At work, I browsed through the weekly Harris Teeter ad and naturally, some of their specials caught my eye. There was also a printed $10 off store coupon that I cut out to help save me a few extra bucks. In the past I've gotten some decent deals with their B1G1 or two or three free sales so I made a short list and after work, I pulled into the very crowded parking lot. Had I not seen the sale add, I probably would have stopped at WalMart instead. Both are located along my route home. In hind sight, I probably would have saved more money there...
There is a large open cooler to the right side of the store, near the produce, where most on-sale items are kept. Generally the same item spans across the width of the cooler. Price tags are located along both sides and occasionally a sign is positioned right in the middle of the cooler highlighting the specials. I'm visual, so I drew a fancy little diagram to help describe what I'm talking about:
I approached the cooler with the intent of calculating the price per pound on two items: frozen chicken and shrimp.
I came up to the cooler from the right side, so I saw the cheapest shrimp option first (see yellow area, letter A - $25 and some change per bag of shrimp). Keep in mind this is the B2G3 free, so ultimately, after tax each bag would come to roughly $11 each. Or at least that's what I thought. I did happen to notice that there were two types of shrimp directly beside each other - item B - with a slightly larger size and larger price tag. The packaging looked identical, except for a number representing the amount of shrimp in the bag. Even that option would have only increased each bag by about $1. I assumed that because the sign was in the center, it applied to all present shrimp varieties - at this point I only saw and assumed that two different types were available. I was wrong.
At the checkout, the 3 free bag discount was not applied, and a kind associate offered to go exchange them for the correct ones. Sure, I thought, it will be the $27 bags and it should only add a few extra dollars to my total.
The store was busy, my mistake was causing a lot of people to have to wait in line, so I just went along with it. Only after getting to my car and reviewing the receipt did I discover that each bag of shrimp was almost $36 each! That's a $20 difference on my total bill. I furiously returned in the store carrying my receipt, walked to the cooler to review the price tags only to find the above labeled section C which contained a completely different size of shrimp. Mind you, the bags still had the same design, color scheme, etc. The only difference in the packaging was the number under the larger logo and print. Nearly identical.
Ok, so yes, this is a minor issue that could have been prevented if I had just passed on the shrimp. I reluctantly left the store, but I knew that had I paid more attention the first time around, this price difference would have been apparent. I can't help but think though that these shrimp were strategically organized as such to promote this exact scenario, or something similar. People rarely approach this cooler from the back side, and the sign itself was placed so that it indicated all shrimp in that section were applicable to the discount. Wrong.
Maybe I'm just being crazy, but every other product in the cooler was positioned so the same item could be reached from either side of the counter. Why were the shrimp the only item in this case that were arranged differently? Very misleading.
Speaking of some other products in that open cooler, bags of frozen chicken on the B1G1 sale broke down to $2.20/lb when you can ALWAYS get fresh chicken from the meat counter for $1.99/lb. Explain to me how that B1G1 is saving me any money?
A few aisles later, I came across the BBQ sauce that was on sale. I couldn't help but question the advertising tactics and the actual prices offered with these products. The sale price on a smaller bottle was actually cheaper per ounce than the more enticing idea of B1G1 free in the larger size.
Basically, do your math, folks. Sometimes sale signs are just used to get rid of inventory that's been sitting...amIrite?
Finally, Bird's Eye frozen veggies in the steamable bags were on sale as well for B1G1. The retail price for one bag was listed at $2.26. That comes to $1.13 for each bag. Most other grocery stores sell this same product for no more than $1 each. Sale? I think not.
I probably could have spent more time picking apart Harris Teeter's inflated price tags and not-so-great featured weekly sales, but I'll stop with these. It's retailers like this that make grocery shopping entirely more complicated than it should be. It's retailers like this that make consumers question honesty and integrity. I feel like customers are being taken advantage of here, and it sucks. I'm not so naïve to believe that Harris Teeter is the only store pulling these kind of stunts, but I just wanted to point out that if you are trying to make the most of your grocery budget, be careful and don't allow yourself to get sucked into the sketchy and misleading tactics of sales advertising. Live and learn, y'all. Live and learn.
I'm not really sure why I keep insisting on visiting different grocery stores and forcing myself to buy things when I know I can get better deals elsewhere. Can someone please develop a grocery retailer that offers double cart seats, great prices (like Aldi), but a bigger selection, and produce that doesn't rot in 48 hours? Is that too much to ask?
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