Supermarket rip-offs: bags for life, misleading prices, and more

Supermarkets use a wide range of tactics to squeeze more cash out of hard-pressed households. Here are five of the sneakiest.

Have you ever left the supermarket having spent more than you were planning?

Then, you may have fallen into one of the cleverly designed traps supermarkets employ to maximise their profits.

From questionable claims of freshly baked bread to misleading pricing strategies, we look at five techniques the supermarket giants use to convince us to part with our cash.

1. How fresh is their bread really?

It’s no secret that the senses are a powerful tool that often influence our buying decisions.

And in supermarkets, the aroma of freshly baked bread is particularly seductive.

Worryingly, evidence has suggested many customers are paying for 'freshly-baked' bread that is anything but.

The Real Bread Campaign last month submitted a trading standards complaint, alleging that seven of the UK’s 10 largest supermarket chains – Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Lidl, The Co-op and M&S  – are misleading shoppers over the freshness of their produce.

As an example, the Real Bread Campaign cites Sainsbury’s claims that its baked goods are “freshly made every day”.

The complaint alleges that the chain, in fact, re-bakes bread that has been made elsewhere.

However, Sainsbury’s is not alone, and the Real Bread Campaign makes similar claims about the other supermarkets named in its complaint.

2. Bags for life

There is no denying that single-use plastic bags are harmful to the environment and dangerous for wildlife.

However, a recent Money Mail investigation has revealed that the policy of charging customers every time they purchase a bag has only encouraged more greed from the supermarket giants.

First introduced by David Cameron’s Government in 2015, the plan to cut down on single-use bags initially involved imposing a 5p charge on every bag.

The Government also issued guidance encouraging supermarkets to donate any profit to charities, and particularly environmental causes.

However, the initiative has now become a huge money-maker for supermarkets.

That's because single-use bags are becoming increasingly rare as most retailers opt for so-called ‘bags for life’ instead.

Crucially, bags for life fall into a different category from single-use bags, which means that supermarkets can keep any profit from the sale of these items.

In fact, the latest available figures from the Environmental Investigation Agency and Greenpeace found that Brits bought 1.58 billion ‘bags for life’ in 2019 or 57 per household.

It also seems that much of the profit from the sale of single-use bags isn’t going to environmental causes as originally intended.

As Money Mail reports, the retailers responsible for selling 72% of single-use plastic bags in the UK are reported to have donated some £6.3 million to good causes.

Of that sum, just 0.07% went to environmental causes.

3. Confusing pricing strategies

When you’re comparing prices on your weekly shop, the only way to know if you’re getting value for money is by comparing like-for-like.

However, supermarkets don’t always make it easy for us thanks to a misleading practice known as ‘inconsistent unit pricing’.

Under this sneaky tactic, a retailer may use different units when displaying the prices of similar items, which makes it difficult for us to tell which products offer the best value.

As part of an investigation last year, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) looked at pricing practices across 11 supermarkets and identified what it described as “unhelpful inconsistencies”, which “leave too much scope for interpretation”.

For example, prices for tea bags may be given per bag on some products, with other products labelled as price per 100g.

Likewise, some retailers failed to display prices per unit for items on sale.

In fact, the CMA was so concerned about these misleading practices that it has made recommendations for the Government to reform its legislation on unit pricing.

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4. Loss leaders

As part of this dodgy practice, a supermarket will sell a small number of products for a loss with the aim of boosting sales on more profitable items.

In one of the most common examples, supermarkets often sell essential items such as eggs or bread at a loss in order to lure shoppers into the store or onto their website.

The idea being that these customers will also buy goods with a higher markup.

5. Frequently rearranging aisles

It won’t come as a surprise to many that supermarkets often use the layouts of their stores to induce us to spend more.

For example, it’s common knowledge most supermarkets place their most expensive items at eye level.

Likewise, most of us are familiar with the idea that supermarkets often place toys on lower shelves so they are within easy reach of children.

But have you ever wondered why your supermarket so regularly changes the location of many staple items?

Put simply, it’s in a supermarket’s best interest for its customers to get a little lost and disorientated.

The more time you spend wandering through the aisles, the more likely you are to fill your trolley with things that weren’t originally on your shopping list.

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Have your say

Are there any supermarket tricks that you find particularly infuriating? Let us know in the comments below.