Shopper Warns of Common Grocery Store Pricing Trick After Falling Victim at Brisbane Woolworths
A shopper at a Brisbane, Australia Woolworths supermarket has shared their experience to alert others about a classic pricing trick commonly used by grocery stores. They hope their story will help others avoid falling for similar scams in the future. According to the shopper, Woolworths displayed full-priced items alongside sale products, giving the impression that the full-priced items were also on sale.
The shopper posted a photo on Reddit showing a shelf fully stocked with John West canned tuna. Despite yellow sale signs claiming a 50% discount, reducing the price to $1.35 per can, the tuna cans were actually being sold at full price.
Upon closer inspection, the John West canned tuna did not qualify for the advertised sale. Despite being placed near the discounted items, the tuna was priced at its regular full price.
In their Reddit post, the shopper admitted, “Well played, Woolies, you got me at the register for $2.60 each.” They further explained, “I fell for their oldest trick – placing full-priced items in the middle of the sale section. I could have left them at the register, but I knew I would just end up buying them anyway.”
While the shopper did save some money per can, it was not as much as the sale signs suggested. “I normally pay $2.80 per can, but the register said ‘$2.60, you saved 60 cents,’” they added.
Some speculate that Woolworths might have initially intended to increase the price of the John West canned tuna from $2.80 to $3.20 and tried to implement this by first offering a discounted price.
“It annoys me to tears with all these minor deceptive practices – like shrinkflation and raising prices before offering discounts,” the shopper expressed.
Despite many believing Woolworths intentionally misled customers, others defended the supermarket chain, suggesting it might have been a genuine mistake by an employee.
“I used to work at Woolies, and it’s not a deliberate scheme. It’s probably just an employee who saw a tuna special and stocked up thinking it was all tuna,” one person commented. “The checkout staff will likely face complaints from customers demanding free items due to mispricing.”
Another individual shared, “It’s unlikely Woolies was trying to deceive customers. It’s more probable that an employee simply misplaced the items.”
What are your thoughts on this alleged pricing trick by the grocery store?
