The UK’s top supermarkets have defended themselves against charges made by consumer magazine ‘Which?’ of employing misleading and inconsistent pricing policies.
The magazine raised a super-complaint – a grouse raised by a state-approved watchdog organisation – to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), claiming that the supermarkets deliberately intend to make consumers pay more by confusing them.
‘Which?’ maintains that the supermarkets rely on a bewildering array of special offers, different pack sizes, loyalty schemes and the dodgy arithmetic of their customers to charge more for goods on promotion.
An example might be a garish, prominent promotion of a pack of four units for £1.99 when the individual units are priced at 45p.
“Shoppers think they are getting a bargain, but in reality it’s impossible for any consumer to know if they are genuinely getting a fair deal,” opined Richard Lloyd, executive director of ‘Which?’.
According to ‘Which?’, the alleged practices could cost the supermarket chains’ customers more than £1bn a year.
The CMA has 90 days to respond to the complaint. Meanwhile, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) is getting its retaliation in first.
“The examples set out are very specific in nature and are not in any way indicative of broader systemic problems across the retail industry,” claimed Tom Ironside, the BRC’s director of business and regulation.
“With thousands of products and special offers in store every day, errors may from time to time occur; however, these are rare in nature and are resolved quickly by the retailer concerned.”
Market research firm reckons around 40% of groceries are sold via promotional offers, so the scope for being gulled into something that is less of a bargain than it seems is quite large.
‘Which?’ magazine is one of only five consumer bodies in the UK that has the power to raise a super-complaint; the last time it did so was in 2011 when it called on the Office of Fair Trading (as it then was) to investigate credit card, debit card and store card surcharges.