I've long been infuriated by the endless and malicious pricing shell game that my local Safeway (Albertsons, Vons and other chains are also part of the same company, and I assume pull the same B.S.). It seems to be a very conscious effort to keep consumers in the dark as to what "regular" prices on products are, and the real value (if any) of a sale price on any given item.
For example, just walk into the soda aisle and try to figure out what the going price for an ounce of Coke or Pepsi is. There are countless buying options (larger and smaller cans, often four or five kinds of plastic bottles, six packs and eight packs, "regular" or "real" sales that apply to everyone, loyalty card prices, digital coupon, multiple purchase requirement sales, limited purchase sales, and more. It's easily possible on any give day to pay at least 100% more per ounce on the same ounce of beverage, depending on what version you get and what hoops you leap through and how much of your privacy and information you're willing to sacrifice.
Multiply this by thousands of items changing day by day, and it's an unending dance of scammery. When my grocery bill routinely drops 20-30% when I use a loyalty card, this just tells me that Safeway's "regular" prices are likely overcharging by a large percentage, if not all, of that discount.
But the pictured price tag just really cheesed me off. My wife and I live alone, so we don't need vast quantities of most items. But many Safeway sales require mass purchases, often on perishable items (and many produce items are no longer even AVAILABLE in small quantities). Often that's applied to salad, which I often eat a lot of, but not TEN BAGS AT A TIME or whatever. Four is a stretch to eat before some of it goes bad, canceling out some or all of the savings, and just pointlessly wasting food.
So I checked to see if I really needed to buy three bags this time. But it turns out, no. Look closely, See the math problem? Yeah. Buy one, get the sale price. But buy the STRONGLY suggested three, and Safeway charges you an extra penny for their trouble!
Yeah, it's ONLY a penny, but there are principles here, and again, if they do this over hundreds of thousands of sales, over hundreds or thousands of products, over months and years, it ads up. Plus, they've duped you into possibly buying more than you need AND goosed their bottom-line a little in the process.
It should be illegal. The whole SYSTEM should be illegal. And, IMHO, whoever came up with it should have their testicles or other tender parts nailed to a shopping cart out in the parking lot for everyone's enjoyment. Are we together on this?
#safeway #groceries #grocerieprices #albertsons #vons #foodprices #foodpriceinflation #latestagecapitalism
IT DOESN'T
