'Supermarkets Dupe Public With Discount Offers'

The Consumer Council has accused major supermarkets of misleading shoppers into believing items are discounted by showing two different prices for products.

The council checked the prices of 42 popular items such as rice, instant noodles and milk at 16 branches of four major supermarkets, namely ParknShop, Wellcome, Market Place by Jasons and Aeon.

Typically, the council said, a higher price would be crossed out on the price tags, but in most cases the product had not been sold at that price in the previous 30 days.

The council said Wellcome and its Market Place by Jasons unit were the biggest offenders, using this technique in 90 percent of cases.

Council spokesman Clement Chan said retailers are denying the public their right to accurate information, and may have breached the Trade Descriptions Ordinance.

“They need to provide a clear message on what are the basis of those two prices and if they didn’t say anything, people would reasonably expect that the strike-through price was the normal retail price of the product”, Chan said.

The council found that another major supermarket chain, ParknShop, also adopted the same technique for around half of its items.

The consumer watchdog had carried out a similar study five years ago and has found that the situation has not improved since.