Supermarket loyalty schemes do offer real savings, Britain’s competition watchdog confirmed on Wednesday (27 November).
Loyalty programmes have become highly popular across the UK’s largest supermarket chains, including Tesco and Sainsbury’s, providing significant discounts for cash-strapped members amid the cost-of-living crisis.
The vast majority of customers now use them and an increasing number of products are covered by them.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which launched a review in January, analysed around 50,000 grocery items on promotion and found that 92% offered genuine savings against the usual price, despite the perception from 55% of shoppers that ‘usual’ prices were raised to make loyalty deals more appealing, it said.
The watchdog’s report found “very little evidence” of supermarkets inflating their ‘usual’ prices to make loyalty promotions seem like a better deal.
CMA interim executive director of consumer protection George Lusty 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.
“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.
“While these discounts are legitimate, our review has shown that loyalty prices aren’t always the cheapest option, so shopping around is still key. By checking a few shops, you can continue to stretch your hard-earned cash.”
The regulator said that while loyalty prices were generally some of the cheapest available, people could make an average saving of 17-25% buying loyalty priced products at the 5 supermarkets examined: Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Co-op and Morrisons.
As part of its review, the CMA said it also found no evidence that consumer laws were being breached by the way supermarkets collect and use people’s data when they sign up to a loyalty scheme.
In response, a Tesco spokesperson said: “Clubcard Prices has always been about offering genuine savings and rewards to our customers, and we are pleased that this has been evidenced by the CMA.
“We are always working to find the best possible deals for our customers, and with around 8,000 products included in Clubcard Prices every week, we’re helping customers to save up to £385 a year off their groceries.”
Earlier this week, retail industry body the British Retail Consortium warned that food inflation could soon be on the rise due to rising costs.
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