We've never had it so good...or have we...?

For years the debates have raged about who's the cheapest, who's the best. Yes, our beloved supermarkets. But now, we don't have to worry any more when we do a big shop that we might not be getting the best deal! You see those lovely people at Tesco and Sainsbury's have taken all the hard work of shopping away from us! Because they have dreamt up Sainsbury Brand Match and Tesco Price Promise!

Thank-you Mr Sainsbury! Thank-you Mr Tesco! I no longer need to shop around, or worry! You're doing all the hard work for me!

How does it work? Well quite simply when you get to the checkout, if your equivalent shopping would have cost more in the other, you get a lovely little ticket telling you how clever you are and how much you've saved! Even better, if you're not that savvy with your shopping and you've spent more than it would have cost in the other shop, you'll get a voucher giving you money back on how much you've overspent! Brilliant!

Yes, brilliant for them! They've found a way of ensuring your loyalty and making you spend more money than you need to whilst tricking you into thinking you've saved!

Oh poor deluded people of Britain, they've fooled you again...

Here's why - and I am going to keep this really really simple because I know that if I blind you with a load of complex mathematical statistics your eyes will glaze over and my point will be lost.

Quite simply, I went on to both Sainsbury and Tesco websites and did a mock up big shop, containing a big basket of items that I and people in general might buy in a week. I kept this as simple as possible, stuck mostly to well known branded items sold in both stores. To avoid overcomplicating things I left out Asda and the other retailers, and also excluded any items that were involved in multibuy promotions.

The full list is presented here.

Item Tesco Sainsbury Cheapest
Tesco/ Sainsbury Medium Sliced White Bread 800g £0.79 £0.80 £0.79
Peperami 5 Pack £2.00 £2.50 £2.00
Birds Eye Cod Fish Fingers 30 pack £5.00 £5.30 £5.00
Mccain Crispy French Fries 1.5KG £3.00 £2.50 £2.50
Haagen Dazs Cookie & Cream Ice Cream 500ml £3.00 £2.22 £2.22
Heinz Mayonnaise 430g £1.85 £2.15 £1.85
John West Tuna Chunks 4x160g £4.00 £5.00 £4.00
Heinz Spaghetti 400g £0.60 £0.65 £0.60
Heinz Baked Beans 6x415g £3.00 £3.30 £3.00
Heinz Tomato Ketchup 1.35KG £3.49 £3.25 £3.25
Nestle Shreddies 1KG £3.89 £3.49 £3.49
Belvita Breakfast Biscuits 6 Pack £1.24 £2.49 £1.24
Allinson Strong White Bread Flour 1.5KG £1.72 £1.10 £1.10
Kit Kat Chunky x4 £1.49 £1.55 £1.49
Costa Ground Coffee 250g £4.19 £4.99 £4.19
Diet Coke 12 Pack £4.99 £5.35 £4.99
PG Tips 240 pack £4.00 £5.68 £4.00
Budweiser 20x330ml £15.00 £13.00 £13.00
Strongbow 20x440m £11.00 £15.00 £11.00
Finish Powerball x26 £5.00 £3.82 £3.82
Ariel Actilift 888ml £5.00 £7.10 £5.00
Pampers Baby Dry Nappies Size 5 x41 £9.99 £6.65 £6.65
Lynx Apollo Shower Gel £1.00 £1.20 £1.00
Total £95.24 £99.09 £86.18

So what this means, if you went and did this shop at Tesco, it would come to £95.24. That is £3.85 less than it would have cost at Sainsbury. So you would get a Tesco Price Promise ticket at the till congratulating you on your cleverness and make you feel all happy and glowy and clever and thinking you've beat the system, what can you spend your £3.85 on.

If you went to Sainsbury, it would come to £99.09 thanks to brand match, you'd be told you've overspent, and be given a voucher for £3.85 to spend in store! Again you leave feeling all happy, thank-you Mr Sainsbury!

Boy did they see you coming! Look at column 3! This is a total of all the cheapest prices from each store! This only comes to £86.18. Admittedly you have the inconvenience of two separate shops - spending £50.15 in Tesco and £36.03 in Sainsbury but even so. £86.18! That is actually £9.06 than you would have spent in just one of the stores.

So really when you got your ticket telling you you had saved £3.85 you hadn't at all! You had just in fact been ripped off for an extra £9.06. Amazing work! You've been conned and you think you've got a good deal! Arthur Daley and Del Boy couldn't have come up with something better! They've fooled the whole nation into thinking they are doing us a favour!!!

Bicester Blogger - exposing Supermarket Scams since 2007!!!!

And there's more fun down the aisles next time x x x

If you have enjoyed reading this blog, please take a look at my books on Amazon (Paperback & Kindle), where you can read lots more of the same! Click here.

Jason xx

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