Retail

Updated every Monday!   Subscribe to free weekly newsletter.

Dumb Coupon Fine Print

Last fall, Boston Market sent out an email offer to people on their mailing list promising a free rotisserie chicken. Of course, once you open the email, you learn that you have to buy a “family meal” in order to get it.

Worse, the coupon was geographically limited:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Boston Market

Considering those stores are 3000 miles away from MrConsumer… thanks, but no thanks.

Two days later, the company realized its blunder and sent out an apology, including a coupon:

Boston Market

*MOUSE PRINT:

The coupon requires “no purchase”, but the fine print indicates that you cannot use it if you buy one of their heavily discounted meals. In other words, buy nothing and dessert is on us, but buy something cheap, and like the soup Nazi might say, no dessert for you. Huh?

Clearly, the company merely copied over its standard exclusion language for other coupons without thinking. This is the most minor of issues, but there are other times when standard language in other companies’ coupons can be used wrong-headedly against a customer by an over-protective cashier.

Updated every Monday!   Subscribe to free weekly newsletter.

J.C. Penney Intros “Elsewhere” Price Comparisons

Just a year ago, J.C. Penney’s new CEO, Ron Johnson, promised to do away with that chain’s use of phony sales and “fake prices.” Finally, an honest merchant. What integrity. How pro-consumer. His reward: consumers left in droves and sales plummeted.

Now one year later, guess what’s coming back? Although not to the same degree, the chain is re-introducing sales, and has begun making price comparisons again to prices it never charged.

Here is a sample item from their website:

elsewhere

This shirt is being offered at its regular price of $25, but just above it is a $34 price crossed out, described as “$34 elsewhere.” Well guess what, this shirt is NOT $34 elsewhere because this is JCP’s own brand and it is not sold elsewhere. So what does “elsewhere” mean?

*MOUSE PRINT:

elsewhere explained

JCP says it means the price for the same item or a comparable item at some other seller. To the average person, “elsewhere” in this context most likely is understood to mean that that item sells elsewhere for such and such a price. If JCP wants to refer to the price of a similar quality item elsewhere, they should use the more commonly understood term for that — “comparable value” or “compare at” — as you might see at TJ Maxx and Marshall’s.

Now, moving over to JCP’s jewelry department, if you are shopping there for Valentine’s Day, heaven help you, because they have a new type of price comparison for jewelry — “appraised value.” The lengthy definition is above.

It is unfortunate that JCP has taken a step backwards to once again make price comparisons to inflated prices it never charged, but we, as consumers, are really to blame. We just love a bargain, even when it is a phony one.

Updated every Monday!   Subscribe to free weekly newsletter.

Breyers Converts Ice Creams to “Frozen Dairy Desserts”

When product manufacturers want to cut costs or increase their profits, they can do one of several things. Many don’t want to raise prices because of the consumer backlash and possible reduction in sales. So, many choose to downsize the product as we have demonstrated here. Others take a less conventional approach and reformulate their product so that it is cheaper to produce and distribute.

Breyers downsized their half-gallons of ice cream first to 56 ounces and then again to 48 ounces around 2008.

Breyers

Now they have taken a new tack. They are reformulating many of their flavors.

Take a look at “old” Breyer’s Vanilla Fudge Twirl ice cream:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Breyers Real Ice Cream

Now take a look at the new package of “Vanilla Fudge Twirl”:

Breyers dairy dessert

The new one is no longer even called “ice cream” but is now “frozen dairy dessert.” It is no longer “all natural” either. And the vanilla ice cream claim has been replaced with a “vanilla flavor claim.”

*MOUSE PRINT:

Under federal law, to be called “ice cream”, a product must meet a certain standard of identity, which in this case requires that there be at least 10% milk fat in the product. That generally would come from the cream in the product. If the product does not meet the federal “recipe” for ice cream, it has to be called something else. In this case, they are calling it frozen dairy dessert which has no federal definition (other than it does not meet the standards to be called ice cream.)

Here are the ingredients statements from both vanilla fudge twirl packages:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Breyers old ingredients

Breyers New Ingredients

The old real ice cream product has milk and cream as the first two ingredients. The new version has cream listed as fourth (with milk, sugar and corn syrup predominating over cream). The new product also has half the fat as the old. While dieters might rejoice, the calories are nearly the same, and the taste is not likely to match the original.

The Breyers’ website spins why they changed many of their ice cream flavors to “frozen dairy dessert”:

Since 1866, Breyers products have consistently delivered high-quality ingredients, great flavors and smooth creaminess that our fans love, and we remain committed to that Pledge. Our Ice Cream and new Frozen Dairy Dessert varieties continue to use fresh milk, cream and sugar. What distinguishes our Frozen Dairy Dessert from our Ice Cream is that it’s blended in a whole new way to create a smoother texture.

Hmmm. They seem to have left out the fact that using less cream saves the company a lot of money.