Pristine Zealand, Woolworths and Pak’nSave are each taking the grocery store chain to court over misleading pricing and misleading specials.
Pristine Zeeland’s High Minister Christopher Luxon says the population will have to follow the competition regulator’s proposal to jail a lawsuit against the supermarket for alleged deceptive pricing and promotion practices.
“We want to ensure that all our sectors are more competitive, whether it’s banking or supermarkets,” Luxon said. “We’re hoping the Commerce Commission will do its job, and it’s great to see they took action this morning.”
The fee said the supermarkets charged may have violated fair trade practices.
Commission vice-chairwoman Anne Callinan said that supermarkets “had long been aware of the importance of accurate and clear pricing and specifications,” and the Commission was not happy with the ongoing problems seen in the trade.
Tourists at Pak’nSave in Mount Albert, Pristine Zealand, April 14, 2017. Phil Walter/Getty Images
Consumers want confidence in cost: fees
“Buyers need to have confidence that the price they see is the price they will pay, and (that) special things are really special,” Callinan said.
“Pricing accuracy is a consumer right and expectation in a competitive marketplace. Major supermarkets are large, well-resourced businesses that must invest time and effort to get pricing and promotions right.
“The charges we are filing against major supermarket brands are meant to remind all supermarket operators that we expect them to fix ongoing issues of pricing accuracy and prevent similar issues in the future,” Callinan said. “We look forward to implementing better procedures to prevent this.”
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Grocery Commissioner Pierre van Heerden said the Commission’s efforts to enforce mandatory disclosure would make it easier to spot problems in the future.
“The standard will require major supermarkets to regularly disclose information about customer complaints, including pricing and promotional issues,” van Heerden explained.
“Major supermarkets do not have consistent procedures for registering customer complaints. (As a result) the lack of clarity and reporting means that supermarkets cannot identify potential compliance issues within their businesses.
Woolworths’ response
Woolworths NZ said it was unclear how widespread the charges would be, but it was introducing the new generation to reduce pricing errors. It can evaluate criminal court cases after they have been filed.
The company said it has been cooperating from time to time with the Commission on special and alternative pricing issues.
Woolworths NZ Managing Director Spencer Sohn said, “We know how important it is that our customers can be confident that the prices we advertise, or on our shelf labels, are what they will pay at checkout. Pay.”
“But sometimes errors happen. To address this, Woolworths New Zealand has a long-standing and market-leading refund policy.
Offering digital shelf labeling
The manager said that if a buyer is charged more than the cost for a product marketed or displayed on shelves, they will get the money back and store the product.
“More broadly, we are in the process of introducing electronic shelf labels across all our stores to ensure that paper-based shelf label errors do not occur. To date, 130 of our 186 stores have electronic shelf labels,” Son said.
Foodstuffs, the co-operative owned by the operators of Pak’nSave and Pristine International supermarkets, said its affected stores are taking the issue seriously and are fully cooperating with the commission.
A Foodstuffs spokesperson said, “Foodstuffs North Island stores process millions of transactions a day, and while errors are relatively rare, we agree that any mispricing is unacceptable.” “We’re working hard to make sure the price customers see on shelves is always the same as what they pay at checkout, and all specials offer clear savings.
“If a customer feels they have not been charged the correct price, we encourage them to let our store teams know so we can refund them straight away if they have been overcharged, or they can contact our customer service To contact the team.”
In September, the Commission announced that it would consider introducing a mandatory code to regulate the wholesale market for groceries, and it examined whether further, stricter legislation was needed.
The commission says it has other investigations going on against grocery store operators.
