rashbre central: i lose again at the supermarket

Sunday 18 March 2012

i lose again at the supermarket

Dickens of an old £10 note I've decided I'm not a very good supermarket shopper. Apart from being magnetically drawn to the impulse buy bins, especially when they are bright orange, I don't seem to ever get the 'You've won' coupons at the end of the shop.

During the week I'll use a local top-up store but then at the weekend it'll be one of the bigger stores for bulkier items.

If I go to the big store I usually get a couple of extra tokens. One says 'get money off by shopping online' and the other one tells me if I'm a winner or a loser that particular week.

A winner would be if I'd some how managed to save money compared with buying the same brands elsewhere. I think my best 'win' has been about 72p, which on a shop of say £100 would be about 0.7%.

Most times though, the coupon says something that amounts to,"You didn't do very well this time; we managed to charge you more than other shops in the area. Use the coupon next time to save money."

It took me several goes to even realise that the coupons could be redeemed. And even longer to notice that they only had a two week life span. The first £10 voucher* therefore was already invalid. The next couple of circa £2 vouchers got lost. Today its another £2.52.

I'm sure the marketing department have determined this is good practice, to somehow instil loyalty. I can't help thinking that they've just issued me with a note saying they've overcharged me. savings My picture of a £10 note is a replica of the already replaced Charles Dickens edition. It's more Darwinian now.

2 comments:

Pat said...

I'm always trying to dissuade MTL from buying three (BOGOF) to save money. It just makes one consume more which offends my latent puritan streak.

rashbre said...

Pat I can usually resist the offers although if I sometimes need one of something in these multi offers it feels as I'm being overcharged.
Lady Banana I'm hopeless at remembering the coupons.