Consumers being deceived by misleading supermarket pricing

Mon, 05 Dec 2011
 
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The UK's biggest supermarket groups could face prosecution over false and misleading pricing claims, according to a new report.

The Truth About Supermarket Price Wars study for BBC1's Panorama programme found that many of the pricing tactics used by Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys and Morrisons could potentially be illegal.

Set to be screened this evening, the programme shows Panorama reporter Sophie Raworth uncovering a series of misleading selling practices after making a trip to each of the big four retailers near her home.

The most common case identified during her visits was of supermarkets offering larger "value" packets which were less economical than buying smaller packs. She found 17 items advertised as ‘bigger pack, better value’ which were in fact more expensive than smaller packs.

Raworth also discovered bogus price drops at some of the big four supermarkets and promotions that offered zero savings - for example a £1 product being advertised as ‘two for £2’.

Deborah Parry, an expert in consumer law, said: "It is not just the occasional mishap here. There are repeated examples with many, many products in different locations with different supermarkets and all of them seem to be doing the same thing. So there is a potential for prosecutions to be brought against all of them."

All four of the big supermarkets denied deliberately deceiving customers and stressed that they strive to keep prices low for consumers.

The British Retail Consortium added that the latest Government figures show price competition between the grocers "is the biggest contributor to keeping inflation in check".

However, leading retail analyst Richard Perks, told Panorama that the so-called supermarket price wars were just a marketing exercise.

He said: "If there was a price war going on at the moment we would have seen profits falling, or we would have severe warnings and that is just not happening."