Comments on: The tricks that supermarkets play to stop you from comparing on price

By: User Interfaces Designed to Trick People | Serving Niches Blog

User Interfaces Designed to Trick People | Serving Niches Blog — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 07:05:14 +0000

[...] Supermarkets (in the real world) that prevent you from comparing products on price, by putting items in different sized bundles. [...]

By: Pete Williams

Pete Williams — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:04:35 +0000

@Joe – It’s not always that simple. For instance in Tesco loose apples are just labelled as £X per kg, whereas the bagged ones are per apple. So you can’t directly compare costs.

By: Joe

Joe — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 01:37:40 +0000

Is it really so difficult to look at the unit pricing, on the bottom of the label? You can even see it, in the first pic. Organic braeburns are ~15p more expensive per apple.

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:08:43 +0000

Down here in Australia, we now have unit pricing, and it is HEAVEN.

I can compare 1.5L Coke and 2L Coke (or whatever) and see what’s up.

No more price point trickery by Coles and Woolworths.

tim

By: How Usable is YOUR World? » Dogbert Focus on Bad Experience

How Usable is YOUR World? » Dogbert Focus on Bad Experience — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:08:03 +0000

[...] which will annoy customers or even trick their judgment. I have read a clever article about how supermarkets manipulate customer’s perception. What Dogbert is describing is quite similar to what supermarkets do. Second, Dogbert wants [...]

By: Harry Brignull

Harry Brignull — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 07:03:10 +0000

@Simon – I’m hoping that by raising consumer awareness, some supermarkets will stop doing it, and make a big noise about how consumer friendly they are. The others will then have to follow suit. In theory. As @Hanford said, it’s common practice for all supermarkets in the US to have “per each” price comparison information. Perhaps it’s just a matter of time.

@Ofer – Yes, I’ve noticed the physical separation trick too. Though regarding the disproportionate markup on organic produce – doesn’t this leave space for an organic price war? I imagine that the “best price for organic” hook could make a pretty good advertising campaign.

By: Ofer Deshe

Ofer Deshe — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:09:28 +0000

Supermarkets tend to display all organic fruits and vegetables in one area, not as part of each product main category. For example, organic aubergines might not be in the aubergines section, but next to other organic products. As a result, price comparisons are harder. Less price sensitive customers will avoid walking around the shop to compare prices. Farmers/suppliers get such a small percentage that the additional price paid for organic is unproportional to the initial cost difference. Therefore, profit margins are much higher. It is unfortunate that some supermarkets use barely ethical tactics to promote more profitable products.

The book Tescopoly describes many tricks that supermarkets use.

Tescopoly: How One Shop Came Out on Top and Why It Matters
by Andrew Simms

By: Simon Raistrick

Simon Raistrick — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:38:12 +0000

Funnily enough, I noticed this technique in Sainsburys this week too – (the Aubergine example where they have the price for a single with no weight given vs the price for a pack). Is it a recent thing? Definitely smells of twisting the rules as far as they will bend.

By: Harry Brignull

Harry Brignull — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:22:30 +0000

Some quotes from Tim Harford: On random mark-ups: "All shops want to offer competitive prices to customers who demand them, while charging more to customers who do not much care. Random mark-ups will do the trick: they are easily avoided by bargain hunters but will often snare the unwary." On packaging aesthetics: "'Tesco's Value range is packaged to look like a UN disaster relief package,' he says. 'It would cost virtually nothing for nicer packaging but they choose to have it that way to give a reason to people to buy the premium Finest range – people who are not price sensitive. I'm not saying don't buy Tesco Finest. I just want people to understand the strategy and to look around when they're shopping.' "

By: hanford

hanford — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:12:16 +0000

In US, a lot of the stores have “per each” on items that can’t be purchased as singles. for example, toilet paper. they’ll tell you (in small print) the per-roll price for the big packages — which is great! It means you don’t have to do the math.