Had a "oh shit" moment reading the article. I live in Germany, and of course buy groceries. The "discount" games seem very obvious now. Food expenses have risen very significantly recently.
Great article, I hope this gains more traction and or legal ramifications for the grocers.
One trick I noticed while doing data input for supermarkets (in a different market) is that price rises are always advertised as promotions.
Say a supermarket has a $1.10 item and they want to increase that product to $1.50. They'll up the price to $1.50 immediately, and add a "40c off" to the ticket. The consumer sees "promotion" and assumes it's a discount, when it's actually just the same price as usual.
Then ~2 weeks later(depends on average buying frequency) the promotion sticker comes off and the product is now at the higher price.
Every time you see a promotion ticket, you can cynically assume it's a price increase.
I haven't seen one, but changing the base price of the game requires support if I remember correctly and there is also a 30 day minimum wait time between discounts. https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/discounts
Poland has still been hit by inflation, though. I have taken advantage of having a registered business in order to do a lot of my shopping at the wholesaler Makro, where prices still lag well behind ordinary supermarkets.
It is relevant to the context of this thread in general. Even if Polish consumers are spared the trick of raising prices through fake discounts as the OP mentioned, they still suffer from the same surge in prices that many of the European posters here are complaining about. Nowhere in my post was I calling for price controls.
Where? In that post I shared my own personal strategy for saving money by doing my shopping at a wholesaler instead of an ordinary supermarket. No state intervention required.
The only part I could have left out is the plain statement “Poland has still been hit by inflation, though.” That doesn’t even suggest calling for price controls. Yours was a kneejerk reaction.
In context it is very suggestive. Maybe you are incapable of inferences but other people are not, so I decided it was best to dispel that idea ahead of time.
You didn't say that you didn't imply it until after I brought it up. In fact, you never would have said that unless and until I raised the issue. So I accept your apology.
He didn't say that he didn't imply it until after I brought it up. In fact, he never would have said that unless and until I raised the issue. So I accept his apology.
I think that would be illegal in most European countries. It has to be a "real" discount. Often means to have been sold at the original price advertised for at least a month.
Pretty much not for me. I both have a bunch of products imported from receipts over the years, and I remember many per 100g prices for products I regularly buy. This simply does not happen, at least not at the stores I shop for the products I buy (note that I don’t buy any finished meals or processed food outside the occasional salami, so my habits are pretty different from most people).
Same, I track the prices of a few dozens of products across the six supermarkets I go to, in France and Belgium (every day, automatically) and this has never happened.
REWE and Edeka have trained me to only buy “fancy” (Mövenpick, Cremissimo) ice cream when it’s 1,99 EUR, not “normal” price of 3,99, and to prefer whichever is “on sale”.
And I detest that decent ice cream only comes in ridiculously-shaped thick plastic that’s only good for chucking in the Gelbe Sack, not in waxed paperboard or at least a sensible container to reuse for other things.
Of course you are supposed to keep and collect those useless containers (plus lid) since you "surely will be able to use them for something" in the future. For storing screws, rubberbands and Kulis that nobody has or keeps anymore... A roll of Gelbe Säcke might fit inside.
Great article, I hope this gains more traction and or legal ramifications for the grocers.