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Amazon Sued Over Misleading Sale Savings

As Black Friday sales are at a peak now, it is a good time to question the savings claims that stores make that give you the impression you are getting a really deep discount.

A Florida consumer says he was induced to buy a Fire TV last February when Amazon advertised that it was on sale for limited period of time and he could save a substantial amount of money.

A typical ad for the TV on the Amazon website looked like this:

Amazon Fire TV

At $299.99, there appeared to be a $150 savings compared to the list price. Amazon defines “list price” as follows:

*MOUSE PRINT:

List price defined

In this case, Amazon says the list price is at or above the price that Amazon actually sold the product at least once in past 90 days. (According to the plaintiff, Amazon is the only seller of this product.)

According to a sales price analysis done by the consumer’s lawyer, neither this TV nor over a dozen other Fire TVs sold for the so-called list price in the recent past as far back as to last October. However…

…it was Amazon’s practice to hike up the actual sale price of the relevant Fire TV to the List Price for an extremely short period, in some instances as short as literally one day, and then immediately to lower the actual sales price back down to the normal sales prices. Amazon conducted these short spikes in price up to the List Price solely for the purpose of trying to make the stated List Prices literally true, even if in practice customers were deceived by Amazon’s omission of the material fact that the referenced List Prices were only available for such a short period of time as to virtually amount to not being available at all.

So not surprisingly, the consumer is suing Amazon for misleading sales practices including misrepresenting the saving and the limited time nature of their sales of these TVs. [See complaint.]

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Study: Consumer Attitudes About Shrinkflation

Purdue University just surveyed 1,200 consumers about food and grocery shopping (see full report) and has come up with some interesting insights into shoppers’ attitudes about shrinkflation.

Over 75-percent of the respondents said they noticed food packaging getting smaller. In particular, it was in these categories where they have seen the most changes:

Types of products shrinking

Some other interesting findings from the study include:

— Only 15-percent always check the weight of a product.
— Only 16-percent always check the unit price.

I am surprised that these numbers are even that high.

Shoppers were also asked which they preferred in the context of a snack product — whether manufacturers should just keep the product the same size but raise the price OR shrink the product and keep the price the same.

Shrink or don't shrink?

Lastly, here is how participants feel about a requirement that manufacturers disclose on the package any size changes, whether they switch brands when a product shrinks, and more:

Shrinkflation attitudes

Feel free to share your opinions in the comments.

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Did Albertsons Make Digital Coupons Easier to Find and Use?

For the past two years, consumer groups including Consumer World have tried to sensitize leaders in the supermarket industry about the discriminatory effect of offering certain grocery deals only when using a digital coupon (see story). The issue is that many seniors and lower income folks don’t have cellphones or internet access. As such, they have been cut out of a major way to save on one’s grocery bill at a time of very high grocery prices.

In addition, digitally-savvy shoppers have complained that the digital coupon section of supermarket apps is hard to use because there are hundreds of coupons there thus making that week’s sale item coupons hard to find.

So, are stores doing anything to address these concerns?
 

Star Market and Shaw’s

MrConsumer got very excited recently when Star Market and Shaw’s in New England (owned by Albertsons) seemed to be offering an easy way to clip all that week’s digital coupons required to purchase advertised sale items with just one-click of the cellphone.

Star QR Code

And when he followed their instructions, this is a screenshot of what he saw:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Star QR error

We tracked down the firm that helps create functionality like this for companies. They claimed it worked after testing it around the country (but we suspect they did not follow the explicit instructions noted above to scan the QR code in the app where it absolutely did not work). But, when we contacted Albertsons, they admitted they goofed.

The QR code does not scan from within the 4U Rewards app. We recognize that the verbiage in the flyer needs to be clarified, and our team is making these updates for future circulars. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

They also indicated that all the QR code does is bring one to the coupon section of their app where “the customer can click on the deals that are most valuable for their shopping trip.” So contrary to the plain wording in their circular, the company did not create a simple way “to add all the digital offers” to one’s account.

 

Safeway

Albertsons owns many other supermarket chains including Safeway. For several years, they have utilized “clip or click” coupons but in only some of their locations. These allow non-tech-savvy shoppers to clip and use their digital coupons the old-fashioned way with scissors. Great! More chains should do that.

Safeway Clip or Click

But despite what some might assume, those with the Safeway app cannot simply scan the coupons they want to load them directly into their account. They have to visit the Safeway website or app, and sort through the hundreds of digital offers there to find and e-clip them individually.

In reply to an inquiry from us, Albertsons demonstrated that roundabout way one has to e-clip digital coupons to one’s account. We suggested they could make the system so much easier if they allowed coupons in the ad to be scanned directly into one’s account. They did not comment.

Shoppers at Safeway also cannot automatically “add all digital offers” from this ad to one’s account by scanning the master barcode in the upper right corner of the circular. As with Star and Shaw’s, all that code does when it works is take you to the coupon section of their website or app. Then you have to find the ones you want.

We continue to hope that supermarkets will make it easier for all shoppers, tech savvy or not, to save money by being able to buy digital-only sale items with less hassle. That day is coming at some chains… so stay tuned.

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