UK supermarkets are not artificially inflating their prices to make loyalty cards’ promotions look like better deals, according to a review by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). However, the watchdog also warned consumers that shopping around was still the key to getting the best deals. The CMA highlighted that five of the UK’s largest supermarkets; Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Tesco, Co-op and Waitrose; offered legitimate discounts with nine out of every ten loyalty promotions it examined offering real savings against the regular in-store price. However, it also discovered that many shoppers were still distrustful of such promotions.
Loyalty pricing typically involves two prices for a product, one for regular customers and a lower price for those using a loyalty card or app. The CMA revealed that shoppers made savings of between 17% and 25% on average across the five supermarkets, but that 40% of consumers remain skeptical that loyalty prices offer genuine savings on usual prices. Within this group, younger people were particularly suspicious that promotions raised prices for non-members. More than 70% of those aged between 18 and 29 believed that the price for those without a loyalty card had been bumped up.
The CMA also noted that, although it looked at all five of the supermarkets in question, it didn’t draw any conclusions about either Asda or Aldi. The former provides a points scheme which customers can trade for vouchers, but does not offer reduced prices for those with loyalty cards. The latter doesn’t sell online and doesn’t offer a broad enough range of branded products to enable a like-for-like price comparison, so was excluded from the study.
Which?, the consumer group, confirmed that it had studied thousands of products and therefore was aware that loyalty price offers “aren’t always as good as they seem”. Its Head of Food Policy, Sue Davies, added that millions of consumers were being “excluded” from lower prices due to loyalty scheme restrictions or a failure to sign up to a card or app
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