Price Gouging?
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Here in NYC... I only noticed the high priced stuff was all that was left on the shelf. My local supermarket was not honoring the sale price on eggs and posted a sign accordingly.0
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missysippy930 wrote: »Our state (Minnesota) attorney general’s office has been very busy with price gouging complaints. I posted in here about a week ago about a store selling a 36 pack of toilet paper for $89.99
Really sad.
Need to name this store and post it everywhere! Everyone deserves to know anout stores that do this.
It was on the local news and reported to the attorney general’s office. Everyone here that watches local news saw it.0 -
One thing that I've noticed in my area is people complaining of price gouging; however, what is happening is that these people normally buy the store brand, lower priced versions of bread, toilet paper, etc. The store brand and lower priced items went out of stock first, so the only thing left are the high priced name brand items like charmin, and the higher end version at that. Since these people never bought the name brand high end things before, they never paid attention to what the price on them was, and now that they are being forced to buy those items as they are the only ones available, they are shocked at the cost and claim price gouging.
for instance: the last time I bought toilet paper, the only thing that was available was kleenex ripple. I had no idea what the price was on that because I usually bought store brand, so I never glanced at the tag for the kleenex or the charmin. It was an eye opener to see that the typical price was $7 and up for a pack!3 -
I second items I usually buy cheaper versions of are gone and only the higher priced ones are left, like $10 yogurt. The biggest store item gouging is toilet paper. It's not food but I was going to order 15lb and 20lb weights last week and they were $35 so I debated as I usually use them at the gym, this week they're either sold out over $75. That's really irritating me! With groceries it's necessary though so that bugs me more.0
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I had the opposite issue -- I normally buy more expensive peanut butter (peanuts and salt only) and for my delivery order they had to substitute Jif for it (if I'd noticed I would have rejected it and just made some nut butter from the nuts I have on hand as I don't really care for regular peanut butter, but oh well). Also, when I checked about 10 days ago to see if 7-11 still had toilet paper (they had been fully stocked the week before, when the grocery stores first started having trouble keeping it on the shelves), they were out of all the namebrand stuff and only had their 7-11 brand, which is cheaper. I'm not saying this is the case across the board here, as I haven't been to the grocery store for a while.0
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I'm not noticing any price gouging where I'm at. I am noticing that often, the cheaper stuff is being sold out and more expensive brands are what is remaining on the shelf. I bought sandwich bread a week ago and the shelves were pretty void of store brand breads and other cheaper brands...we eat Dave's Killer Bread, and it's more expensive and there was plenty on the shelf.
For the most part, our stores seem to be getting back to some semblance of normal as the initial panic seems to have subsided.1 -
I noticed a small sign at the entrance of our small local grocery that said that advertised prices in the sales flyer would not be honored. Those flyers are made up months in advance, so I can understand that the sales items might not be available now, but I agree they should honor the prices if the flyers were mailed out to customers or if the price is on the shelf. I haven't checked our usual grocery store (a big chain) to see if they are honoring their sales prices.0
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bmeadows380 wrote: »One thing that I've noticed in my area is people complaining of price gouging; however, what is happening is that these people normally buy the store brand, lower priced versions of bread, toilet paper, etc. The store brand and lower priced items went out of stock first, so the only thing left are the high priced name brand items like charmin, and the higher end version at that. Since these people never bought the name brand high end things before, they never paid attention to what the price on them was, and now that they are being forced to buy those items as they are the only ones available, they are shocked at the cost and claim price gouging.
for instance: the last time I bought toilet paper, the only thing that was available was kleenex ripple. I had no idea what the price was on that because I usually bought store brand, so I never glanced at the tag for the kleenex or the charmin. It was an eye opener to see that the typical price was $7 and up for a pack!
I buy store brand toilet paper and paper towels. I’ve noticed the opposite here. The big brands are sold out, and if there’s any on the shelves, it’s store brand. This has been true for the past few weeks. Mostly empty shelves, but today, they had 1/2 dozen cases of store brand toilet paper, no paper towels of any kind. 8:30 in the morning. The people I noticed, had only one package in their carts, no hoarding. We live in the country and have a septic system so single ply only. I actually prefer store brand paper towels. I found a few packages, single roll at Target. Bounty Essentials .99/ roll. No eggs or egg beaters at grocery store, but they had them at Target, limiting to two dozen per customer. Higher than regular price, but under $2.00/dozen. Daughter said they were $3.00/ dozen yesterday when she shopped, in St Paul, MN. We’re about 50 miles south of her. Fully stocked bread shelves today. Everyone I encountered today seemed in good spirits and cordial, obeying the first full day of lockdown.2 -
In Oklahoma, we are supposed to bring gouging to the AG’s attention. Anything over 10% above normal price. He says they will be prosecuted. I think it’s helping to keep gouging down.
When I went to buy bread, the entire bread area was full of Pepperidge Farm. Definitely not my favorite brand. About 4X higher than the cheap stuff. No bagels, English muffins, French bread, etc. Just plain white sandwich loaves. Under the circumstances, I was glad to get it.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »For the most part, our stores seem to be getting back to some semblance of normal as the initial panic seems to have subsided.
From the reports I've heard, that seems to be the case here. A friend just went to the TJ's nearest to me and said it was (well, with respect to stock) back to normal and even had some hand sanitizer. I don't need anything so am fighting my desire to go to the grocery store just to have somewhere to go.1 -
fluffygoodas wrote: »Happening in Canada too. Very sneakily too. Normal sale prices higher, or no sales at all, yesterday a high end supermarket got dragged on the news for selling lysol wipes for $29.99. Rationed grocery too. 2 items each for food, 1 paper product. For a large family like mine, i have never spent more money on essentials. Very frustrating given what we are facing.
This store is like 4 blocks from my house. The mark up there is amazing so some on out community Facebook group were just like what's new? I suspect if its name is dragged through the media much more it will have another "accidental" fire. It's a beautiful store and has some neat stuff but it's really not worth it. Can get the same at No Frills for and eighth of the price2 -
AliNouveau wrote: »fluffygoodas wrote: »Happening in Canada too. Very sneakily too. Normal sale prices higher, or no sales at all, yesterday a high end supermarket got dragged on the news for selling lysol wipes for $29.99. Rationed grocery too. 2 items each for food, 1 paper product. For a large family like mine, i have never spent more money on essentials. Very frustrating given what we are facing.
This store is like 4 blocks from my house. The mark up there is amazing so some on out community Facebook group were just like what's new? I suspect if its name is dragged through the media much more it will have another "accidental" fire. It's a beautiful store and has some neat stuff but it's really not worth it. Can get the same at No Frills for and eighth of the price
Yup, I can't believe some people actually bought the wipes for $30!!!1 -
I had the opposite issue -- I normally buy more expensive peanut butter (peanuts and salt only) and for my delivery order they had to substitute Jif for it (if I'd noticed I would have rejected it and just made some nut butter from the nuts I have on hand as I don't really care for regular peanut butter, but oh well). Also, when I checked about 10 days ago to see if 7-11 still had toilet paper (they had been fully stocked the week before, when the grocery stores first started having trouble keeping it on the shelves), they were out of all the namebrand stuff and only had their 7-11 brand, which is cheaper. I'm not saying this is the case across the board here, as I haven't been to the grocery store for a while.
Make peanut butter cookies. The difference won't be as noticeable.
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Ok, well obviously this isn't as bad as the toilet paper for 89.99 but doing my weekly shopping trip today, using their new ad as a guide, some of their stuff was on sale as listed and some not. I'm not sure what the deal with that is and not one sign anywhere telling us anything But I also noticed many prices on things such as bottled water(?) seem to be taking off like a rocket. I am not pleased.
Our area is not what you'd call a high income area; in fact our whole state, except for a couple city or ski areas, is a bit of a financially depressed state.
There are workers in grocery stores, 20 minutes away, who have become sick with Covid-19 so there has to be some in my town as well. Some stores have increased their workers' pay by $2.00 an hour during all of this, as a thank you. Other stores have increased wages 1.00 an hour and yet other stores are trying to get more employees by offering a bonus of $150-300., depending on FT or PT. But I've seen nothing about my grocery store; hopefully I'm wrong about them. The employees of another grocery store have been told they cannot wear masks/gloves because they're to be used for other people. I can't understand that at all.
This whole virus has either brought out the kindness of others, the stupid in others or the greed in others.
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lynn_glenmont wrote: »I had the opposite issue -- I normally buy more expensive peanut butter (peanuts and salt only) and for my delivery order they had to substitute Jif for it (if I'd noticed I would have rejected it and just made some nut butter from the nuts I have on hand as I don't really care for regular peanut butter, but oh well). Also, when I checked about 10 days ago to see if 7-11 still had toilet paper (they had been fully stocked the week before, when the grocery stores first started having trouble keeping it on the shelves), they were out of all the namebrand stuff and only had their 7-11 brand, which is cheaper. I'm not saying this is the case across the board here, as I haven't been to the grocery store for a while.
Make peanut butter cookies. The difference won't be as noticeable.
Good idea!0 -
You can't put out a sale flyer advertising a product for $0.99 and then sell it for $2.49.
@ReenieHJ did they have big signs all over the store disclaiming "Sale prices not in effect?"
My supermarkets had big signs on the doors and all over the place saying "No rain checks will be issued" and "No returns allowed."
I’m afraid they can. There’s no law that guarantees advertised prices that are printed, posted, etc. typos occur all the time, especially when circulars go to press. Some stores choose to honor prices that might be mislabeled but they aren’t legally required to do so.
Depends on where you live. I'm not going to go into all the details, but the law here (Michigan) is generally that they have to honor the price on the shelf/sign. Misprints in flyers require posted corrections (usually not all that prominent, may just be signage at customer service, but it's there.)
Here in Massachusetts signs about typos are displayed prominently on the door so people can see them before they start shopping.
Also, if something rings up at a price higher than the advertised price or the price on the shelf you get it for free or for $10 off if it costs more than $10. They are required to post these signs by the cash registers.
https://blog.mass.gov/consumer/massconsumer/the-price-is-right-the-massachusetts-item-pricing-law/
If there is a discrepancy between the price listed on the shelf or item and the price that it rings up at, the consumer must be offered one of two corrections:- If the item costs more than $10 and rings up higher than the advertised price, $10 must be deducted from the lowest advertised price.
- If the item costs less than $10 and rings up higher than the advertised price the item should be given as free.
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Ok, well obviously this isn't as bad as the toilet paper for 89.99 but doing my weekly shopping trip today, using their new ad as a guide, some of their stuff was on sale as listed and some not. I'm not sure what the deal with that is and not one sign anywhere telling us anything But I also noticed many prices on things such as bottled water(?) seem to be taking off like a rocket. I am not pleased. Our area is not what you'd call a high income area; in fact our whole state, except for a couple city or ski areas, is a bit of a financially depressed state.
There are workers in grocery stores, 20 minutes away, who have become sick with Covid-19 so there has to be some in my town as well. Some stores have increased their workers' pay by $2.00 an hour during all of this, as a thank you. Other stores have increased wages 1.00 an hour and yet other stores are trying to get more employees by offering a bonus of $150-300., depending on FT or PT. But I've seen nothing about my grocery store; hopefully I'm wrong about them. The employees of another grocery store have been told they cannot wear masks/gloves because they're to be used for other people. I can't understand that at all.
This whole virus has either brought out the kindness of others, the stupid in others or the greed in others.
Because there is a huge shortage and medical personnel need them and can't get them. According to the CDC, they shouldn't be worn by gen pop anyway as they provide little more than a false sense of security. They don't really do much for the general population in regards to protection as it is not an airborne virus.2 -
spiriteagle99 wrote: »I noticed a small sign at the entrance of our small local grocery that said that advertised prices in the sales flyer would not be honored. Those flyers are made up months in advance, so I can understand that the sales items might not be available now, but I agree they should honor the prices if the flyers were mailed out to customers or if the price is on the shelf. I haven't checked our usual grocery store (a big chain) to see if they are honoring their sales prices.
This is making me mad, I usually choose which store to shop at based on sales. If there's ever a time money is tight it's now.1 -
In thinking about grocery stores' current pricing policies, I think it's reasonable to consider their business model.
Their usual way of making money is to make very small amounts of money on each item, but have very high volume via turnover rates. The sale flyers are partly "loss leaders", i.e., things that are being sold at/below cost to pull people into the store. In normal times, grocery stores' profit margin (percentage markup on full cost of each item) is often in the 1%-3% range. (Note that product cost to them includes not only the money they pay the supplier, but also an allocated portion of the costs of staff, store lease, facility maintenance, etc., so this is 1%-3% on that total cost.)
In the current situation, they certainly are still selling at volume. In fact, it's so much volume that many of them have been adding staff (increasing the base of costs that must be allocated across pricing of items), and the decent, responsible ones are increasing hourly wages for their staffs in recognition of those staffs' health risks and stress (also increasing the costs that must be allocated across the products).
Perhaps we might want them to cut profits further, even to zero, but we don't want them to go out of business . . . right?
None of this justifies price gouging - big increases in costs that the grocery store might apply, even though their per-unit acquisition cost or staff/facilities cost has not increased that much.
Store chains are very, very good at tracking costs and prices and making adjustments. It's automated, on pretty massive scales, because there are literally tens of thousands of products in a typical store. It's not normally some dude in a back room cynically deciding to lay on big markups "just because they can".
I'm not saying that's never happening, not at all. But I think it's rational to expect some price increases, both because stores may be paying distributors incrementally more for certain high-demand products**, and because the stores' increasing staffing costs (including the extra cleaning crews and such) need to be recouped, too.
** Manufacturing costs for certain high-demand products will have increased as manufacturers may have put workers on overtime, may have to reduce number of manufacturing employees in the facility at the same time to maintain social distancing, maybe bought more machines, may have to pay more for their materials inputs in some cases for demand or transport reasons, etc.
Again, none of this justifies price-gouging, cynical profiteering ($89 toilet paper or whatever). But I think it's important to think of this as a system, one that's under stress in various ways. Pricing will unavoidably reflect that, to some extent, even where companies are behaving decently and responsibly.6 -
spiriteagle99 wrote: »I noticed a small sign at the entrance of our small local grocery that said that advertised prices in the sales flyer would not be honored. Those flyers are made up months in advance, so I can understand that the sales items might not be available now, but I agree they should honor the prices if the flyers were mailed out to customers or if the price is on the shelf. I haven't checked our usual grocery store (a big chain) to see if they are honoring their sales prices.
This is making me mad, I usually choose which store to shop at based on sales. If there's ever a time money is tight it's now.
EXactly my thinking. It'd be different if their website mentioned it, or FB or signs in the store, but no mention of not honoring the sales flyer whatsoever. I did notice they had pulled all flyers out of the store though. *sigh*0
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