UK competition regulator finds supermarkets misleading customers

The UK competition regulator has found that some customers were being misled by the country's supermarkets and ordered the retailers to offer greater clarity on their promotional offers.

The Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) response came on a "super-complaint" from a consumer watchdog that said it had identified "misleading and confusing" pricing tactics over seven years in areas such as multi-buy offers at the likes of Tesco and Asda, which formed part of Wal-Mart Stores.

Which? consumer watchdog had said that many supermarkets were creating the illusion of savings that did not exist.

According to the CMA however, any problems stemming from confusing promotional practices were not widespread and that generally the retailers were working well to avoid confusing their customers.

"We have found that, while supermarkets want to comply with the law and shoppers enjoy a wide range of choices ... there are still areas of poor practice that could confuse or mislead shoppers," the CMA's Nisha Arora said yesterday.

"So we are recommending further action to improve compliance and ensure that shoppers have clear, accurate information."

With offers from German discounters Aldi and Lidl, increasingly finding favour with UK citizens, the UK's "Big Four" supermarket chains, Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury and Morrisons, had become embroiled in a price war as they battled to hold on to sales.

According to the regulator, it had discovered supermarket prices and promotions that ''have the potential to confuse or mislead consumers and which could be in breach of consumer law''.

The findings would not go down well at the UK's Big Four, Tesco, Asda, J Sainsbury and Morrisons.

The CMA had called the supermarkets to end the practice of running ''was/now'' promotions where the discounted price was advertised as a promotion for longer than the higher price was applied.

It also wanted the government to introduce new standards about ''unit prices'', which showed shoppers what the price of a single item was in a multi-pack so they could compare prices more easily.

However, although it had issued a warning to supermarkets, the CMA chose not to announce the launch of a full investigation, which would disappoint campaigners.

According to the CMA "these problems are not occurring in large numbers across the whole sector and that generally retailers are taking compliance seriously to avoid such problems occurring".