I recently came across a classmate’s blog about the unethical extent some companies are willing to go to in order to maintain high profits. Click here to read his post.

When I was at Safeway the other day doing my weekly grocery shopping, I read a label on the chips section that said ‘Special Offer! Get 4 for $12.’ And I thought to myself, “Great! There’s an offer on these chips. I’ll just buy 4 instead of 2 to maximize my value for money.” I thought I was saving a couple of bucks in the long run and I was satisfied with this great deal. But then while I was waiting in check out line I had the opportunity to read that bright yellow label again. And there it was. In VERY TINY font, “$3.00 per bag.”

That’s when I remembered my classmate’s blog post. Some companies are so profit oriented that they use deceptive pricing and promotion strategies to lure consumers to buy their products. In the Safeway example I just mentioned, if I had bought all 4 bags of chips, I wasn’t saving any money in the long run. It wasn’t really a special offer. It was just a brightly coloured piece of paper that made me think I was getting more for less. Obviously 4 bags of $3 each will cost me $12. That label was unnecessary and misleading. Many consumers fall prey to this sly tactic and I think it is very unfair.

In the UK, there have been quite a lot of issues regarding this promotion strategy. Several supermarkets signed a set of principles, agreeing to abstain from such practices and to use fair price promotions. However, supermarkets have still been deceiving customers with misleading offers and discounts where the bundled price is even more expensive than the individual prices! Now that’s just mean, wouldn’t you say?