Comments on: How Unit Pricing Will Help You Save On Shopping

By: Angus Kidman

Angus Kidman — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:02:51 +0000

The partial answer is that the stores being targeted don’t sell them (unlike, say, the UK). And in some categories, it’d be redundant (e.g. wine more or less universally sold in 750ml bottles). And then the “don’t encourage people to drink by pointing out the discounts” factor comes in a little.

By: Cameron Roy

Cameron Roy — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:02:03 +0000

I wonder why it doesn’t apply to alcoholic beverages?

By: MisterK

MisterK — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:12:49 +0000

We were too busy being awesome. And beating you at cricket.

By: Peter Fleischmann

Peter Fleischmann — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:29:09 +0000

Cost and computing power is not the issue (and never was). Supermarkets like confusing their customers and make money from the confusion. Is the 835gm “Value Pack” really better value than the 500gm regular pack? often not.

Woolworths in Perth have been using unit pricing on most lines for almost a year now, but still do not use it on all labels even where pricing has changed and the label recently printed. So they are still hiding some unit costs.

Coles finally started a couple of weeks ago, but only seem to be showing it on the specials so far. Which means there are no regular labels to compare the unit pricing with.

I haven’t seen it used in any of the IGA’s.

Peter.

By: Simon Fraser

Simon Fraser — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:18:16 +0000

My local supermarket has a cunning partial unit pricing strategy. I’ve noticed that they’ve been unit pricing items advertised for sale, and also similar items that display a similar or higher price per unit.

They haven’t been unit pricing the similar items that show up the ‘on sale’ items as not quite as cheap as you might thing.

Gives you that warm glow inside.

By: Khuntza

Khuntza — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:23:09 +0000

My Woolies have it already.. cause its such a big job to change the ticketing in a supermarket to comply with the law they have been rolling it out for months now..

And it is a big job.. I was involved with the over night change over of tickets in a supermarket when GST was brought in..

By: S Nolan

S Nolan — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:11:24 +0000

This is not a new concept. I remember it in my local Safeway store in the late 70s – early 80s. [Boronia, Vic.] It eventually just faded quietly away. Why have the supermarket chains been saying for many years that it is just too costly to implement now when it happened all those years ago? And there were no computers in those days to do all the calculations. It’s really just reinstating what existed 30-odd years ago. Bring it on NOW.

By: Sharanjit

Sharanjit — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:07:36 +0000

The UK had this back in around 2000, and it worked a treat. The only question is why has it taken so long to get it in Australia?

By: Mike B

Mike B — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:10:44 +0000

It’s been introduced into my local shopping center (’though I can only recall seeing this at Coles.) While one could always say the onus is on the shopper, I don’t fancy doing some arithmetic for every item. This is a real benefit – you can compare across brands, within brands (quantity) and you often find that what would seem the best buy (quote often the larger sized item) is charged at a higher rate. Bravo to the engineers of this change.

By: Phil B

Phil B — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:01:56 +0000

It’ll save me converting everything for my wife as we walk down the aisles.

Interesting point with the online food retailers, are there many of those in AU?