Cashing in on pricing errors?

Some retail research finds that customers spend less than six seconds sizing up anyone single offer thrust in front of them as they struggle around a supermarket. Shoppers who allow their concentration to slip are prone to caught out by frequent price label errors in many of the main supermarkets as this BBC video explains.

Shop prices tend to be set centrally and the sheer volume of price discounts - 25% off, 3 for 2, 4 for 3, buy one get one free inevitably invites logistics errors in store and confusion among customers. Here is a selection of images of pricing errors some of which are comic all of which put extra money into the hands of the retailers.

Tom’s blog has some more examples!

BMW - Bavarian Monopolist at Work [24 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Cyclical and Structural Economic Issues Facing the UK [23 May 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Game Theory and Business Economics [21 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Measuring Inflation in the UK [20 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Real Interest Rates [20 May 2012]
Q&A: What do we need to know about output gaps? [20 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: The Output Gap [20 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision Presentation on the Price Mechanism [16 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Rice Prices [13 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Price Elasticity of Supply [13 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: De-Merit Goods [12 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Revision Notes on Supply-side Policies [10 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision Blogs on Markets and Intervention [10 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision Quiz and Game on Market Prices [10 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Monetary Policy and Inflation Glossary [5 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Aggregate Demand Glossary [5 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Climate Change Policies - Finding the Right Mix [30 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Using the Cost-Benefit Principle [30 Apr 2012]
Royal Mail’s refusal to supply [13 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Evaluation Question on Supermarkets [11 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Entry Barriers [10 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Price Discrimination [9 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Contestable Markets [8 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Monopoly Price and Output [6 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Monopoly and Economic Welfare [6 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Scale Economies and MES [5 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Price Elasticity of Supply [5 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Elasticity of Demand (for Rice) [3 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Insider Information and Market Failure [3 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: The Collapsing Price of Carbon [3 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Producer Subsidies [2 Apr 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Revision on Real Economic Data [2 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Post Office Threatens Smaller Photo Businesses [2 Apr 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Revision on Real Disposable Income [2 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Scale Economies, Technology and Prices [1 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Maximum Rents in Housing [1 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Producer Cartels [31 Mar 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Revision on Index Numbers [31 Mar 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Brazilian coffee buffer stock hit by falling prices [29 Mar 2012]
Life in the Slow Lane - UK Growth in 2011 Lags the Euro Area [28 Mar 2012]
George Buckley at the Millfield Economics Society [28 Mar 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: The Tax on Beer [16 Mar 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Inequality - The Rise of Fuel Poverty [15 Mar 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: 50 years of anti-smoking campaigns and awareness [6 Mar 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Breaking Down the Cost of Gas [4 Mar 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Might Oil Prices Bring another Recession? [4 Mar 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Low Pay in Supermarkets [24 Feb 2012]
10 Solutions to Binge Drinking [21 Feb 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: King on the UK Economy [15 Feb 2012]
Russia’s monopoly power over gas supplies [5 Feb 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Focus on China - Inflation [26 Jan 2012]
Unit1 Micro: Processed Meat and Cancer Risk - Information Failure? [17 Jan 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Look Upwards to Find the next Downturn [15 Jan 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: Natural Disasters and their Economic Impact [7 Jan 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Low Cost Airlines Beat the Recession [1 Jan 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Biomass Subsidies and Timber Prices [30 Dec 2011]
2012 - Carnage on the High Street [28 Dec 2011]
Unit 2 Macro: The UK Housing Market in 2011 [26 Dec 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Sub Normal Profits - BP Leaves the Solar Industry [21 Dec 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Oligopoly and Duopoly in Bus Markets [20 Dec 2011]
Prezi on Information Failures [20 Dec 2011]
Don’t you just love it when Panorama does your lesson for you!- Part 2 [6 Dec 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Tacit Collusion in the Supermarket [27 Nov 2011]
Keeping it local [24 Nov 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: 50 Years since the end of the Max Wage in Football [23 Nov 2011]
Analysis and evaluation - do monopolies always make supernormal profits? [21 Nov 2011]
Pasty Prices - Something to Chew Over [19 Nov 2011]
AS Macro: The State of British Business [13 Nov 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Unilever hit by rising costs [6 Nov 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Examples of Price Discrimination in Action [31 Oct 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Price Discrimination in the E-Book Market [31 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Economists attack food price speculation [24 Oct 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Ofcom gives stamp of approval for flexible pricing in mail [21 Oct 2011]
Alcohol. Discuss! [18 Oct 2011]
Unit 4 Macro: World Food Day [16 Oct 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Contestable Markets - Lucozade takes on Coca Cola [10 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Producing Coffee - Kenya in Pictures [4 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Homework Assignment on Market Prices [2 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Exercise on Equilibrium Market Prices [27 Sep 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Drink Driving and Government Intervention [26 Sep 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Exercise on Market Supply [26 Sep 2011]
Unit 4 Macro: IMF Flags up Risks of Double Dip [20 Sep 2011]
Unit 2 Macro: Economic Growth and Inequality [14 Sep 2011]
Study Note - What is Macroeconomics? [13 Sep 2011]
Starter Activity: Health Economics [1 Sep 2011]
Monetary Policy Roundtable [25 Jul 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Cotton Prices and the Retail Price of Clothing [13 Jul 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Economics of Volatile Corn Prices [12 Jul 2011]
Zondle Game: 10 Question Quiz about OPEC [11 Jul 2011]
Unit 4 Macro: Dangers of High Inflation [11 Jul 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Oligopsony - Dairy Losses Drive Farmers from the Fields [10 Jul 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: FirstBuy, Affordability and Effective Demand in Property [10 Jul 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: High price of petrol drains demand [9 Jul 2011]
Where there’s muck there’s brass [6 Jul 2011]
AS Micro: Fears over a century of hunger [22 Jun 2011]
AS Micro: US ramps up cigarette warnings [22 Jun 2011]
AQA ECON4 Context [20 Jun 2011]
AQA Macro: Remember to revise inflation [25 May 2011]
AS Macro Key Term: Demand Pull Inflation [24 May 2011]
AS Macro Key Term: Deflation [24 May 2011]

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