Setting prices in different Supermarkets

I buy the same type of baby food every week. It costs €9.39 no matter what supermarket I buy it in. I was in Tesco's on Saturday and I noticed they had raised the price to €10.98 (a whopping 17% increase). I knew I was going to be in Superquinn on Saturday so I decided to wait until then to but it.
In Superquinn it was advertised as €9.39 so I went ahead and bought it but when I scanned it the price came up as €10.98. This is the exact price as in Tesco's. Anyway, I called the assistant and she check that the price was advertised as €9.39 and in fairness to them they actually gave it to me complimentary.

My gripe is that Tesco's raised their price for whatever reason and Superquinn decide to set their product at the exact same price, but in this case hadn't changed their display in time.

So much for competition between the big supermarkets.

(Or are there certain products that the supermarkets have to sell at a price dictated by the makers of the product?)

I buy SMA no. 1 baby formula, made by Pfizer.

It was priced at the following, up until recently:

8.99 Centra "northern price match"

9.39 Tesco


It has now jumped to 10.99 in both shops.

SMA have a "new recipe" and a "new feature in the tin". I suppose they used this as an excuse to up the prices.

I don't think the shops can offer deals / price cuts / BOGOFs on baby formula for 0-6 months, as they can't be seen to discourage breast-feeding.

The baby food I buy is an SMA follow on and sometimes they have 2 for €15 deals so there must be some flexibility on price.

I remember when a lot of people were going to do their shopping up north, baby products was one area were there were supposed to be huge savings to be made. 17% sounds like a big increase to me and hard to justify.

Shops rarely if ever change the shelf edge labels when they are forced to give products away for free, under their own offer, when the shelf edge label differs from the price charged at the till.


So you could have gone back into Superquinn, and bought loads of the baby formula, and then got it all for free. Check out the offer carefully first, and keep in mind you must pay for the products and then ask for a refund. Although they won't be happy, and they may refuse to pay,.. the fact that they make no effort to change the shelf edge labels when they know they are wrong means they are leaving this possibility open.

The problem is that the till operator may become suspicious, and refuse to charge you.

Superquinn are usually fairly good at this, or used to be anyway.

A few years ago I bought 4 cans of cider in SQ which didn't scan at all so the guy at till gave to me for free. He then asked me if I wanted to go back and get a few more cos they'll be free as well!

Shawady said:

The baby food I buy is an SMA follow on and sometimes they have 2 for €15 deals so there must be some flexibility on price.

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Follow-on milk ( which is not for new born babies) is not subject the very strict regulation on formula for babies.
Absolutely no flexibility on that.

DB74 said:

A few years ago I bought 4 cans of cider in SQ which didn't scan at all so the guy at till gave to me for free. He then asked me if I wanted to go back and get a few more cos they'll be free as well!

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Maybe they were from a multi pack which was broken up so no barcode?