300 ‘dodgy’ supermarket specials exposed by shoppers, says Consumer NZ

A consumer group says shoppers have uncovered more than 300 examples of “dodgy” supermarket specials.

But Foodstuffs has rejected the claims, and says it has already started simplifying its pricing and promotions.

Consumer NZ said in 78 cases across different supermarkets, items listed as “specials” were not even an opportunity to save.

And the group said during its campaign to clean up supermarket pricing, shoppers found 54 instances of being charged more than the shelf price.

“The volume and frequency of misleading pricing and promotions on our supermarket shelves is concerning,” said Consumer NZ chief executive Jon Duffy.

In September, the watchdog asked for people’s help to call out what it labelled as misleading pricing.

“Due to the volume of complaints, it took a while for our small team to work through and categorise them all,” Duffy said.

He said Consumer NZ shared some complaints with supermarkets, and asked the businesses to improve pricing and promotional strategies.

According to Consumer NZ, Countdown operator Woolworths had taken concerns on board.

“Woolworths also told us it has a clear and comprehensive refund policy,” Duffy said.

“If a customer is charged more than the price on the shelf, the customer can ask for a full refund for the item, and keep it free of charge.”

Consumer NZ said New World and Pak’n Save operator Foodstuffs had largely rejected concerns about pricing practices.

“Foodstuffs stated the number of complaints it received about pricing and ticketing practices were low, compared to the number of transactions it processed.”

Duffy said it was especially important at this time of high inflation and cost of living pressures to ensure potentially vulnerable customers were taken care of.

The consumer group said it believed some “systemic issues” should be raised, so it had written back to Foodstuffs.

But that supermarket company today said Consumer NZ’s sample and comments were not a realistic representation.

“We’ve been asking Consumer NZ for the details of the issues they say they’ve found in our stores for several months now, and to date they’ve provided seven examples, which we promptly looked into,” Foodstuffs NZ head of PR Emma Wooster said today.

“Over the same period Consumer NZ say they’ve been collecting examples, our stores will have completed 100 million customer transactions.”

Foodstuffs said its supermarkets nationwide and online stores served more than 3.5 million customer visits a week.

“If there’s a mistake, we work quickly to put it right and we’ll always refund customers where they’ve been incorrectly charged,” Wooster added.

Some supposedly “dodgy” examples cited were in fact cases of differences between brand-wide prices and store-specific prices, the company said.

That led to unintended consequences on the ticketing displays, but customers still received the best price at the point of sale, Wooster said.

“We’ve already made significant progress in simplifying our pricing and promotions across our brands, making them easier to understand.”

Foodstuffs said it had held prices below food price inflation for 10 months in a row.

Last month, Stats NZ’s food price index showed fruit and vegetable prices had risen by 23 per cent in the past year.

And a Canstar survey of 20,000 shoppers, also last month, found the cost of paying for groceries was the biggest economic worry for Kiwis, usurping the cost of housing.