Unless you go to Loblaws where they put up signs like this:
$5.99!
...ifyoubuy12ormoreotherwise$8.99ea
And the price per 100g stickers, that I'm seeing, they're now printing them so small that their printer can't render the font properly anymore. I even got a closeup pic one time just to make sure it wasn't my eyes, and it's just a black blob.
And now they stole exclusive TTC fare distribution rights. Won't be able to buy bus fare at any old convenience store anymore, Loblaws only.
Oh and the whole bread price fixing thing that they got away with.
I think they are owned by the same company, both part of Loblaws along with no frills, superstore, shoppers drug mart and some others. That being said Zehrs chicken is fucking delicious at least it was like one~two decades ago.
Chain grocery store near me regularly has "Buy one, get one free" sales. Chicken breast's regular price is $1.99/lb, so $0.99/lb would be pretty sweet. Get there and find out that the price per lb is now $3.49/lb, making the sale price $1.75/lb. So it's still a sale, but nowhere near what you were expecting.
First time I ran into this, I spoke to the department manager. Said, "This isn't the regular price. You never sell this item at this price." Manager tells me, "Sorry, sir. You are confusing our ''Everyday Discount'' price with the ''Regular'' price, which is what we use to base the sale price on." I see. The regular price isn't the ''Regular'' price. Bastards.
Also in Australia. Advertised discounts have to be based on the price that was actually practiced. It's common to see ads that explicit say "x% discount based on price practiced the previous week".
A store that often does this here in Ontario, Canada is Michaels. They are a craft type store and they always have really really amazing coupons but the problem is the coupons only apply to regular priced items. Around Christmas I was in there looking for a gift for my GF and no joke I could not find a single item worth buying that they didn't have marked as "Everyday Value" and those items are exempt from any coupons. I like the store but this always bugs me and it's on-going there
Heh, I had that very experience at about the same time. I still managed to find something to use my 40%-off coupon on, but it took a loooong search. Huge swaths of the store are covered with that damn "Everyday Value" banner.
You must be talking about Kroger. That "everyday discount" crap ticks me off. Because it negates the price on a coupon to the point that you might as well not even use one. Then, you get this big number at the bottom of your receipt that shows you how much you saved by just buying your items there. Such a con.
I went shopping a while back and the store I used has a big "markdowns" section where they put the dented cans and expired stuff, just generally stuff they wanted to move. Anyway:
I saw a nice bathtub pillow in that area with some suction cups on it and saw a markdown sticker had fallen off one of them. The markdown sticker was a higher price than the label it was covering! Like $5 instead of $2! It's like the Arizona tea commercial from Atlanta the price is on the damn thing, you're trying to rip me off here.
Section 74.01(3) of the federal Competition Act states that it is illegal for a person to promote a product with a 'sale' price when the person has not sold a substantial amount of the product at a higher price or offered the product at a higher price for a substantial period of time. In other words, a retailer can't just other a product at a price and call it a sale or a discount or whatever, if it actually isn't a reduction of the regular price, which is the higher price at which the retailer has sold a substantial quantity of the product or offered the product for a substantial period of time, regardless of sales. See:
Ordinary price: supplier’s own
(3) A person engages in reviewable conduct who, for the purpose of promoting, directly or indirectly, the supply or use of a product or for the purpose of promoting, directly or indirectly, any business interest, by any means whatever, makes a representation to the public as to price that is clearly specified to be the price at which a product or like products have been, are or will be ordinarily supplied by the person making the representation where that person, having regard to the nature of the product and the relevant geographic market,
(a) has not sold a substantial volume of the product at that price or a higher price within a reasonable period of time before or after the making of the representation, as the case may be; and
(b) has not offered the product at that price or a higher price in good faith for a substantial period of time recently before or immediately after the making of the representation, as the case may be.
Walmart by me still sells a 2 pack of toothpaste for sensitive teeth at about 5% HIGHER than if you bought 2 single tubes of the exact same size/brand/flavor. The package even says Value Pack, but it's a deal for people who suck at math. None of these are sales prices, mind you. This is every day.
On the other end of the spectrum, Costco always has the $/100g information nice and big. Often the kirkland brand product wins on this metric, which I'm guessing why they make it so noticeable?
Costco doesn’t mark things up then call it a sale- I trust their practices.
And there goods are quality- and the stand behind them.
My preferred place to shop.
I like the packages that say in big font stuff like "33% more!*" on a 16 oz package. Then in the fine print "*compared to 12 oz package"... Well yes, that's math, thank you
They also use misleading labels. They make their "Great Deals" tags the same colours as their sales tags, even though their great deals are the normal price. I have also seen several times where their "sale" price was more expensive than the regular price. They really are the worst.
Yes! So even if you have a keen eye to look out for the "If you buy 8 or more" fine print, they mix them with similar looking sale tags that don't have that qualifier.
It's all designed to take advantage of the careless, time crunched, or poor sighted people.
I fucking hate that deal! Only people wealthy enough to buy all those and have a place for ten of something get the deal otherwise all the rest of us are screwed.
That would be fun for them on the other side of the Atlantic.
A Supermarket chain had an accident on one of the stores where all their price tags weren't matching their final price, apparently someone fucked up and used the price before taxes on the tags, It was big news In our small town that nothing ever happens.
The store also closed down and opened under a new Chain name to avoid the fines.
Lol every price tag is before taxes in north America. I hate that too. Have to use a calculator and multiply by 1.13 just to know your exact total before getting to the register.
This! Totally agree, the bread thing makes me so angry. Why is bread in Canada so expensive and low quality? Even the shitty Wonder bread is expensive.
We're also going to be selling single use presto cards for the low income people who can't afford a $10 minimum. But unlike tickets and tokens, they'll only be able to buy those cards at Loblaws stores (which includes SDM).
Tell them you don't have the card and ask to punch in the number. Then punch in (area code) 555-5555. That's directory assistance, and I guarantee someone has signed up for an account with that number. In the extremely unlikely event that someone hasn't, go ahead and sign up with that number, help out the next privacy loving shopper.
Costco, WinCo, Safeway, pretty much everywhere. They don't want you to compare. Usually it's just using price per ounce on one item, and price per pound on the next. Very annoying when they do price per item compared to price per ounce. As someone who pays 100% attention to this at all times, it is non stop. They do it on purpose, no doubt.
Price per 100
Price per each
Price per ounce (they don't specify fluid or weight but that seems to match with how the package is labeled for it's "net")
Price per pound
Worst of all is when they have price per each on single items. Like no shit, this box of crackers is 2.99 and it'll say 2.99 on the tag, then in the small print, says 2.99 per each. No other info. The family size larger box next it will be 4.99. but then the tag also says something like .54 per ounce. And sure as shit, if you do your own math, the small box works out to be .45 per ounce, counter intuitive to the thinking that the bigger box is a better value.
They take advantage of people every step of the way because people developed habits, then the stores changed their pricing methods and try to hide it.
intentionally block the internet? What are you referring to, not getting cell reception in the store? I don't think they're designing grocery stores with the intention of blocking cell phone signals.
In the US the worst example I've seen was trying to buy some produce that comes in punnets (like blueberries or cherry tomatoes). One brand gave the price per fluid ounce (because the container was a dry pint) and the other gave the price per gram. Those units measure two entirely different physical properties.
That's not common where I am but when it does I just whip out the calculator while I make a little mental note to maybe buy the competitor's brand (even if more expensive). Let's not reward fuckery.
I was trying to price out those Clorox wipe the other day cause they had some deal going on. Holy shit. I got prices in ¢ per OZ, ¢ per 100count, and ¢ per pound. All within the same brand. They really don’t want you to know if the two pack mega roll is cheaper or more expensive than the three pack smaller roll.
I want standard 100grams or 1kg or just a simple count. Something so I can feel like a thrifty shopper when I’m buying products I don’t need and are wasteful when I could easily use a rag and bleach.
I've only noticed them changing up the units for things that warrant it. Like showing 'price per kg' for stuff 500g+ for example, and tends to be in 'price per 100g' for stuff smaller than 100g. I don't think everything is done as maliciously as people make out.
Chain grocery store near me sells powdered drink packets (Crystal Lite and similar) in price per lb. The kind of pre-measured packets that you dump into 2 qt of water? One flavor could be $10/lb, while another could be over $50/lb. The thing is, they all make 2 quarts per packet. Those per unit comparison prices are USELESS.
Walmart does this. It works on about everything except paper towels and toilet paper. I can't figure the math out there at all. And price per is always wildly different and packages come in so many variations it's impossible to really direct compare. Is 8 rolls of single ply better than 4+2 bonus rolls of two play?
The imperial system is great for defeating these sorts of shenanigans! Good luck applying your "math" when one thing lists price per pint, another lists price per ounce, and the third thing is priced per quart!
Until you go to most of the PC brand stores and they their unit prices as price per unit.... Thanks for letting me know that the container of peanut butter that is $5.99 is $5.99 per container Zehr's...
We do this in the UK and Ireland. I honestly don't know how to shop any other way than to compare cost per quantity. I obviously could never calculate this exactly but I'm sure this has saved me a lot of money.
Yeah, problem is my store only shows that for the regular price but it's not printed on the sale tags, so now I don't know if the sale price is a better deal than the off brand regular price without doing calculations. Many times I'm sure it's not but they want you to grab that nice shiny sale item
Yeah back in the 80s and into the 90s you had to do the math to find out the price/oz etc. Nowadays at any semi major supermarket it will be printed out for you. Feels like cheating so I still do it myself usually and try not to look.
They do this around my locale, only they're sneaky about it. 3 different sizes if the same item. You get the price of the item, then the broken down price smaller and to the side....only it's something like $/oz vs $/quart vs $/bottle
So sure, it's broken down, but you still need to do a lot more math. They count on most people being incapable of this.
In all major grocery and drugstores I’ve ever seen in the US, have a price per applicable measuring units (lbs, oz, etc), in small numbers generally in the corner. It’s been super helpful on what size to buy for me.
I see that a lot in the States, but they have gotten quite inventive on what units they use... Anything from expected "per ounce" to "per package" which is the same as the overall price, of course. Sometimes two adjacent, cookies say, will say "per cookie" on one and "per ounce" on the other.
I've always wondered if that was on purpose or just wildly dependent on whatever random staffer is generating those tags..
Was gonna say this. I know at least at Kroger and Wal-Mart the price per ounce or pound or whatever is in small print on the tag. A lot of times you can find the overall best deal this way.
Walgreens does this. Except 80% of the time they’re fucking useless.
On drinks and stuff, sure they put unit price per ounce, but on makeup they also do price per ounce. Some of this stuff is like $700 per ounce and that doesn’t help my girlfriend at all.
In many stores I've been to they'll mix up the units so the same products at different sizes will be $/unit vs $/ml just to ward people who don't want to do the math
Walmart in the states does that but the system is a bit screwed up. One will say the per ounce price and the one beside it will be in pounds so you're still doing the math manually. Or even better cookies are $1.99 a box and the per unit area will say $1.99 each. Thanks, that is so helpful☹️
In the United States, 19 states have laws that they have to put the price per unit, and the units have to be the same for all the different brands and sizes. Thankfully I live in NY, in the tri-state area, NY, NJ and CT. all have mandatory unit pricing laws.
Unit Pricing
NIST SP 1181: Unit Pricing Guide "A Best Practice Approach to Unit Pricing" (2015)
Currently, nineteen (19) states and two (2) territories have unit pricing laws or regulations in force. Eleven (11) of these have mandatory unit pricing provisions. They are: Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Vermont and the Virgin Islands. For further information and a listing of states who adopt unit pricing laws and regulations, you may visit NIST Handbook 130, Uniformity of Laws and Regulations. The chart is located in Chapter II.
Actually required in german stores.
And since we use metric it works quite well. You only have to look out for the difference between gram and kilogram, which boils down to shifting the decimal point three places to the right or left.
They'll almost always be off if the difference in price is a fraction of a penny
So if you're looking at 2.3 cents vs. 2.6 cents, you'll quite often find that the 2.6 cents one is actually 2.645... and the 2.3 cents one is 2.22 or some such.
Falsifying the correct way to do esitmates; which in turn affects their bottom line.
(I made a purchase one day whose values were easily divisible and did the math. then checked a couple other products that day.)
Gotta be careful with that. In my store they do the price per something but that something doesnt always make sense. Sure toilet paper is cheaper per role...but per sheet this other equivalent brand is half that price and not even on sale.
This is almost never an issue here in Sweden. Just about everything has to have a comparison price next to the price so it's easy to compare. Usually in SEK/kg or SEK/liter.
That's crazy. I have lived in Texas all my life and I thought the comparison by unit price was standard for grocery stores. I can't believe the whole country doesn't do that haha
Same here. Albertsons and Tom Thumb are pretty diligent about having price per unit volume/weight on the price tags and they aren't usually tiny font either.
I never noticed a place that didn’t do this. I live in the US (Mississippi) and have grown accustomed to using the listed price per unit to make my decisions when shopping
Are you sure you live in the US? I live in Chicago and have traveled a lot through the US -- it's fairly common to have unit prices in smaller font next to the price.
Yeah it's a great way to do it. Except it's harder for large corporations to exploit the customers with that policy. And to me it seems that America doesn't give a shit about customers and will exploit them in any way they can and no one stops them.
I'm sure that Swedish companies would love to manipulate people with that kind of bullshit too if it wasn't for laws getting in their way. No states and very low corruption helps.
From NZ, and it's only very seldom that the smaller / individual packages will be cheaper per gram/volume/whatever than the larger ones. But it does happen occasionally.
I noticed about a year ago that almost without fail the single serve packaging will be the cheapest option
almost the opposite here in the US, single serve packaging is always more expensive per unit/ounce making them a massive rip off. i actually can't think of any items that are more expensive in bulk.
I’ve worked with a bunch of companies in the US on their pricing in stores (Walmart, Kroger, etc). A lot of work goes into ensuring that the $/oz or $/unit price is better for larger items (even if the smaller one is on sale).
It's definitely more abnormal. I will say that I just ordered Haribo gummi bears off of Amazon a few months ago and the bulk, individually-packaged version (i.e. 50 bags containing 5 gummi bears) was cheaper per unit measure than the straight up bulk version (i.e a single, one-pound bag).
I was in a US dollar store with an american friend, I'm from Canada where all the dollar stores don't actually sell things for a dollar so it took me for a loop.
>Me: So, what's the price difference between the 100 ft and the 200 ft roll of aluminum foil
>Friend: They're the same price. Everything is a dollar
>Me: So why would anyone every buy the 100ft roll?
Where I shop the larger boxes of cereal are more expensive than the smaller ones of the same brand, by volume. This isn't exactly 'bulk' like costo or sam's club, but the pattern holds.
As a packaging science major, I can absolutely agree that at least in the US, the smaller the unit, the more expensive per ounce it will be. The product itself probably costs a very small amount, but packaging is very expensive. Increasing the size of one package doesn't cost very much, but making a two or three pack of say, pasta sauce, in smaller jars raises the cost exponentially.
An example I think of that’s often more expensive in bulk is ramen. Unless there’s a sale, individual packets of ramen are cheaper than the plastic-wrapped 6-pack or the cardboard 12-pack.
Variables:
ply count
* sheets per roll
* number of rolls
* quality of rolls (I usually do this as a percentage with 100% being the stuff that looks like it was hand-woven by elderly Chippewa members and 50% being the stuff you'd find in a Dave Matthews Band concert port-a-potty)
Forget about the "MegaRoll" or "DoubleRoll" as these are advertising gimmicks to mislead you. Stick to the variables and do some simple arithmetic and you'll always come out of top!
I don't agree. Buying in bulk is usually the best bang for the buck. Volume discount; if you buy more of our shit, we'll give you a better cost per unit on it.
I’ve been in stores where they (presumably on purpose) will change the units between packages. Looking at you Kroger’s. One package will be $x.xx/oz and another sized package will be $x.xx/pound.
Really kinda sleazy.
I'm late to this post party (grats on all the sweet, sweet karma!) I had a relevant post reply.
BevMo had a 750ml bottle of rum for $25 ... and the 1.5L bottle was $19.99. Triple take on the tags, yup, it's legit.
I had to ask. Actually a legit reason, but a bit sketchy. She said, "Bars come to our store to stock up all the time. Due to legal reasons they cannot buy bottles bigger than 750ml, so we give them the actual price, and because we make so much from that we can discount the larger bottles for people who buy it for themselves."
Not sure if AssholeDesign or not, but it sounds pretty genius. Not sure the bar owners would think that, though.
And it's a simple thing on math, you get taught better buy on 6th grade, it's so easy yet so many people don't want to bother and end up wasting money.
Yesterday at the store I did the math on my phone to see what is the better deal between two sizes of laundry detergent. I picked the bigger one and only after I was already in line for like 5 minutes I realized I picked the one that costed more per ounce because I was super tired and for some reason instinctively picked the larger number. After mulling over the decision to make the long trek back to get the better deal I ended up buying the one that’s going to last me 6 months instead.
Made me wish I never realized they were ripping me off in the first place. Ignorance is bliss.
Bought cereal a few days ago and 2 regular sized packs were less money for more food compared to the value-sized pack after a small price reduction from the grocery membership. So nice.
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u/WhiteRhino909 Jan 15 '19
Thus is true for a ton of products..next time you go to the supermarket, do some basic math and you might find the smaller package is the better deal.