Supermarket Price Tags Not Accurate!

[TomAtAlki]

I just want to say that if I find someone cheating me I would confront them. If it's the owner, manager I would never go back again. I just don't watch every penny at the supermarket, veggie store etc.
By the way, we are going to Madrid and surrounds in a few days, the first thing the guide book said was "watch your wallet". I let you know if I agree with Jay whether life is easy breezy there. Of course in my other home Seattle, you never have to worry about some one cheating on the little stuff, BUT you better watch out for the big stuff. And it's easy here because your guard is down.
Nancy

 

[nikad]

A word to the wise: in Coto at least, there are substantial differences in price between the online price and the in-store price on many items. We did the math once and it added up to quite a bit.
So yeah, comparing is very easy... but you're paying more.

As far as convenience is concerned, best overall IMHO is to go to the store, see what's there, yeah read the labels, and then order home delivery for $20 more.

This is true, and the promos and offers are not the same online and offline. Still in my experience, I get less tempted, save a lot of time, and can compare everything easier. In the end it does save me money and time. Also I sometimes buy some things from one provider and another one during the same week ( ie precios cuidados items from Disco/Jumbo and other stuff from Coto )

 

[nikad]

I just want to say that if I find someone cheating me I would confront them. If it's the owner, manager I would never go back again. I just don't watch every penny at the supermarket, veggie store etc.
By the way, we are going to Madrid and surrounds in a few days, the first thing the guide book said was "watch your wallet". I let you know if I agree with Jay whether life is easy breezy there. Of course in my other home Seattle, you never have to worry about some one cheating on the little stuff, BUT you better watch out for the big stuff. And it's easy here because your guard is down.
Nancy

I have a very long blacklist of places/providers that I avoid and I stick to the good ones. This being said I think within a few years, my selection and options are going to be very limited

 

[nikad]

I always wonder when scales in supermarkets and produce stores were last calibrated? Imagine how much consumers are being cheated? If you combine this practice with inaccurate price tags .........

The answer is simple : never ....

 

[nikad]

I've been living in Spain (Madrid & Valencia) for the past 8 months and have never once caught such a cheat here, not once, after having refined my eagle-eye in Buenos Aires over 4 years. Can't tell you what a relief it is not to have to worry about such things. I've also largely stopped comparison-shopping on many/most items because there's so little variation between stores. Although I agree with Tom and Nancy that life is too short to worry about such things, it's the principle, the opportunism, (mixed-in with carelessness that always seemed to favor the store), that bothered me in BsAs. Just makes day-to-day life here that much easier and more pleasurable. Just like the crime/inseguridad thing in BsAs. I never quite realized how much it permeated my life whilst living in BsAs, esp. over the last two years of 2012-13 when crime started shooting up, and how much my quality of life and appreciation for such has improved while living here. Like a huge load off the shoulders. Now don't get me wrong, I really miss BA, it's people, culture, vibrancy etc., but I really appreciate not having to worry about the opportunism and crime. Just my two cents.
Saludos a todos,
Jim

As a side note; Latin American countries inherited corruption from their parents, you guessed it! Spain and Italy. This is why it is often said that corruption is endemic here.

 

[Rich One]

I always wonder when scales in supermarkets and produce stores were last calibrated? Imagine how much consumers are being cheated? If you combine this practice with inaccurate price tags .........

Good Point ... I bought half a kilo of meat, 500 grs, at the local butcher, then went next door to the Bolivian Verduleria and placed the meat on his scale .. the reading was 350 grs.!!!

 

[DontMindMe]

I've been living in Spain (Madrid & Valencia) for the past 8 months and have never once caught such a cheat here, not once, after having refined my eagle-eye in Buenos Aires over 4 years. Can't tell you what a relief it is not to have to worry about such things. I've also largely stopped comparison-shopping on many/most items because there's so little variation between stores. Although I agree with Tom and Nancy that life is too short to worry about such things, it's the principle, the opportunism, (mixed-in with carelessness that always seemed to favor the store), that bothered me in BsAs. Just makes day-to-day life here that much easier and more pleasurable. Just like the crime/inseguridad thing in BsAs. I never quite realized how much it permeated my life whilst living in BsAs, esp. over the last two years of 2012-13 when crime started shooting up, and how much my quality of life and appreciation for such has improved while living here. Like a huge load off the shoulders. Now don't get me wrong, I really miss BA, it's people, culture, vibrancy etc., but I really appreciate not having to worry about the opportunism and crime. Just my two cents.
Saludos a todos,
Jim

So glad to hear you're enjoying Spain! That's wonderful! I miss it all the time. Isn't it nice to be able to relax again and just live life? The entire time I was there, I only heard about one crime. A grad school friend got his bike stolen. He left it outside, completely unchained, for hours on a high-traffic street. Nobody else experienced so much as a pickpocketing. Hell, I put some clothes out on the street to give away and they sat there for three days before anyone took them. Different world. I went in prepared for something intense due to the crisis, but nope.

 

[DontMindMe]

As a side note; Latin American countries inherited corruption from their parents, you guessed it! Spain and Italy. This is why it is often said that corruption is endemic here.

That's too simplistic. Corruption is endemic here because there is a collective mentality that exists in Latin America due to it being a post-colonial society that makes it very difficult for any real change or progress to occur. It varied a bit country by country. It's a lot of the same stuff that happens in South Asia, certain African countries, etc. Sort of a giant inferiority complex. Post-colonial studies is a fascinating (and extremely depressing) field that I barely dipped my toe into in grad school. Latin America is the way it is due to the lasting effects of the atomic bomb that was colonization which to this day colors just about everything, even beauty standards (indigenous=ugly, white=beautiful). It is not as simple as some practices simply being passed down by Europeans. Argentina with its unique history might be a bit different, but I did not study this country specifically.

 

[PhilipDT]

I find price differences quite often. Since I almost always am looking at prices when I grab the items off the shelf, I usually notice a difference in price when it comes up on the register.

The other day for example I bought a lamb loin at coto which was on sale for 59.95 instead of the normal 79.95 per kilo. The piece I bought didn't have any price tag on it in the fridge so I took it to the carnicero who tagged it with the regular price and told me that the discount was automatic and would happen at the registar. When I get to the register the girl passes it and it rings up 1.5kg, $90 on her display which obviously confuses her, since the price tag says 1.5kg, $120. Instead of saying anything to me, she deletes the item and manualy reenters the product code and the price which adds itself to the total as 2kg, $120. If I hadn't been looking I might not have noticed. Since I was, I point it out and she tells me, "look that's how much it costs", to which I replied, "look, it's on sale and it doesn't weigh 2kg". A manager was called, who then called in the carnicero, and the price was finally corrected, and, 20 minutes after my first item was scanned, I managed to escape before the 30 or so people behind me in the "caja rapido" line decided to riot.

 

[Matiasba]

That's too simplistic. Corruption is endemic here because there is a collective mentality that exists in Latin America due to it being a post-colonial society that makes it very difficult for any real change or progress to occur. It varied a bit country by country. It's a lot of the same stuff that happens in South Asia, certain African countries, etc. Sort of a giant inferiority complex. Post-colonial studies is a fascinating (and extremely depressing) field that I barely dipped my toe into in grad school. Latin America is the way it is due to the lasting effects of the atomic bomb that was colonization which to this day colors just about everything, even beauty standards (indigenous=ugly, white=beautiful). It is not as simple as some practices simply being passed down by Europeans. Argentina with its unique history might be a bit different, but I did not study this country specifically.

also, another angle of the problem can be that multinationals, the international capitals that come to Argentina (and to the third world in general) want a lot more of gain than in their home country (where everything is more regulated and you have a strong state to stop them). There are lots of multinational corporations that make their main gain in the third world. Maybe we have weak states because they gain that much, or maybe they gain that much because we have weak states... its dialectical.. what surely happens is that they dont like at all any attempt of a big state, something similar to its own countries.