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Bogof and multi-buy offers bad for environment

Buy 2 get 1 free... or alternatively buy 1 and get ripped off.  That's what it sounds like to me!  Come on, why can't we just have a third off, so if you want to buy 1, 2 or 3 you get the same deal? But still it's a promotion right, so what am I griping about?  Bogofs (buy one get one for free) and multi-buy offers are SO WRONG! for lots of reasons.  First they are deceitful - the price goes up for one item and suddenly buying two gets you a "saving".  Then they are dreadful for the environment since food is inevitably wasted, especially when they are used on perishable goods.

...totally discriminates against single people like many students and pensioners

Sometimes it is cheaper to buy more than less, for example 3 for a £1 and 1 for 60p.  However, I think that life is complicated enough without trying to calculate the unit cost of everything and then toying with the likelihood of using that extra item or not?  Then there's the worry that if you do, did the till get it right and take the discount off?  It totally discriminates against single people like many students and pensioners... and err... griping 30 year olds!

Bogof offers and multi-buy promotions Shops can't say something is on sale or reduced when it has not been sold at a higher price for a period of time.  But they can change the price on a single item and promote it on a multi-buy.  And all the supermarkets do it so the market is not providing choice.  It's time we broke up this deceitful marketing cartel.

I've complained a lot about this but many ignore you when you ask them to justify the practice or when you ask why certain soft drinks went up at the same time as a multi-buy.  The soft drink manufacturer ignored me too.  Even my local supermarket who purport to be "ethical" seem to think selling everything in the fridge on a multi-buy is fair and consistent with their much hyped environmental stance.  Actions speak louder than words!

Those with larger households can still take advantage of % off promotions as much as they do now. But as a single shopper I am tired of being ripped off or not being able to buy what I want because I don't want to buy three packets of 4 chicken breasts at one time!

Bogoff bogof.  If we all stop wasting food that could have been eaten, the CO2 impact would be the equivalent of taking 1 in 5 cars off the road.  Make your voice heard.

Take a minute and sign the petition.

By: Craig Watson

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Bingo, could we have that again in English please?

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grumpyoldwoman - 18-Aug-11 16:14 

tru i h8 such offers i mean nobody haz d tym 2 calucl8 the prices wen they shop- shops make loads of profit anywayz so they need 2 bcum more onest n face it they cnt gt profit on cheating innucent ppl.

-6

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Bingo Bretter - 18-Aug-11 16:05 

Totaly agree! I hate those multi buy, they should be illegal! Tesco should be ashamed!

+2

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Bedog - 6-Dec-10 12:06 

Could not agree more, but the real problem here is the law. The original idea was to prevent customer being deceived and introduce controls on BS 'special offers' that are just normally priced goods. Unfortunately it all got diluted by politicians under influence of industry, they only have to show the higher price for 30 days in one store, then it can be a special offer.

It is just a waste of everyone's time and marketing people are getting alot of money to come up with these deceits and does nothing more than to devalue the economy.

Sure stuff should be cheaper the more you buy, but BOGOF is already packaged for individuals so there is no real saving.

-5

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Tony - 1-Dec-10 16:51 

Play it to your advantage. In at least one of the supermarket chains, the EPOS software will calculate the multibuy discount, but if you wait for the bill to be totalled and then say that you've changed your mind (or your bill came to more than you were expecting and you don't have enough money, or something similar) and ask for one of the multibuy items to be taken back, it'll deduct the full amount for that item. In some cases, you can use multibuys to get a discount on your shopping. If the offer is £4 each or 3 for £10, you can put the items through the checkout and £10 will be added to your bill, but if you ask for each of the items to be taken off, the software will deduct 3 x £4, saving you £2 on the shopping that you DO want.

+12

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Canny - 17-Jun-10 18:19 

John, left to me, I can honestly tell you all four chicken breasts would go down in one meal with me, along with the normal trimmings.

-5

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Gainsborough lad. - 10-Feb-10 20:20 

single people who moan about BOGOF offers. what is their problem! I think it is fantastic that food is now so cheap, much better than when I was a child. So you have to buy 4 chicken breasts for the price of 2. Guess what, thats the same has having 2 free meals. How fabulous is that. I think the problem with these people is that they just don't know how to cook or freeze or store. Maybe, if the Chicken breasts, for example, came with instructions along the lines of put 2 of these in the freezer. Grill one of the other 2 for tea on Monday and pan fry the other one with some onions, garlic and tomato on Wednesday. BOGOF offers are fantastic they keep all of us with a fantasic supply of cheap food. More BOGOF offers is what we want to see. If you don't want the offer, why not be generous and just give it away, maybe the person in the queue behind you is not as well off as you think they are.

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John - 10-Feb-10 17:55 

Same with Debenhams. Bought a dress for 17.50 with a big sticker on the label saying 'reduced to half price'. When I peeled off the five or six price labels, I noticed the original price was 30 pounds. They had increased the price to 35 pounds for a couple of days to allow the 'half price' sticker. Bit dishonest, as you say.

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fedupinwales - 2-Jan-10 09:02 

I had this argument in Asda recently. Fairy non-bio gel has been £3.90 in there since it's release date 18months ago. Then in October this year it went to Buy 2 for £7.00. Which in itself was good, but, they claimed a saving of £2.76 on the regular price of £4.88 each. It has never been £4.88!!! I raised the issue with the store manager who said "Yes it has, you're wrong". So I went to trading standards and they came back saying that it had been £4.88 in another store. Well personally I think this is dishonest! I never realised a £2.76 saving as I had never previously paid £4.88 each. I don't think they should be allowed to advertise an offer in one store based on a price from another.

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Freddie - 22-Dec-09 15:51 

Another way that they con customers is with “reductions” where they quote an original price that only has to have been the price that was charged in just one branch for 28 days.


That the branch was on Orkney and no one with any sense actually bought the product at the artificially inflated price is irrelevant, they can still legally claim the “new” price as a reduction.

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Smithy - 14-Dec-09 00:33 

Some interesting comments folks and good to see some (but not all!) persuaded. As someone said you have a choice but I think it's a pretty rubbish choice - in my local shop tonight every item of fresh meat was on a multisave so not much choice there. But I can still buy 1? At 1 for £3.50 or 2 for £5 that's 40% more if you buy 1 so I think that's unfair, a bad choice and worth griping about. And going to the next shop isn't a choice either because they all do this manipulative practice. So no choice there either.
A local off-licence recently changed their entire wine selection to a 3 for 2 and readily admitted in-store that the prices had all gone up at the same time. Which is my point, they are exaggerating or entirely kidding-you-on that there is a saving. And ripping you off if you want only 1. With all due respect calling the supermarkets"Robin Hoods" is naive! If they had any decent justification for this practice (other than making profits by deceiving consumers into buying more than they want and over consuming or wasting) it is strange that they repeatedly ignore repeated queries in this respect.

+1

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Craig Watson - 14-Dec-09 00:21 

You've got to be careful even if you have assessed the deal and seen that it can, in fact, benefit you.
My local supermarket often has a pack of 4 yoghurts on a "buy 2 for £3" deal. However, the yoghurts are also sold as an 8-pack. The 8-pack is £2.96! It may just be 4p, but that's money being ripped right out from under your nose!
Beware!

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Mad Vicki - 6-Dec-09 23:10 

The most unbelievable deal that I ever came across was on new waterside apartments that were not selling very quickly, and a ginormous sign was put up outside to let everyone know, if they bought one, they would receive a free car. Needless to say, some people were drawn in by this, as there were about six identical new cars parked there a few weeks later, and the apartments were occupied. It was not even a very good car.

+4

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Magz - 1-Dec-09 00:21 

Kit, you're missing the point. Supermarkets effectively blackmail companies in supplying BOGOF offers. They don't say to companies we're keeping the same stock but we're going to lose our profit by selling it half price, they say can you give us twice the stock for the same money so we can provide a BOGOF, don't comply then we'll sell your competitors bread instead of yours. Therefore any deals that are had are paid for by the small companies not the supermarkets who are the 21st century Robin Hoods.

+2

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Shop Elsewhere - 30-Nov-09 13:10 

The shops dont always make a profit on buy one get one frees, sometimes they can just break even or maybe even lose a few pence, a lot of the time these deals are only there to get people through the doors, so while theyre in there they will buy something else too.

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Stop ya whingin! - 29-Nov-09 14:31 

In Euroland they're offering buy £1 and get £1 free. Britain is being sold buy one and get one free. It's all lies, lies, damn lies and crooked dealing. The mafia has taken over the country. Soon it will be import 1 immigrant and get 1,000 free. MPs are sold to us as buy 1 government and get one free.

We live in Absurdistan

-1

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Absurdistani - 26-Nov-09 23:45 

Shop Elsewhere,

You are missing the point. What many of us are irritated about is that if a product costs say £2.00 and a shop is offering "buy one get one free" for the same price, they are still making a healthy profit on £2.00 for 2 so how much profit were they making at the same price for 1?

What we would like is to buy just one item for half price instead of being pushed to buy two.

As for the suggestion that we stop griping…… well, this is a gripe site, what did you think people were going to do?

-10

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Kit - 26-Nov-09 22:11 

I don't intend to buy; I'm not that stupid. However, I'm still entitled to gripe about under-hand sales tactics and the fact that the retail industry in general thinks it can manipulate the public to part with their money. Unfortunately, we now live an a consumer society fuelled by the media and, sadly, there are a lot of people out there who are taken in by it all. Not us "Gripers" though, I'm pleased to say.

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Toughcookie - 26-Nov-09 16:58 

This is the most stupid gripe I've yet to hear. You've got your own mind, if you don't want to take advantage of the deal or feel that you're going to waste any excess, don't buy it, don't gripe.

+5

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Shop Elsewhere - 26-Nov-09 13:49 

The sofa adds, with their continuous "sales" are so annoying. They advertise a sofa for £500 saying it has been reduced from £1000 to make people think they are getting a bargain when, in fact, the sofa is always on sale for around £500 and there's no way it's worth double the price. I'm noticing this more-and-more nowadays. For example, a bottle of wine that has been "reduced" from £12 to £5, when has always been at the £5 end of the market. Be vary wary about "sales" and "bargains"; they seldom are.

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Toughcookie - 25-Nov-09 12:51 

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