Fighting back against supermarkets

Noticed something odd at the checkout in tesco today.
The items went through the till as per, then subtotal was pressed, the total changed, then the other half used a clubcard and the total changed again?
Took a look at the receipt and the gondola end cod fillets, had reduced in price.
Had the better half not shown a clubcard then the sale price would have not been honoured.
Be careful out there.

Have you noticed how brand named teabags are taking it in turns to be priced at approx. £3 (for 240 packs) in supermarkets?

Why are two or more brands not matching the £3 price at the same time?

It's as if they are colluding, surely they wouldn't be doing that? Would they?

If I owned a major teabag brand and one of my rival brands was selling their teabags for £3 for a 240 pack, I'd instinctively match their price to maintain sales and be competitive.
Factor in that the big supermarkets (over 70% market share) have deals on the same brand of teabags at the same time and all rotate their offers between each big brand, I don't see much "competition driving down prices for the consumer," do you?

I did a quick experiment this weekend.
I used my local butchers (Sandersons in Baxenden, Lancs) as I do every weekend, weighed out all the meat and compared it to Asda on price.

The quality of the meat I get from the local butchers is far superior to that of a supermarket, time from supplier to counter is vastly lower at the butchers, the meat is bought locally, which keeps costs down, less emissions, etc. (The money generated also stays in the local area, as opposed to going to shareholders in far off lands)
But also my local butchers does not buy in bulk, so does not have the buying power, farm discounts, etc, of a supermarket. In theory, these should outweigh the extra storage, chiller, transportation costs easily.

* 3 prime fillet steaks
* A prime steak joint, which my butcher was about to cut 3 fillet steaks from.

Total weight: 1450g (1.45kg) of prime fillet steak - Asda price (£34 per KG or £3.40 per 100g) = £49.30

* 14 Pork and apple sausages

Closest available comparison at Asda was two 6 packs of pork and apple sausages - Asda price (For two 6 packs, 12 sausages at £2.50 a pack) = £5

* Lean braising steak (5 slices - I never buy the diced stuff)

Total weight: 950g of braising steak - Asda price (From the "Butchers counter" - which is misleading as it's the same meat off the shelf) is 97.5p per 100g = £9.26

* Streaky bacon

Total weight: 450g of streaky bacon - Asda price (79.2p per 100g) = £3.17

Total Asda price would have been £66.73
Total local butcher price was.... £35

"Saving you money everyday" say Asda.
Exactly how are they allowed to get away with these claims?

On meat, I've proved that shopping at your local butcher gets you higher quality, younger and fresher meat.
On price, my local butcher beats Asda by a country mile.

If you want genuine quality, permanently lower prices, better service, then shop local.
Can you afford not to?

If a supermarket's marketing is to be believed, they are all about offering customers value for money.
So perhaps Asda would like to explain their actions concerning Weetabix?

A 72 packsize of Weetabix is reduced to £5 (shown with a yellow offer shelf edge label), but none are in stock at our nearest store.
However, on the Asda website, under special offers, the product is not listed.
It is listed as a normal price of £5.

So is it an "Offer" or not?

To make matters worse, the manufacturer's offer of 72 weetabix for the price of 48 offer, is nowhere to be seen on Asda's website.
It is available in Asda stores though, they would rather not inform you about it!
In the normal location for weetabix, there is nothing about it.
But take a walk down to the bottom of the cereal aisle and there on a tiny metal hanger display, on the bottom shelf, stands just 6 boxes of the "50% Free" manufacturer's offer!

The price of these 48 pack sized weetabix is £4.18, much cheaper and better value than Asda's £5 "offer" that's not an offer according to their website.
An opportunity exists here, thanks to the manufacturer of weetabix, to SAVE people money, when given the chance, Asda CHOOSE not to promote it!

Asda have a new offer on 500g Readybrek packs, now available at "2 for £3" - don't buy it for a minute!

Shortly before [Read: In the last 7 days] this fantastic "offer" for customers was advertised on shelf and on their website, the actual price of readybrek was, yes you guessed it, £1.50 per pack.
At the same time as the "2 for £3" offer came on, asda increased the regular price of readybrek 500g packs from £1.50 to £2.18 (this is a staggering 45% price increase)

At a time when family budgets are stretched to breaking point, we could well do without mismarketing and deceptive practices from a supermarket, which advertises that they are "saving you money everyday" - the simple message to them, is stop playing corporate games with people's household budgets!

I did ask Asda (and the new twitter account "asdahelp" - which doesn't show up in #asda search results) how this readybrek "2 for £3" was an offer, they declined to answer, not once, but FOUR TIMES!
We did get a new follower - asda service team - but no response from them either. (How many twitter accounts do they need/staff?)
Asda's silence speaks volumes, I don't know how they get away with it!