supermarkets - more price fixing and hiding?

Associate
OP
Joined
24 Jun 2003
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1,329
Location
Newcastle
my point in all this was to show that it looked very suspicious to me that 4 supermarkets have NO crossover in multipack coke apart from 12 can packs which surprise surprise they are all dong at £5 for 2.

would cocacola say 'hey mr asda - you can ONLY sell 30 can packs, mr tesco - you has teh 24 cans, sainsbury dude - yo it's the weird 18 cans for you and sorry mr morri all that is left is poxy 8's - sorry for the bum deal chaps'

or maybe - just maybe they had a meeting where they all chose their pack size so no cross referencing could be made?

everyone remember the milk price fixing a few years back?
was the extra paid by the public returned back to us?
 
Permabanned
Joined
5 Sep 2015
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600
The lesson in all this is that trusting supermarkets is an excellent way to get thoroughly rogered, so if you want to avoid it, do your homework and know what things cost. Buy sensibly and carefully, and ignore multipack pricing and BOGOFs, etc, unless the per unit price compares well to your expectations. Don't be seduced, or deceived, by "marketing" because that's nearly always what it's there for.

If you can't be bothered to do your homework, and if the price premium is worth paying to avoid the hassle, then fair enough, but be aware, you'll pay over the odds.
 
Associate
Joined
24 Sep 2015
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167
I used to love being clever, and savvy enough to spot when a 'deal' was bad, and that I, mighty lil ol' me, had defeated this huge corporation seen through their ruse, and purchased at a saving elsewhere. I am dead smart me.

Now I just get depressed at how these places treat us consumers, and try to shaft us a thousand times a shop. Pyrrhic victory offer no joy.
 
Soldato
Joined
16 May 2006
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11,334
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Dubai
Don't know where people are getting the idea that Cocacola is the one controlling the SKU.

Every supermarket will have a buyer (of different catagory, in this example, drinks buyer). The buyer will arrange a price with a supplier for a specific /range of SKUs, they want in stores. How they want to price it in store is up to the supermarket. Sometimes, at a drop of a hat, they will want a BOGOF offer or price drop promotion and the supplier often needs to meet the demand and sometimes, take the hit on sale price to appease the buyer. Buyer is happy, they will continue buying at a price Cocacola is happy with.

Some price drops are considered loss profit, but in doing so, the supermarket is risking a high profile item attracting consumers to buy other profit making items. E.g. Sell milk and eggs at very narrow margin or negatives, in hope people will buy bread and bacon at higher profit margin.

Just buy stuff based on price per 100g / 1000ml / unit, if you can remember them all. Or in my case, shop at ALDI and always get a straight forward pricing with quality that suits my pallet and expectations.
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Apr 2009
Posts
7,580
Sainsbury's do 4, 8, 12 and 18 packs.
Tesco do 8, 12 and 24 packs.
Asda do 8, 15 and 30.
Morrison's do 6, 8, 12, 15 and 24.

The only 'exclusive' sizes are Sainsbury's 18 pack and Asda's 30 pack. From what I can tell, Tesco and Asda used to sell the 18 before replacing it with the 24 or 30. That's likely a demand driven move.

I'm not convinced there's any conspiracy here TBH. The sizes are quite consistent within each company's range.
 
Tea Drinker
Don
Joined
13 Apr 2010
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18,416
Location
Sunny Sussex
It's all a load of tosh. I priced the same bag of shopping over tesco / sainsbury / waitrose and they were all within a few quid of each other.

All this price matching is usually on heavily processed and overly packaged produce which we don't usually buy anyway.
 
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