Another Absurd Supermarket Flyer Ad

You sometimes see ads in supermarket fliers such as "Buy $25 worth of P&G items in a single transaction and get $3 off" or "Buy 10 Hunts tomato product items in a single transaction and get a $5 coupon off your next order". And promotions like that make sense*.

But the following offer in this week's, May 18-24, Stop&Shop flyer makes me wonder what they were thinking.

Oh gee, I don’t think I can manage to buy this ONE Pyrex dish in ONE transaction, so I’ll just buy PART of it now, and get the rest in MORE transactions, later in the week.

Can I get this Pyrex dish on layaway, please?

*Logical sense if not business sense. I once made a net profit of $2.50 buying 10 of the $.25 cans of Hunts tomato sauce. (The next year Hunts figured it out and the promotion was "Buy $10 worth of Hunts tomato products in a single transaction and get a $5 coupon off your next order."

Stupidity at the Supermarket - The Unit Price of Cheese

Which cheese is the better price?

At first glance it seems to be the one on the left, with a unit price of $6.65 vs the one on the right with a unit price of $9.56.

But on closer look, the cheese on the right is about 30% cheaper at $.30 an ounce vs $.42 an ounce for the one on the left (8 oz for $2.39 vs 12 oz for $4.99).

Where is the error?

Take a look at the "unit" in each case:




Can't wait to see the price by kilometer.

Stupidity at the Supermarket, Part I. Pathmark and the A&P Weekly Sale Circulars

Considering that I have retired from cooking, I spend a considerable amount of time shopping for food.

In the next several posts, I will rant on the some of the absurdities I encounter while doing so, with particular emphasis on some outstanding examples of the food advertising and marketing genius I come across.

To be prepared before I go shopping, I usually review the weekly supermarket sale circulars. The circulars are for telling you what is on sale this week, and what the sale price is.

However, that isn't good enough for Pathmark and A&P.

Instead of just telling you how much a thing costs, they tell you how much several of the same thing cost, and then how much each individual item costs.

So maybe this makes sense if individual items are only sold together in a pack, and you could use a little help figuring out the cost per item:




But what is the point of these?

Just say that the stupid thing is selling for $2.50, 0r $2.00.

And this blather is downright insulting!



Disclaimer: The appearance of a product in this blog post is by no means an endorsement of that product, an indication of the kathrut of that product, or anything other than ridicule of the ad for that product, both by the poster of this blog and by blogger.com.