Sainsbury’s starts price matching – here we go again

I’ve had more time last Saturday to pay a further visit to Tesco and look around and had noticed prices have not come down and indeed certain items I regularly buy at supermarkets have gone up in price…nah, shan’t be shopping there in future except to pick up the rotisserie chicken or BBQ spareribs when reduced by 40% or more.

Sainsburys is the priciest of all of the supermarket chains including Waitrose… I never shop there anyway… they were the market leader in terms of sales until the late 1980s or the very early 1990s and you wonder why they have lost the top position.

Shall stick to the German discounters, oriental supermarkets and the occasional Waitrose now that they give a 10% discount across all of my purchases made there for the next four weeks.

I buy certain things in most of the supermarkets, including Aldi and Lidl, but don’t pay much attention to price matching. I shop mostly in Sainsbury because it’s convenient, but every 6 weeks or so I do an on line shop with Tesco because round here they are the best at it (in my experience).. Our local Sainsbury are expanding and during the works they have been sending me discount vouchers for £13 per shop . I’ve had 8 or so of these, and they have been very helpful.. I also collect Nectar points. Today I got a coupon for £2.98 because of their new price matching. That’s fine with me, and I didn’t have to do anything. 10% discount in Waitrose is great – except the goods were probably 10% more to start with. I find all supermarkets are good for some things (like Aldi for offers on technical equipment) and shop accordingly whenever possible. I do worry slightly about rising prices and whether the main supermarkets are really competitive, but hopefully the likes of Aldi and Lidl will help to keep prices at a reasonable level.

I do most of my shopping at ASDA. Have tried all the others except Morrisons (as there is not one close.) Waitrose and Sainsburys are the dearest but I notice food prices are going up all the time in all of them. The cost of fresh meat is now beyond my purse and have had none for some months.
Are we doomed to third world rations?

Correction re previous, items not stems.

I am a regular shopper at Sainsburys as it is the nearest most convenient supermarket – It is easy to look after the voucher – and so I get a “refund” without problems. I prefer Sainsburys quality for virtually all goods and food – except fruit (as it is often not ripe enough) But this is easily overcome as my “corner shop” always sell riper fruit. I can’t see the point of “shopping around” if – as in my case – it would add miles and hours on my shopping without significant increase – even a decrease – in shopping quality.

I regularly shop at Holland & Barrett but am increasingly frustrated by the way that products are labelled and marketed. At the moment, they are running a “penny sale” whereby certain items so marked cost a penny if bought with another similarly marked product. At the same time some items are marked “buy one – get one half price.” Both of these offers are running in the store at the same time, and also most prices for regular items are currently greatly increased – take flame raisins for example are marked at £1.79 a packet – but one get one half price. It is left to the consumer to work out whether this is cheaper than the usual price of £1.25 (of course it isn’t).

How do I complain to about this policy>? Surely, consumers are entitled to know the “normal” price and the unit price?

The mark up on items at Tesco are now making it impossible to shop there anymore when on a pension, everytime you go there the prices have risen on normal everyday items, price matching a stunt as another name I feel for price fixing.