The shady economics of ‘buy one, get one free’ deals

Post by hattar » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 2:17 PM UTC

GordonS wrote: post #134

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that ever counts, regardless of "offer" or "saving" is the price per 100ml or kg. Thankfully the pesky EU interfered with the UK yet again and insisted that must always be displayed. Haven't used Tesco delivery for years, but their "best offers" always brought back the 10p and 7% savings, the real savings were on different tabs or buried in search. There was a search by cheapest, never by price per unit. Funny th…

What really annoys me though is Tesco displays the price per/unit using different units, so you're constantly having to figure it out in your head - one loaf of bread might display the price per 100g, another the price per 1kg etc.

Post by mrhappyunhappy » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 2:26 PM UTC

jamiethompson wrote: post #99

I think the counter argument to this is non-perishable food and other groceries. There is a certain brand of shelf stable non-dairy milk that my family use a lot of. The usual price is £1.50 a carton. Every few months there is a 3 for £3.00 offer. Now this is obviously a ploy to get you to buy more than you needed and also to appeal to new customers. But I use these offers to stock up on weeks worth of the stuff. If…

Post by asaph » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 2:32 PM UTC

tgb wrote: post #127

hannob wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have hard numbers to quote on this, but I'm very convinced that you end up paying more in the end. From my own experience and pretty much every one I talk about this, people have a tendency to buy things they'll never need. (I constantly try not to do that, but it takes active thinking about it all the time.) No discount deal is cheaper than the one where you don't buy something you don't need. Then there's u…

I consider myself reasonably frugal and thoughtful about money, but I definitely fell into one of these traps buying a suit for the first time. I went in with a specific sale in mind, they told me they had a two-for-one deal going so I might as well try on two colors of suits. But then it turned out the second suit was over double the price of the advertised sale price that I came in for (the first suit would have qu…

Post by hunter2_ » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 2:34 PM UTC

skh wrote: post #130

danmaz74 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that additional volume makes your daily spending on food lower, then it's a saving. If it makes you eat more, or throw away more food, then yes, it's not a saving.

That isn’t saving money it’s spending less money as I see it. If you took the surplus amount you would have spent and put that in a long term investment or savings account then I think you could claim a savings. Almost no one does this with day to day spending though so it’s best to view it as spending less. When you spend money you aren’t saving money. You are spending it. You might be spending less in a given situa…

Post by hopler » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 2:36 PM UTC

whoopdedo wrote: post #125

0x445442 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I'm very convinced that you end up paying more in the end This is actually the same tact credit card companies use, even if the balances are paid off every month. That's why we still use budgeted cash from envelopes to pay for most things. The only payments we run through a card are fixed costs where the percentage paid back on the card exceeds the transaction fee if any.

You're still paying for credit card transaction fees indirectly when you use cash. Since retailers are prohibited from charging discounts for cash purchases then to cover the card fees they raise the price for everyone. Cash buyers end up subsidizing card users.