Supermarkets are not high on many Christmas card lists this year, I’d venture to say. It was only last month that CHOICE bestowed ‘Shonky’ awards to Coles and Woolworths. The supermarket behemoths drew CHOICE’s ire for raking in huge profits during a time of dire customer financial difficulty. Now, supermarkets are under fire again, this time for inflating your grocery price through what some might call underhanded tactics.
This time around the spotlight on ‘Big Supermarket’ is being shone by Gerard Brody, a consumer advocate, and chairperson of the Consumers’ Federation of Australia.
Mr Brody has put pen to paper in an article for the Nine Media stable, outlining “dubious” supermarket tactics. Many of these grocery price tricks have been highlighted before by YourLifeChoices, but they’re worth revisiting while they continue.
In fact it’s worth looking at why they do continue, in the face of ongoing consumer dissatisfaction. And this is where the spotlight can be briefly shifted from the supermarkets to the federal government.
Notwithstanding the efforts of CHOICE and other champions of consumer fairness, it seems the government has remained oblivious. As Mr Brody points out, competition regulators worldwide have examined price gouging and competition among supermarkets in the past year.
And while leading authorities in the UK, Canada and New Zealand have sharpened their focus, Australia’s equivalents have done little. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) hasn’t looked at this sector in detail since 2008, Mr Brody says.
I find that somewhat staggering. The ACCC has many sectors to oversee, but surely grocery prices, which affect all Australians, should be a major focus. A 15-year hiatus from a close-up inspection seems most unreasonable.
What grocery price trickery is in play here?
YourLifeChoices has raised many of these grocery price issues before, but they bear reiteration.
So-called ‘shrinkflation’ is one. This is the practice of reducing the size of a product while retaining the price charged for the previous size. As has been previously pointed out, this will sometimes entail retaining the original package size. It’s hard not to read such a manoeuvre as anything but deliberately misleading.
I used to wonder if this practice was simply too widespread to be reined in by the government. As it turns out, though, it appears that I am wrong. The Spanish competition regulator has labelled shrinkflation an “unfair method of competition”. As a result, supermarkets must now inform shoppers clearly about changes in sizes and prices of products. I would love to see this happen here.
Grocery unit pricing is another issue highlighted by Mr Brody. It was in 2009 that the federal government mandated grocery unit pricing. But since then, there has been precious little done to monitor compliance or enforce penalties for breaches.
Mr Brody has pointed out a change in the practice at some supermarkets that I had not consciously noted. He says Aldi has greatly reduced the font size on its paper and new electronic shelf labels. They previously had “well displayed unit prices”, he said.
Sadly the general rule for corporate giants is to maximise profits with whatever tactics they can get away with.
After 15 years of relative inactivity, it seems high time for the ACCC to turn its attention to the big supermarkets in that regard.
Have you noticed a shrinkage in unit price displays? What other tricks have you spotted being used by supermarkets? Let us know via the comments section below.
I am very disappointed with the deceptive behaviour of our major supermarkets and the record profits that has got them.
I have certainly noticed the size of tins such as baked beans shrinking and even beer stubbies and cans going from 370ml to 330 or 350ml with no reduction in price.
I also have an issue with “specials” that are not a genuine reduction on the “usual” price when there is no such thing as a “usual” price. Most prices fluctuate.
Also advertising half price specials but have none in stock.
Often there is a “Special price” sticker on top of the regular price and it is sometimes the same price as normal.
They over inflate prices, so customers think they got a bargain. Like the regular price of some dishwashing tablets at $72.00 a box. Who would buy them at that price ? They mark them on sale at $28.00 and sell heaps. That’s the price they used to be.
All supermarket should be forced to show any price increase as a % percentage over the previous price. I’m sure a lot of buyers would be shocked if they realised what these price increases are when expressed as a percentage and it would make more difficilt for them to hide their greed and should embrass these stores. I allows convert price increases to a percentage and increases of 25% aren’t unusual and can’t be justified.
Ive noticed the shrinkage in packaging – not always obvious but it has happened…and price of packaged ham that I buy regularly went up $4, just when supermarket was saying they were ‘holding prices’…this only goes down occasionally on special..and. I have noticed that there has not been as many ‘mark downs’ as previously…I actually have bought in the past much more when things are on special – now I think supermarkets are loosing because they have less ‘markdowns’…or ‘specials’ and i actually buy less groceries and meat and produce..This is the first time I can remember putting product back on shelves because of prices..I guess my catchphrase is “I dont think so”…
I never read the specials booklets put out by the supermarkets
they advertise these specials to sell more and more profits otherwise why would they do it .
I have also seen broccoli in one of the supermarkets going yellow in colour at the full price .
Guess where it will go later ,it could have been marked down and sold off ,but no they would rather throw it out . I never buy meat anymore as it is too expensive ,I never buy more than one or two days vegetables at a time as they start to go old
And petrol prices ,it is coming up to Christmas are petrol prices going up for Christmas lets see .I think I have already seem the pump price at over @.2.12 a litre
Well done to the price gougers merry Christmas
The same day I was in Coles I was also in Costco. Lilydale free range chicken was the same price. A few weeks later I was also in both stores. Coles raised their prices over 60% but Costco remains the same? It’s been like this for months. Now Coles has “reduced” prices that are still 40 – 50% dearer than the original prices. Same with some olive oils. Their half price special is the same price as the original price! Last I checked, the lot numbers were the same. Now I only buy genuine half price specials and stock up.
I don’t understand why Woolworths have different prices for the same product within their stores. The Woolworths store in Hampton Vic has now been called a METRO store. Along with this change some prices are higher than a non-metro store. So rebadging a store as METRO means Woolworths can charge more.
I also do not understand why there are some products with special on-line prices meaning shoppers will be charged more for shopping in-store!
What a relief. I thought the size of my hands were growing bigger. Not so. The reason is Lux soap bars. Used to be 100gr each. But due to “shrinkage” now come in as 85gr each bar. Did the price reduce. No, I don’t think so.