The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has reviewed pricing in grocery retailers across England and Wales, finding inaccurate or missing prices across a range of stores.
The review looked at the price marking practices of 139 grocery stores in England and Wales, including supermarket chains, symbol convenience stores (small, independent retailers that operate under a symbol brand name), variety stores and independent food stores.
The CMA conducted on-site inspections and looked at a sample of products – such as fresh fruit and vegetables and products on promotion. During inspections at some stores, the CMA found examples where the retailer was displaying inaccurate prices or failed to display prices at all for certain products, which is a breach of consumer law.
Overall, the majority of issues were found at independent food stores and symbol convenience stores. The most common types of issues seen were missing prices, conflicting prices (instances where prices indicated on products conflicted with those shown on shelf edge labels) and prices not being displayed sufficiently close to products.
There were also issues with prices not being clearly legible, the selling price being obscured, and multibuy promotion labels that didn’t specify the price of the items individually, the CMA found.
The percentage of pricing errors found at each type of store were:
- Supermarkets: 4.2%
- Symbol convenience stores: 14.4%
- Variety stores: 5.6%
- Independent food stores: 7.8%
Overall, 60% of the errors resulted in a higher price being charged at the till, said the CMA.
George Lusty, Interim Executive Director for Consumer Protection and Markets at the CMA, said: “We know how frustrating it can be when you get to the till only to find the price doesn’t match what was advertised. While lots of grocery retailers – particularly supermarkets – are complying with pricing rules, this needs to consistently be the case across all types of stores.
“It’s important that shoppers can make well-informed choices based on accurate information, especially at a time when lots of people are looking to save money. That’s why we are reminding businesses of the importance of complying with consumer law.”
