Online supermarkets to provide clearer pricing
Thursday, 16 Mar 2006 12:43
Online supermarkets to provide clearer pricing
Supermarket chains offering online shopping and delivery services are to introduce clearer pricing, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has announced.
The UK's leading online grocery retailers, Asda, Sainsbury, Tesco, Waitrose and Ocado, have agreed to make their pricing policies more transparent following an OFT investigation into complaints about discrepancies between list and delivery prices.
A number of consumers had complained to the trading watchdog that the price of goods delivered would often be different from the prices listed on the supermarkets' websites.
The OFT found this was because supermarkets were quoting the price of goods in-store on the day the order was placed on their websites, but charging customers the in-store price on the day the goods are delivered.
The trading standards body ruled that supermarkets "did not make it sufficiently clear that the prices shown were guide prices and what relation they had to the actual prices that would be charged".
Online grocery retailers have responded today by pledging to make this pricing policy clear to consumers before they place and order.
The supermarkets also pledged to ensure that goods ordered at special-offer prices are delivered at that price, provided the delivery date remains within the offer period.
John Fingleton, OFT chief executive, believes today's move by online supermarkets is a positive step in increasing consumer confidence in doing their grocery shopping online.
"We welcome the supermarkets' improvements to the information available to customers buying groceries online," Mr Fingleton said.
"Customers have a right to clear and transparent information upfront when making their buying decisions."
The OFT has urged shoppers who do their groceries online to check delivery prices against current list prices and advised them that they are not contractually bound to pay for the goods until they are delivered, meaning they are able to reject deliveries if they believe the pricing has been altered.
Online grocery sales have soared in recent years as shoppers have grown more confident about having their shopping delivered to their doors.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), non-store sales, the bulk of which are made via the internet, rose 3.4 per cent in the three months to February, the fastest rate of growth since July 2004.
