General rip off examples

daheff wrote: »

Think of it over millions of transactions that they have annually across their group. 1 million transactions rounded up by 2c saves them 20k.

How often do you see transactions rounding down? More often than not (in my experience anyways) its rounded up.

if something is 1.98 as per your example, and you buy 2, then its 3.96 and you benefit from rounding down!

have you worked it out yet? it cost a bloody fortune to try to keep small change in the tills, its bad for the environment to have to ship bags of coins around, and i as a consumer don't want to have loads of copper coins either.

you have a choice, use contactless, or pay in cash, and if it bothers you that much, use the calculator on your smartphone to benefit from rounding down!

daheff wrote: »

Think of it over millions of transactions that they have annually across their group. 1 million transactions rounded up by 2c saves them 20k. Plus handling fees.

How often do you see transactions rounding down? More often than not (in my experience anyways) its rounded up.
.

Almost every good store have an automatic calculation on their till that rounds up/down.

In addition, it only applies to cash purchases (less than 30% of purchases overall and in cities, its now less than 20%)

If they are doing a million transactions rounded up by 2c, then they are doing 5million cass transactions and probably 15 million transactions in total each year. Even at €10 av transaction, that's 150m turnover. Such a company will not notice 20k and their till systems would be the most up to date possible.

But what is also at play is the mind - you tend to notice things more that affect you negatively. Example is fuel prices when they go up by 1c or 2c, and you'll hear people complaining in minutes.

But have you seen any posts about the fuel prices dropping in the last 4 weeks (now about 3c lower than the day before the budget hat added 2c)

Muahahaha wrote: »

What I've noticed is often products are priced so if you only buy one thing then it is rounded up. i.e 98c goes to a euro. Lots of 8s and 9s in individual products. But if you are buying two products then the chance of a rounding down goes up, eg my local Supervalue I sometimes buy a packet of Meanies (78c) and a Stinger bar (29c) which comes to 1.07 so rounded down to 1.05. If I bought those two items individually then it would be 80c and 30c so 1.10 all up.

I think its a case of some you win, some you lose but over the course of a year you are only going to be up or down by a few cents. Its not worth worrying about imo and if it does get on your wick then just pay by card and you get the exact price every time.

My god, you eat what I ate in the 80's.

daheff wrote: »

So if they are making 20k per 1m transactions... that gives them scope of up to additional 5.2m in profit (plus whatever else they make from price changes & less cash handling fees).

L1011 wrote: »

But you've absolutely zero proof of this actually happening. And your calculations are based on every transaction being cash and benefiting them by 2c, neither of which is true even if you do go to huge efforts to try and skew pricing in your favour.

Likewise you have zero proof that its not happening.

However I do see prices that are no longer the X.X9s in the shops more and more (prices ending X.6/X.7/X.8)....I'm also noticing that more often than not, my transactions end up with the rounding being not in my favour...which only leads me to believe there is a certain amount of 'gaming' of the system by retailers to try to increase profits.

I know not all transactions are benefiting the retailer....thats why I used "if" and "up to" in my comment. I also assumed an average transaction value of 200 GBP...giving 260m transactions. Tesco have put out media slides before claiming 42m transactions a week (or 2.18BN transactions annually). So in my example I'm vastly understating the volume of transactions.


I'm not accusing any particular retailer of doing it. I'm merely suggesting that it would seem to be distinctly possible and quite possibly profitable for a large retailer to do so. They also have the sophisticated systems and resources to do it if they wish.

Also for those who think I have an issue with it on a personal level -its only a couple of cents to me. not a big issue out of my pocket..i don't think I'm that hard up that I can't face paying it or have to change to using my credit card to get around it.

Again if they didn't really care on rounding, they'd just change all prices to end in a 5 or a 0.


Anyways this is dragging off topic so I'm not going to make anymore comments about rounding.

I have been buying my petrol in Applegreen for years now. Over the years I built up points and waited until they allowed you redeem points against an actual petrol purchase. I think they might have done this twice in a 10 year period.

I have no interest in discounts to Heritage sights etc which was really all that was available to spend points on.

A couple of months back I received an email to say that they were discontinuing their current points system and I had a few weeks to redeem my points. Again all that was available were pretty awful offerings. I couldn't even redeem them in their own shops or for petrol or oil.

I no longer purchase my petrol in Applegreen.

Living Off The Splash wrote: »

I no longer purchase my petrol in Applegreen.

Don't think they'll be too concerned. Their turnover last year was over €2,000,000,000 (2 BILLION euro)

But where's the ripoff??

Make up sponges, pack reduced from 20 to 8. Still same price.
Shop: Superdrug

earlyapex wrote: »

Easons
I bought at book for €20.
The following week that book is priced at €25 as its now included in a 3 for 2 offer. So you think you're getting the third book for free? No, you just overpaid for the first two by 25%.

Hardly a rip-off?

One promotion ends, a new promotion begins.

One promo, you get the book reduced by 20% and you don't have to buy anything else to get the discount , the other promo requires you to buy 2 other items to get a discount.

That's how retail works these days

I had to laugh at this this. Twirl bars in the clearance section of Tesco. Reduced from €1.15 to €1.14.

Then when you look at the UK RRP on them it is 55p.

You want your head checked if you buy bars singly though. I am always amazed they dedicate such a large section to it. 55p is still expensive

a 48g snickers is €1.15 in tesco. You get 10x51g snickers in dealz for €3, that is over 10.5 48g bars.

I was badly stuck at the weekend go get the mower going again after a problem that necessitated the oil being drained. No motor factors open.

Circle K Blessington, Co. Wicklow €18.99 for ONE litre of 5w30 synthetic motor oil!!!

I would be used to buying 5 litres for about €34.00 in the motor factors.

johndaman66 wrote: »

Christ sake. I bought 4 litres of Castrol Magnatec 5W30 in Hellfrauds for €19.20 lately when it was on offer there and think it was closer to €17 for it when I presented my now very out of date Axa card.
On a side note are you sure 5W30 is good to be putting into your lawnmower?

Yep. That's what the manual says.

What do you use?

WestWicklow1 wrote: »

I was badly stuck at the weekend go get the mower going again after a problem that necessitated the oil being drained. No motor factors open.

Circle K Blessington, Co. Wicklow €18.99 for ONE litre of 5w30 synthetic motor oil!!!

I would be used to buying 5 litres for about €34.00 in the motor factors.

If your ever that stuck again if there is a Tesco Extra near you try them out first, you'd get oil there. That's some price for a litre of oil in fairness.

bernard0368 wrote: »

Monthly prescription:

Mc Cabes pharmacy €22.50.

Exactly the same medicine in Pure pharmacy €7.50

I got savings there too, not as much as that though. They are usually giving generics in pure and many other pharmacies do not do so unless you ask, and even then some just do not bother stocking them.