BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon

Subject: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Mr Red
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 05:12 AM

or should I have said - busy times' price hike?

Sainsbury's are about to trial electronic pricing on shelves. Updates at the click of a mouse, or even triggered by pre-set times. Already used in the US etc.

This is nothing different from telephone or utility prices designed to spread the demand throughout the day - except................

How are they going to handle the latency that ensues from a person endlessly searching for their chosen item* and arriving at the checkout?
The UK law states that the price on the shelf (or item) is the price that should be charged. How do they judge the delay in arriving to pay?

I bet we have to challenge them. The law would be flouted by this, unless Trezzzza has a statute on the cards.



* they all change locations around to keep us in the aisles in the hope we impulse buy.

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 05:58 AM

Couple of things.

I work for a major supermarket chain that is also trialing electronic shelf edge labels and, as yet, there has been no mention of changing prices in such a manner (surge pricing) with us. I do accept that this may change.

Secondly the price on the shelf is not the contracted price, it is simply an invitation to trade. In a shop you do not have the right to buy at that price although most Supermarkets will honour it if you ask them. I got a good bargain with a bottle of single malt that way :-) But it was not a legal right:-( Online is a whole different bucket of worms!

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Mr Red
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 06:05 AM

I think the trading standards officers would take a dim view of declared prices not being honoured. Mistakes can be dealt with, but if it were a policy - they would take to court.

We still need to know how they will resolve latentcy. If only to keep the shoppers' custom.

BTW the legal definition of fraud is "obtaining money by deception". Deliberation is not the arbiter. Mistake is no mitigation. Lawyers would love a chance.............

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Will Fly
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 06:22 AM

Waitrose - and probably other supermarkets - have a hand scanner facilit. You pick your good off the shelves and scan them - totting up the price as you go.

What happens at the checkout if the scanner price is different from the till price?

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Senoufou
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 06:24 AM

That seems rather unfair on people who, because of work commitments or childcare, cannot change the time of their weekly shop.
And as you say Mr Red, it will penalise people who take a bit of time to get around the store, either from disability, age or because they can't find the stuff they're looking for.
They seem to be constantly searching for ways to get the money out of our pockets for their own benefit. And putting extra stress on families to rush to the store off-peak.

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Iains
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 06:28 AM

No different to paying a premium to take schoolchildren on vacation
during school holidays. Totally immoral but perfectly legal.

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 06:43 AM

I am not at all sure that, in this age of 24 hour shopping, that anyone is forced to shop in peak hours but I do not condone either increasing prices or removing offers to maximise profits like this. I agree that it is supply and demand in the extreme. It is a direct result of the neolibralism brought on by moving too far towards a completely unregulated free market economy. Sadly for you, Eliza, that means it is your fault for voting Tory! ;-)

Trading standards officers may 'take a dim view', Mr Red, but sadly that is all it is. A view and not a regulation. Again, I agree that Supermarkets should honour the lower price but at present that is only PR and not law.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Iains
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 06:55 AM

I do not recollect Labour doing anything to prevent the practise, while in power. Variable tariffs have been a fact of life for years.
With developments in electronics and software I foresee it spreading to many retail outlets.

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Senoufou
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 07:28 AM

Haha Dave. My poor mother once enraged my very right-wing father by voting Communist by mistake. She got muddled up with the names, her eyesight was dodgy and there was unfortunately a candidate for the Communist Party (W London, long long ago) with a rather similar name to the Tory. My dad nearly hung her up by her thumbs and beat her.

Long after her death, my sister and I wondered if she only told him this to tease him. She wasn't nearly as green as she was cabbage-looking...

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 07:37 AM

There has not been a Labour party in any position to do anything about it since 1979 :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Iains
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 08:12 AM

Dthe G I assume you agree Blair was a labour waste of space then. And also flash gordon his follow on act!

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 08:44 AM

No - Hence the smiley after my comment. Do you have to be spoon fed everything? What happened in 1979?

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Senoufou
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 09:33 AM

Mothers with children would, I assume, go to the supermarket during the day while they're at school, (or on a Saturday). They can hardly go late at night when their children are in bed.

People who work hard all day would be unlikely to rush home, have a shower, eat their dinner then zoom off out to get their supermarket shopping at nearly midnight.

I'm trying to think of who would actually emerge in the middle of the night/the crack of dawn to do this. Perhaps old biddies like me (I'm up very early)

Nah. I reckon there'd be no takers.

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 09:56 AM

Online - The way forward :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Ed.
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 10:13 AM

Mr Red comments that:

I think the trading standards officers would take a dim view of declared prices not being honoured. Mistakes can be dealt with, but if it were a policy - they would take to court.

You misunderstand the law, Mr Red. Read up on the concept of 'Invitation To Treat' as laid down in the famous Pharmaceutical Society of GB v Boots Cash Chemists (Southern) Ltd case.

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 11:13 AM

Though aint the price tag on guitars in music gear shops an invitation to haggle...

Be fun trying that on every item in a full trolley at a tesco checkout with a queue of impatient bad tempered shoppers building up behind you...😈

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 01:30 PM

I've found that nearly all shops that have the incorrect price on the shelf, usually because the special offer has expired or because of an error, will let you pay the marked price. But make no mistake - they don't have to. Caveat emptor. Check your receipt!

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Anne Lister
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 06:23 PM

Will said "Waitrose - and probably other supermarkets - have a hand scanner facilit. You pick your good off the shelves and scan them - totting up the price as you go.

What happens at the checkout if the scanner price is different from the till price?"

Well, as an experienced zapper user, you don't use the till. You pay at a dedicated till point where it takes the data from the zapper. If the bar code is in any way compromised you have to scan the item at the till separately or ask for assistance. So if they were to introduce varying prices it'd be the same process as for the tills - they'd do something with the bar codes and the zapper would reflect that. It would only be an issue if you were lingering in the store across whatever time was decreed to be off or on peak, but I would imagine you'd do all you could not to have that happen.

The Waitrose system allows for personal choices at reduced rates (you choose which products are on your own "reduced" list), so I'm sure it's able to cope with all sorts of changes.

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Jun 17 - 10:58 AM

hand scanners would obviate the latency problem. The scanner would register the price when you scanned the item. Leaving you to choose your timings.

But I can imagine a scanner wielding obsessive &/or impoverished person spotting the change not in their favour and trying to redress the issue. Which could be mayhem.

Though an impoverished person wouldn't be shopping in Waitrose.

Like any change it causes mess and confusion in the interim. And we are heading for that in a much more significant domain. There - I managed without using the B word. But that will accelerate price moves and they won't be downwards!

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jun 17 - 11:16 AM

Mean and nasty. I hope that there will be some supermarkets that make a selling point of not going down that road, and that customer choice to switch to them will mean that the other ones fall in line and abandon the idea.

Next thing to come along will be electronic money set to diminish in value unless you spend it, to keep the economy boiling along.

So far as till prices are concerned there seems to be one company which bizarrely enough seems to go the other way - Wilkos, where half the time they seem to charge lower prices at the till than that shown on the shelf.

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 29 Jun 17 - 11:20 AM

A policy of incorrect pricing would contravene the Price Marking Order 2004; there would still be no obligation to sell at the incorrect price if there had been no acceptance of an offer, but the shop could well find itself in Court.The maximum penalty is a fine and two years' imprisonment.

Bromley Trading Standards

LFF

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jun 17 - 05:35 PM

Proving it was a "policy" would in practice be impossible. Especially since enforcing trading standards is one part of the work of local councils that has been shredded in the climate of cuts we've had for the last decade.

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Jun 17 - 04:22 AM

Proving it was a "policy" would in practice be impossible.

Mistakes are no excuse in law. Failing to accept the customers' reminder will. So will a climate of repeated "unfortunate oversites".

News travels - anyone who thinks there is no such thing as bad publicity need look no further than Tesco. Or Grenfell Tower!

One thought I have is that special weekend prices could be higher with little or no latency contention. And I can imagine that being first into the affray, starting with loss-leaders like coffee. Which might suit many low-pay zero-hours contractors a lot more of the time. Reality is never simple nor binary.

And I always thought there was a clear legal pricing framework for shops that give the shopper the task of finding the goods themselves. viz the Price Marking Order 2004;

Anyone ever seen smaller glass jars of coffee on offer "cheaper per" than refills in foil? Should we call it mug-bet pricing? The reason they are legally required to show "price per"!

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Jun 17 - 12:24 PM

"Though an impoverished person wouldn't be shopping in Waitrose."

More fool them! I've had many a phenomenal bargain in Waitrose on bread, potatoes and superb free-range chickens at the end of the day of the expiry of best-before. I'm talking about twelve-quid chickens, weighing over five pounds, for six quid and two-quid bags of perfectly good spuds at 10p. Packs of "premium" bread for 10p. You never know which day the bargains will appear, but as long as you have some hovering time...

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Mr Red
Date: 01 Jul 17 - 04:24 AM

20% discount on a normal price of +20% by comparison? Mug-bet pricing seems to come to mind.

And are Waitroses located near places that low-payed people live? Assuming they have the time to visit 4 establishments twice (by bus?) and hope the bargains are still there!

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Jul 17 - 04:55 AM

I think you are missing the point Mr Red. The price marking order 2004, the unfair trading regulations 2008 and the consumer rights act 2015 all seem to cover misleading pricing but only come into force after a contract has been made. For a contract to exist

- There must be an offer to buy - for example, you remove goods from the shelf and take them to a checkout
- There must be acceptance of the offer - for example, a trader put the goods through the till
- There must be a transfer of consideration. This is the payment you make for the goods, service or digital content
- There must be an intention to make a contract. You and a trader must intend to be legally bound by the contract and both understand what the contract actually means
- You must have legal capacity. In other words you must be legally capable of making a contract

In other words the price is still only an offer to treat. You will not have been misled unless you have actualy paid for the goods at a different price than was displayed. The store is not obliged to sell them to you at that price.

It was interesting revisiting this since it must have been the mid-seventies when I first saw it. That last point about you must have the legal capacity is in an interesting one. If, for instance, you purchase something you did not intend to while you are pissed the theory is that you could claim the contract was void. I have no idea if it has ever been tried but it caused no end of discussion in the lecture room. :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Iains
Date: 01 Jul 17 - 05:18 AM

If a supermarket prices items at the till higher than the displayed price just leave the goods and walk out. It does not take too many repetitions of this behaviour to bring a supermarket to its knees.
Clogged tills, staff replacing items on shelves, time wasted and best of all bad publicity, and others will quickly learn to repeat the exercise. Job Done.

The potential customer is always right.

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Jul 17 - 07:17 AM

If a supermarket prices items at the till higher than the displayed price just leave the goods and walk out.

Absolutely spot on Iains. Up until the point that money changes hands there is no contract. There is no obligation for you to buy at that price or for the supermarket to sell at that price. Another trick that goes down well in supermarkets that do not show the right price is to check the receipt meticulously against a list of prices you have noted on the way round. They will love you for that ;-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Jul 17 - 07:19 AM

...should have added check the receipt meticulously before you pay

Not that I would advocate such behavior of course.

:D tG

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Jul 17 - 07:30 AM

If I'm not sure of the price of an item, I ask the cashier to just check the price for me before ringing the item through. I don't appreciate other customers deliberately causing a fuss at the checkout when they could have done that simple check for themselves. I understand that supermarkets can get up to tricks, but far more often it a simple error made by an establishment stocking tens of thousands of lines. If you see supermarkets as your enemies, Iains, use the corner shop instead. Don't try to make you silly point by vexing low-paid staff with avoidable complaints to the inconvenience of other customers.

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Jul 17 - 07:38 AM

And if you still find after paying that you've paid more for an item than you think you should have, then off you go to customer services. There is never a problem. Done it loads of times. No need to clog up the tills. And you'll leave the shop, delayed just a little, nice and calm, with neither the staff nor the other customers giving you a well-deserved V-sign behind your back as you leave. Life's too bloody short.

Now as for those little old ladies at the checkout who need the cashier to pack for them, then they can't find their purse, then they want to pay the exact amount in 2p pieces...😂😂😂

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Mr Red
Date: 01 Jul 17 - 07:50 AM

BBC Money Box includes a discussion on this
the industry spokesman insists there are no plans to load busy times, in the face of M&S lowering prices pre-lunchtime rush.
He did concede that 24 hour shopping will make this inevitable. There are costs that convenience attracts. It will happen there first. Then migrate to everywhere anytime as the public get weary of being observant.

FWIW I do shop at the Coop frequently, which is 12 minutes walk. Painsbury's are; 12 mins walk, a bus ride via the pretty route or a bus ride and another 7 minutes walk. Yes if they sell Staffordshire Oatcakes like Kidderminster or Warwick*.

Durn right I vote with my feet. Tescos - never. Bad publicity applies! And they involve more bus and walking !

*at the Folk Festival, if they still sell them.

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Jul 17 - 07:52 AM

The Waitrose we use, Mr Red, is in Holsworthy, in the heart of the lowest-waged economy in England, next to a housing estate. It does quite well. The new one in Truro is just opposite a B&M and a Dunelm Mill. There's one in Okehampton town centre, a dowdy Devon backwater, hardly a bastion of the wealthy. They are not generally located in exclusive locales far away from the hoi polloi.

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Jul 17 - 08:03 AM

I'm afraid I have been guilty of behaviour that would cause others distress, Steve. At one point, in a local store called Deans, I insisted on taking all the pins out of and all the packing from a shirt at the counter because I did not want them :-)

Must say though that as I have gown old (dis)gracefully I do not indulge anywhere near as much as in my younger days. The searching for a purse always amazes me too. It seems to come as a surprise to some people that they have to pay!

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Jul 17 - 11:08 AM

When the big town centre Tesco opened at the end of the last century,
much was made of it's revolutionary 24 hour opening...

Quite handy once or twice every few months..

But within a short time they learned the errors of their ways and realised the necessity to shut down every night
due to our town's heavy concentration of aggressive pissheads, asbo teens, and thieving junkies...


oh well... that's progress... 😜

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 01 Jul 17 - 12:58 PM

I think the Pricing Order 2004 applies whether there is a contract or not:

"Obligation to indicate selling price

4.—(1) Subject to paragraph (2) and articles 9 and 10, where a trader indicates that any product is or may be for sale to a consumer, he shall indicate the selling price of that product in accordance with the provisions of this Order.

(2) The requirement in paragraph (1) above shall not apply in respect of:

(a)products sold from bulk; or
(b)an advertisement for a product."

(Articles 9 & 10 refer to general reductions (eg 10% off store-wide) and precious metals where the price varies with rise and fall of the market price of the metal)

LFF

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Jul 17 - 02:55 PM

But the obstinate fact is that he doesn't HAVE to sell it to you, price displayed or not. Basically, it's his until money has changed hands, and until then he has full dominion over its fate. It's no less his just because he's offering it for sale.

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Jul 17 - 04:58 AM

Precisely, Steve. There is an obligation to indicate the selling price but no obligation to sell.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 02 Jul 17 - 06:19 AM

Dave, Steve, I agree with you that if the shop has made a mistake they don't have to sell at that price if the contract has not been made. I was answering Dave's point that a contract has to be in place before the Price Marking Order applies (as I understood him to be saying at 01 Jul 2017 4.:55 AM):

The price marking order 2004, the unfair trading regulations 2008 and the consumer rights act 2015 all seem to cover misleading pricing but only come into force after a contract has been made.

Of course, shops cannot discriminate against people by choosing who they will deal with (Equality Act 2010), but that is a different matter from an isolated genuine mistake over pricing!

On a slightly different point which Mr Red touched on, following a Which? consumer group super-complaint into multi-buy offers Asda in particular changed their practices.

Super-complaint

LFF

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Mr Red
Date: 02 Jul 17 - 08:03 AM

Mistakes are less likely with digital pricing. ie intent is more likely, if the supermarkets don't address that problem the law will be changed (or the government will change!). Apparently the current interation of pricing labels carry more information like price per Kg, offer adverts etc in any fact text deemed appropriate like "offer ends at 12pm get yer arse to the check-out now".

As I understand it the price marking order was to clarify the intent and head off proliferation of specific laws. It may be about to change. Read this space...........

they likely are "electronic paper" so they need less power (not an inconsiderate factor) and will not be affected by power loss in any given aisle.

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Jul 17 - 01:40 PM

I was answering Dave's point that a contract has to be in place before the Price Marking Order applies

Yes, you are right LFF. I put that rather clumsily and for that I apologise. My point was that the Price Marking Order can only be enforced to ensure the prices should be correct. If they are incorrect, the shop is still not under contract to sell them and the PMO cannot be used to make the shop sell them at the stated price.

Hope that helps.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 02 Jul 17 - 04:39 PM

Thanks Dave, I get where you're coming from.

Mind you, I did once witness someone in the Swarovski shop in Bluewater kick up one heck of a fuss over a wrongly priced item, threatening to inform Trading Standards, write to the media and summon up Beelzebub himself (I may have made that last bit up) that they let him have the item at the substantially lower erroneous price.

LFF

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Jul 17 - 05:55 AM

As I mentioned earlier I got a good deal on a bottle of single malt. It was in Safeway in Swinton, before Morrisons took them over. I cannot remember the exact figures but it was along the lines of the bottle was reduced from £15 to £10. When I got to the till it went through as £15. I complained at customer services, got my £15 and got to keep the bottle!

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: JHW
Date: 03 Jul 17 - 02:45 PM

Some time in the 70s freind Mon and I gathered a basket of shopping in a little shop maybe in Laxey but certainly the Isle of Man. They'd just gone self service but the till lady had no idea what the prices were so had to revisit all the shelves to find out!
How thing have moved on...

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Jul 17 - 02:50 PM

I noticed our local big pound shop has disposed of most of the till staff and installed self service checkout machines..

A burly thuggish looking security guard was herding the usual long queue of little old ladies and young mums away from the 2 remaining human till staff,
towards those bafflingly hi tech checkouts...

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Jul 17 - 03:19 PM

When Elijah Allens in Hawes went self service I saw a little old lady go to one of the tills and give the operator her shopping list. The young lady on the till very helpfully went and got everything on the list and checked it though for the customer. There's service for you :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Jul 17 - 05:00 PM

I bought a ton of Kendsl Mint Cake in that shop once, Dave.

Subject: RE: BS: off-peak supermarket prices -coming soon
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Jul 17 - 05:02 PM

And KendAl Mint Cake too.