VIDEO – Supermarkets: beware of fake good promotions

The set of two meals cooked at -30%, a packet of crisps at -40% or even a packet of cereals with 15% more free … Supermarkets are full of these promotions, and many consumers pay attention to them. . But are they really doing good business with them?

To verify this, 60 million consumers conducted the survey in six supermarkets. Result, if “the majority of products advertised with a discount were paid at the cash desk with the expected discount and at the price indicated“, the association has identified several”anomalies“and identified seven major types of confusion.

Supermarkets sometimes inflate the reference price of products on their catalog and on in-store displays so that consumers feel they are getting a bargain. Then, some products are missing before and after the promo period. That is, they are only sold during the promotion period.

And you may be one of those consumers who prepare their shopping in advance based on what you find on sale in the catalogs. Problem, once arrived on site, the product is not available in store from the first day. 60 Million consumers gives the example of a packet of powdered sugar advertised at -34% in the catalog, which was quite simply unavailable in supermarkets.

Some promotions also sometimes start before the scheduled date indicated in the catalogs. This should be good news, but then again, products are sold out before the promo has started. “The dates indicated in the catalog are only indicative for certain promotions and the discounted price can sometimes be considered as the usual price”, writes 60 million consumers. On the other hand, in some stores, products are more expensive after the promotion than before. On a box of chocolates, the reduction is real, but once the promotion period has passed, the base price has increased by 80 cents.

Another trick: beware of product formats. Promotions are sometimes an opportunity for stores to sell “limited offers”, “seasonal”, “maxi format”… Which are not always advantageous or at least misleading. For example, a box of 50 teabags, twice the size of a regular box, actually costs seven cents more.

60 million consumers also recalls that it is not because a product is in the catalog that there is necessarily a promotion on it, some are simply put forward.

So what is the interest for large brands? “We are heading towards very significant price increases in supermarkets and it is to be feared that the promotions will serve as a screen for these increases. We will blur the image of the price during the promotion and the product will come out much more expensive after the promotion than before “, responds Lionel Maugain, journalist for the magazine 60 millions de consommateurs, in the 13h TF1 report at the top of this article.

To make sure you don’t get fooled, always look at the price per liter or per kilo and compare the catalogs of different brands. Doing good business is a full-time job.