. It would be better had they indicated the price change some other way. The Commerce Commission also take in to account how often this happens too I believe.

Highly likely nothing more than a simple error.

I doubt a human was involved in this other than putting the sticker on.

Normally in these situations I just see a normal sticker placed over the old one, or slightly near it.

I dont know why you say that.. as stated originally it was not only the eye fillet (and it was ALL of the eye fillet) with a similar special. The porter house had a similar pricing reduction of $0.2 per/kg. Given it is a cheaper price about 27.99kg the reduction would have been more - a crazy 0.715% off the original price...

raytaylor

4014 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1050774 21-May-2014 23:31

KiwiNZ: We stopped buying meat from Supermarkets with the exception of Chicken. We have mostly found meat to be poor quality especially Lamb, the Lamb at Countdown stinks we you unwrap it. We travel over the hill to Greytown (Wairarapa for non Wellingtonians) to buy our meat from a great little
Butcher. His meat is awesome.

I used to live in Upper Hutt, and even from there, greytown seems a little far to go for meat.
Then again, I only eat cooked food sourced from a supermarket in the form of a weight watchers microwave meal.

Which incidentally were on special for $5 each at countdown last week - so I bought $300 worth and filled up the freezer.

Processed = better
Processed by the good suppliers to the McDonalds corporation = better still

I liked working at the warehouse. On Monday nights, all special labeling came down, and on tuesday morning all the new special labeling went up. If something was on special two weeks in a row, a new label was printed on the tuesday anyway so there were less mistakes.

As a shopper at countdown, what pisses me off is the fact they have "onecard" specials vs specials for everyone.
I have filled in the form 3 times to get a onecard and they never send it out. So i make the checkout operator type the store master number.

Also a supermarket markup is usually between 4% and 10% so a special to them is not as much as you would expect in other areas of the retail industry - and most specials are subsidised by the manufacturer or supplier - since many only rent the shelfspace in the stores.

Edit: I take that back - Ipods and Playstations. A retailer usually has a markup of $3 to $6 when selling a playstation console or an ipod - they make a 50% margin on the accessories instead.

Ray Taylor

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pctek

807 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#1050827 22-May-2014 07:37

What I call a special is the price per KG....
For instance standard price for snitzel is $15kg, or $13 round some of the other butchers.
Way worse in Countdown, it was $19 the other week.

Special is $9.99kg. Pak N Save had it for that price last week.

Chicken - I always go to the chicken shop on Swanson Rd, it's always $5kg for pieces there.

If you know what the normal price is for something, you can watch for real specials. I don't buy any meat over $10kg.
Veges, fruit, usually always a vege shop - always cheaper than supermarkets.

Supermarkets are not the best place for a lot of things.

ahmad

1937 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1051115 22-May-2014 14:50

sdav: I'm not all bothered by it, I just think it is pushing it. Besides, I would have thought it would be based on what the normal person holds to be special. IMO I think people expect a special to at least be one percent of the original amount for it to be considered a "SPECIAL" haha

Pretty certain that there is no minimum discount for something to be called price reduced or "special". As long as it is in fact reduced from the usual selling price.

nigelj

856 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1051118 22-May-2014 14:57

ahmad:
sdav: I'm not all bothered by it, I just think it is pushing it. Besides, I would have thought it would be based on what the normal person holds to be special. IMO I think people expect a special to at least be one percent of the original amount for it to be considered a "SPECIAL" haha

Pretty certain that there is no minimum discount for something to be called price reduced or "special". As long as it is in fact reduced from the usual selling price.

There is however an expectation that a price reduction be geniune. i.e. Countdown got in trouble after it turned out that they advertised a product as been on special continuously for about 6 months (I believe it was certain liqour products - Beer), while the price had changed week-to-week, over an extremely long period, it never returned to what Countdown claimed to be the original price, so as I recall, ComCom stung them during one of their 'Beer Weeks' when they were claiming X% off. Would be about 12-18% months ago.

As long as the original price quoted is geniune, any discount can be a 'special' I believe.

n.b. This is why they now use terms like 'Introductory Price' for new products, because they don't want to get trapped into the expectations game of the word 'special', even though technically it would be okay usage.

mattwnz

20164 posts

Uber Geek

#1051120 22-May-2014 14:59

raytaylor:
KiwiNZ: We stopped buying meat from Supermarkets with the exception of Chicken. We have mostly found meat to be poor quality especially Lamb, the Lamb at Countdown stinks we you unwrap it. We travel over the hill to Greytown (Wairarapa for non Wellingtonians) to buy our meat from a great little
Butcher. His meat is awesome.

Also a supermarket markup is usually between 4% and 10% so a special to them is not as much as you would expect in other areas of the retail industry - and most specials are subsidised by the manufacturer or supplier - since many only rent the shelfspace in the stores.

Edit: I take that back - Ipods and Playstations. A retailer usually has a markup of $3 to $6 when selling a playstation console or an ipod - they make a 50% margin on the accessories instead.

I believe the margins in supermarkets vary depending on the type of food. One high margin area is fruit and veges. I know a grower who was getting about 20 cents per kilo for some goods and the super market was then selling it at 2.99 or higher. Meat is possibly also a higher margin area. Things like packaged and tinned goods probably have lower margins, although they price rotate them, so a tin of baked beans one week maybe $2.20, but the next week they maybe at a lower 'special' price of $1.

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