A MASSIVE investigation of tens of thousands of supermarket loyalty priced products has revealed whether they offer genuine savings. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) checked out 50,000 items to see if they were cheaper than retailer's usual prices. 1 An investigation by the CMA found loyalty prices do mostly offer genuine discounts Credit: Getty And the regulator found 92% of the pool of items did in fact offer customers legitimate discounts.
This was despite a survey of customers finding 55% believed this would not be the case. The CMA said its analysis of the 50,000 products which come with loyalty prices found little evidence of supermarkets inflating prices to make loyalty promotions seem like a better deal. George Lusty, interim executive director of Consumer Protection at the CMA, said: "We know many people don’t trust loyalty card prices, which is why we did a deep dive to get to the bottom of whether supermarkets were treating shoppers fairly.
Read more on Retail SHUTTING UP SHOP Major retailer with 77 stores to shut 16 sites before Xmas – full list FOOD BLOW Huge supermarket hit by shortages as HACKERS disrupt supply to stores across UK "After analysing tens of thousands of products, we found that almost all the loyalty prices reviewed offered genuine savings against the usual price – a fact we hope reassures shoppers throughout the UK." The CMA's deep dive saw it analyse loyalty priced products at five major supermarkets: Tesco, Sainsbury's, Waitros.