Do the Math! Bargains that really aren't.

[bigP]

--

[30801]

Their maths is fine.

Look at the screenshot. The saving is £-4

[roundhouse]

Their maths is fine.Look at the screenshot. The saving is £-4

You are quit right but I wonder how many will get caught by that.

[Ozexpatriate]

You are quit right but I wonder how many will get caught by that.

It made me think the website software is working correctly and accurately computed the 'savings'.

[bigP]

--

[ozthedog]

Do the "Math" - have we moved to the United States?

[bbishop]

Yeah!  59th state.

 

Bill

[Adrian]

There was this offer from WH Smith a couple of years ago.

 

[Ozexpatriate]

Yeah!  59th state.

Not the 61^st? (After the ten Canadian provinces.)

[F-UnitMad]

Yeah!  59th state.

 

Bill

If we can pay their prices for "gas" (ie. petrol) & have their trains & loading gauge over here, yes please!!

[DougN]

Well if you lot in the UK are the 61st, Australia (it is a Commonweath so counting the states) is 62 to 67... 6 states (there are 10 territories that are not states)

 

The funny thing that there has been research into is how similar the culture of  Australia and the US are... they found out they are totally different. Americans think that Aussies are the same... I am pretty sure that Aussies know we are nothing like Americans! 

[PatB]

Not the 61^st? (After the ten Canadian provinces.)

Not Aircraft Carrier One any more then?

[DavidB-AU]

[F-UnitMad]

negative-discount.jpg

Yep; there's a minus sign in the price you 'save'

 

It's a bit like Companies these days not making a loss. Instead they make a "Negative Profit".

[LisaP4]

Pizza Hut had some special pizza deals, just don't buy four:
 

[rockershovel]

I worked out long ago that quite a lot of "special offers" were of no real value, but actually advertising the fact is a new one on me...

 

My kids are big on shopping in Aldi at the moment, apart from the one who dismisses it. I went there with my daughter recently and (apart from being reminded of Fine Fare) I came to the conclusion that in fact, it has SOME things which are cheap, a lot of things which are the same price as anywhere else, and such an unbalanced range that you can't actually do a planned shop there.

 

I'd wondered about the logic of building a supposedly super-cheap store in an out-of-town, retail park location and now I know. My daughter breezes through there on her way to shop, buys whatever is on her list cheap, and then goes on and buys the rest elsewhere, I find. If you ARE either a student living on a small fixed budget and eating whatever is cheap, or feeding a large family on a diet consisting largely of cheap cuts of poultry, rice, lentils and spices, it's probably a good place to shop. Me? I wouldn't bother.

 

I'm no fan of Tesco. My experience of them is that big as they are, they aren't big enough to do what they are trying to do; their actual ranges of any given item are often quite limited, they have too many ranges, a lot of shelf space is occupied with either premium items like specialist beers, or with items being heavily promoted to encourage you to buy in unrealistic quantities. They can't match Aldi's minimum-overheads model, or Walmart's "we supply absolutely anything" approach.

[alastairq]

It surprised me how well the old man Sainsbury seems to do?

 

For the most part, their mid-range foodstuffs are of a nicer quality than those of Tesco.

 

I have come to the conclusion I don't like Aldi....[especially after that documentary about how they achieve their low overheads.....by 'pushing' staff performances to the limit.]

 

I don't have the option of Waitrose locally....not without going to a place which is overcrowded with people!

 

Strangely, I prefer Lidl for most stuff.    They have fewer brand options, but their own brand stuff seems of decent quality...their meat ranges are cheaper than Tesco...or appear to be.....although their veggies & fruit, if not as 'perfect' as Tesco's attempt to be, seem as good as any [local] greengrocers.

 

Plus...and this is a big  plus........their staff [or at least, those in my local store] seem a lot more friendly and natural, and less harassed.

 

Morrisons for me are almost a no-goer. 

 

But then, I tend to use my local farm shop for a lot of stuff these days...especially their meat products....even their own, fresh, made-out-the-back] ready meals.  One of their young lassies makes an excellent chilli....at around 4 quid, one needs both hands to lift the pack off the shelf......although I can get through one on my own, it really serves two to three portions .....[no rice...bring your own]...and contains a  good pound and a half of their own minced beef in it!

 

However, since I am working loads of overtime, at the govt's expense...I can afford it....I may have to trim my wings if ever I get to retire and rely solely on my bits of pension to keep alive?

[alastairq]

Oh...and I truly dislike, with a passion, this 'new' language those who serve customers seem to have to spout all the time.....!!!!    

 

[''How are WE today?''......WTF????....how the hell am I going to know how you are? I know I'm fine..or was until I got spouted at straight from the 'customer care manual'....''Have a nice day, sir''......as if you care? ''What card are we going to we using today?''...none of your business, pal......I get the feeling this new language is about making us all feel equal.....hell's bells, I'm the customer, you want my money, simples...!  I don't give a tinkers about 'having a nicer experience' at the supermarket tills...won't make me more likely to come back, will it?  Treat me like an idiot, and I soon kick back! Stuff the new language, stick to the old ways!!]

[brianthesnail96]

Don't blame the poor beggar on the till for that- it'll be as a result of some training doctrine implemented by some hired in consultant and then handed down Chinese whisper style through some poorly executed training videos and garbled instructions by management... with a dressing down by management (generally a supervisor with aspirations in my experience) if they don't comply. We had "members cards" instead of clubcards, nectar cards etc and our official line was to ask "are you a member?". I nearly got a thump the first night working the booze & fags till from someone who rather misinterpreted, reworded it to "do you have a member's card?" after that.  

 

My favourite was the Saturday morning ritual with one old boy who as a friend of the family I'd known for years (sadly not with us any more), he was a right card and, having served the person in front in a perfectly civil manner he'd be greeted with something along the lines of "not you again, I thought I'd told you not to ever come to my till again" or similar, he'd respond in a suitably aggrieved way- the look on the faces of the other customers was absolutely priceless.

 

As for "bargains", I've noticed that "any three for £x" deals where the items are different prices often don't work out if you aren't buying the most expensive items.

 

Another one to look out for is "reduced to clear" items on offers, I've known tills to add money on to get to the target price (I'm sure this depends on the system it uses- ours seemed to think "OK, if I scan two of these the price total needs to be £X" and it would subtract from the second item to suit- if one item scanned at a reduced price that came to less than the offer it'd add it on.  

 

On the other hand, back when we used to have hand written reduced to clear labels (instead of bar codes) that we had to hand enter the reduced price, it would still do the offer subtractions based on the original price (these were "Y for £X" deals as opposed to BOGOF). On several occasions I served people a significant quantity of food (BBQ meat was a common one, where the weather hadn't been as good as planned and we had an excess despite it being on offer) for virtually nothing- several times it actually rang through the till as a negative number, i.e, I owed the customer money (although I never had it where I had to do this as they'd always bought something else and it just took the money off of that effectively). The other trick was BOGOFs where you had one short dated reduced and one at full price, the reduced one went through first and you got the full price of the second one discounted so you got two for the reduced price. Suspect that one still works with the printed barcode reduced labels but certainly the other one didn't once we stopped manually entering reductions and as said above you can actually get the opposite effect instead.

 

I think everyone should be made to work in retail, while it might jade your view of the human race somewhat (and it'll mess with your preconceptions- some of our rudest customers were little old ladies...) chances are whatever you end up doing when you escape will seem preferable! That said, looking back it was quite good fun at times. Good camaraderie amongst the staff certainly.

[Horsetan]

Hehe, I didn't even notice that one, cheeky b@$£"7$.  I wonder if this is how they're trying to claw back that £6.4bn they lost 

Every little helps....

[kevinlms]

Not the 61^st? (After the ten Canadian provinces.)

Incorrect, as Americans count Canada as one state & not 10 Provinces. The concept that 'Canada' would become states 51 to 60 is beyond them. Why I don't understand, as US is made up of 50 states, so why shouldn't the same principle apply?  Just imagine the change in the balance of power, 10 new 'states' would make?

[kevinlms]

negative-discount.jpg

Must be Masters. No wonder they're going backwards, FAST.

[Ozexpatriate]

The funny thing that there has been research into is how similar the culture of  Australia and the US are... they found out they are totally different. Americans think that Aussies are the same... I am pretty sure that Aussies know we are nothing like Americans!

There are a lot of meaningful similarities. There are also some very significant differences, so certainly neither the same nor "totally different".

 

I have 30 years of immersive personal introspection on this particular question.

[Horsetan]

....The funny thing that there has been research into is how similar the culture of  Australia and the US are... 

 

They're as similar as two completely dissimilar things in a pod.....

[Ozexpatriate]

I think everyone should be made to work in retail, while it might jade your view of the human race somewhat (and it'll mess with your preconceptions- some of our rudest customers were little old ladies...) chances are whatever you end up doing when you escape will seem preferable!

Yes it's a revealing look at humans.

 

In the last stages of his professional life my uncle was the owner/operator of a small newsagents shop. My cousin is of a scientific mind and her least favourite aspect of working in the shop was dealing with 'members of the public' (as she called them).

 

Oh...and I truly dislike, with a passion, this 'new' language those who serve customers seem to have to spout all the time.....!!!!    

 

... I know I'm fine..or was until I got spouted at straight from the 'customer care manual'....''Have a nice day, sir''......as if you care?

Don't blame the poor beggar on the till for that- it'll be as a result of some training doctrine implemented by some hired in consultant and then handed down Chinese whisper style through some poorly executed training videos and garbled instructions by management...

Ironically, here in the country where I live, where such practices in retail are completely normal and have been so for a very long time, I find that visiting relatives from overseas will comment that "people are so friendly here". Done naturally it's not necessarily bad. I do understand how people can find it cloyingly over-familiar.