{"id":8426,"date":"2013-11-07T10:33:29","date_gmt":"2013-11-07T10:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/?p=8426"},"modified":"2013-11-07T10:33:29","modified_gmt":"2013-11-07T10:33:29","slug":"sainsburys-ends-fake-half-price-wine-offers-for-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/uncategorized\/sainsburys-ends-fake-half-price-wine-offers-for-now","title":{"rendered":"Sainsbury’s ends fake ‘half price’ wine offers, for now"},"content":{"rendered":"

For more than three years I have been complaining about the fake half price wine offers in supermarkets. See here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>. What’s wrong with a deal? Nothing, it’s just that these deals are illusory. The wines – known in the trade as tactical brands or trade drivers – are designed with discounting in mind. Say a \u00a35 wine on the shelf is bought by the supermarkets from the producers at 85 Euro cents a bottle (this would be a typical price). These wines would be bought for say 85 Euro cents and then end up on the shelf at \u00a39.99, only to be ‘discounted’ to \u00a35 in a ‘half-price’ offer. It isn’t very honest.<\/p>\n

Recently, this issue has been picked up by the media. BBC’s Watchdog<\/em> ran a story a while back, and The Guardian<\/em> did one last week, followed by several other nationals. Website\u00a0www.mysupermarket.co.uk<\/a>\u00a0has proved to be\u00a0a\u00a0useful tool for exposing the\u00a0dishonestly priced tactical brands. You can see which wines are\u00a0on offer in\u00a0Tesco, Sainsbury\u2019s, Asda and Waitrose, and then look at the historical pricing of each of the wines. It\u2019s very revealing.<\/p>\n

Since this coverage, Sainsbury’s – one of the worst for these ‘half price’ deals – has stopped doing them altogether, in store and on their website. They won’t say that this is because of the negative coverage, nor will they shout about the move (people would ask why they were doing them in the first place if they now think they are a bad idea). Their official statement, after I phoned several times, was:<\/p>\n

\u201cCustomers enjoy a good deal and we\u2019re always looking at new ways of offering great value. Half price deals are sometimes a good way to do this, but customers increasingly tell us they are looking for greater simplicity in wine promotions and so we will be looking to offer quality wines priced or discounted at consistently attractive levels.<\/p>\n

There are currently no half-price promotions in store or online but we would certainly not rule these out in the future where they are appropriate.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is encouraging, but there are still too many 1\/3 off deals of a similar style in store, involving these tactical brands. And when the media storm eases off, will the half-price deals reappear?<\/p>\n

Tesco still do lots of these half-price wines. I asked them whether they had any plans to drop them, in light of the step that Sainsbury’s have taken, and the response was, predictably, ‘I\u2019m afraid at the moment we are not able to discuss\u00a0commercial strategy.’<\/p>\n

What about Waitrose? It used to be by far the best of the supermarkets for wine. But it seems that commercial pressures are causing it to lose its way. Their range is increasingly littered with tactical brands, and deep discounting. It’s a real shame. As examples of overpriced wines on 1\/3 off or half price see here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For more than three years I have been complaining about the fake half price wine offers in supermarkets. See here, here and here. What’s wrong with a deal? Nothing, it’s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8426"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8430,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8426\/revisions\/8430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}