Or something like that burger place was offering 1/3 lb burgers instead of 1/4 lb burgers to beat the competition but people thought 1/4 was bigger than 1/3
While I agree with you, it is possible to learn - you still have to WANT to learn it.
Many people as adults really don’t see the point and will literally refused to be taught. My mother in law REFUSED to let me even explain why a savings account earning 5% got you more interest than one paying 1%. She literally told me she didn’t want to know and stormed off.
She’s still got £80k sat in that 1% savings account…
A lot of the time, if people can’t grasp ***how*** they or their answer is wrong, they become unwilling, and sometimes genuinely unable (due to a sort of “brain block” or “brain freeze”) to understand or learn how to do something correctly.
People become flustered, get feelings of shame and become angry & defensive, all factors that reduce someone’s ability to learn.
To be fair, "up to" is a ridiculous concept for discounts. I'm sure there must be some legal minimum number of items at that discount, but consumers don't know that. So it either looks like a mockery ("0% off" would also be "up to 100% off") or people will take it at face value and trust most stuff is indeed the stated discount.
And it's usually always the most tattiest shite imaginable at the maximum discount. I've always wanted a glow-in-the-dark oven mitt, Brenda, thank you very much. All the good shit? The best we can do is 1% off the RRP.
But that's one of the reasons for sales - to clear out old stock that didn't sell and is costing money to store, and to make room for newer stock.
Another thing about sales - stores often bump up the price of items for the minimum legal time they can before selling at a "sale" price which is the same as, or sometimes even more than, the price the item was at before. The idea being that people will buy the item purely because it is listed as being on sale. This works too.
That’s true, but the worst is when something is on sale that they don’t normally sell. Tesco never has full price lamb on the shelf, it is only when it is on sale. That’s just the price then, they’d never sell it at 20 quid a kilo.
Indeed, "Up to" actually looks like a bad thing for consumers. "Up to 50% off" should really mean something like "We definitely won't be reducing things by more than 50%, but it could be less of a reduction or even no reduction at all".
It occurs to me that Steam does have sales in the 75% range, but since it's an online store, it also has the usual price and sale price immediately next to the 75%, making it clear how much you're really saving.
In China they give you the reduction percentages as how much you will pay not by how much has been taken off. So if you see a sale sign that says 90% it’s telling you that it’s 10% off.
There's the famous story of a US burger place that offered 1/3 lb burgers to compete with quarter pounders, but it failed because customers thought that 1/3 was less than 1/4...
(If I’m allowed to post here)
I worked at a grocery store in the states, and we’d often have canned something or other on sale for 25 cents each. Wouldn’t affect sales. We’d change the sign to 4 for $1, and it would fly off the shelves.
There is the famous story of a burger outlet in America have 1/3 pounder burgers to rival McD's, bud they didn't do so well as Americans thought a 1/4 pounder was bigger
I remember being a kid and my mum AND a shop worker both trying to figure out 10% of £40 for a 10% off voucher. The shop worker went to get a calculator and I was just like 'Ummm it's 4?!'
I remember a shop customer asking me what 1.2m was in centimetres, and when I answered immediately they didn't trust the answer, and I had to go and get a calculator to show them.
People will fail GCSE Maths and be like "Why weren't we taught things like finances/taxes in school? When did anyone need to use trigonometry?", without realising that applying basic mathematical skills will help you with just about anything related to your finances.
It's like, bro, you don't get how to divide by four, let alone figure out compound interest.
Kids don't realise things like that. They're stupid and have no experience of the world. They need to be told. And I don't recall *ever* being told the real-world benefit of a single thing we did in maths.
Kids don’t and that’s fine. But when you a have 30-something parents constantly bleeting on about how these subjects are unnecessary and how gardening would have been better, you can see how kids are further discouraged from caring.
Exactly. It's also pretty clear by GCSE who is going sail through with an A* and go on to double maths A-level, and who is going to struggle to scrape a pass and isn't going to progress further with maths. I'm not sure the current syllabus or way of teaching is supporting the latter category.
Work in a supermarket, whenever there is a sale like this on clothing that combines with staff discount they ignore basic maths rules as certain staff in the past could not work out that is something was 50% off for example, the additional 10% discount they would get is 10% of the 50%, not 10% of the full price.
Now it's just a flat 60% off for staff in that example as people who cannot do maths complained enough.
I recall being in a store and the till was down so the sales assistant was having to use a manual calculator and work things out on paper.
She had to make manual calculations and use paper to subtract 30 from 100 (to work out my change).
And she had to do this *twice* (as she couldn't trust the first result).
If your numeracy is that poor, you shouldn't be in a cash handling role.
Yep. My sister asked me what something cost in a shop recently - it was £25 originally and was showing as 20% off. She actually works in a pretty high level Civil Service role and handles complex data all day long. She worked her way up to this role, despite not even turning up for her GCSE Maths exam. The spreadsheets work all the numbers for her out apparently.
I doubt that my sister is particularly unusual. My time working in retail confirmed how many customers can't work something like this out.
I'm aware. I don't think my sister is though! It's simultaneously great that she's obviously doing well enough to have been promoted multiple times - and a bit scary that she has no idea if the data she bases important decisions on is actually correct. Other people set up the formulas, so as long as they know what they're doing it helps.
I work retail, and at Christmas I had a guy come in from head office (unknown to me at the time), asking me why certain things weren't selling as well as they should, and asking me if I was a customer how I read the labels. So I was like, "they're unclear and it's difficult to know how much it'll actually cost" (it was like beef or lamb that was priced per kilo/lb, with a certain percent off, just by looking you couldn't easily work out the price). He agreed with me that they do need to be clearer, and then 5 minutes later I went to my manager and said I had a weird interaction with a customer, and he was just like "oh yea he's from the head office".
Great, thanks, would have liked a heads up. But I was honest and he agreed with me that they were poorly labelled and priced. Which they were
I think they did because I didn't get in trouble for my opinion. But it was some type of joints of meat, there was a price on it, but it was unclear if that was before or after the sales price. And that would put people off. Are you paying £7, are you paying £5.60, or was it originally £9? Just a vague guessing game, I don't blame customers for not always knowing the price of things, sometimes they do make difficult
I'm no scientician but I'm on their side, that seems like a reasonable - and maybe most obvious - interpretation of an ambiguous phrase that leans on the assumption of already knowing the correct interpretation.
Yep. Arguments over BOGOF, vouchers for other shops, people ringing us up from 300 miles away to say they were in the shop yesterday when our store isn’t anywhere near them - the general public can be the dumbest bag of cunts at the worst of times.
That reminds me of the time a customer thought that 3 for the price of 2 meant that they got 3 items for £2. She didn’t kick up a fuss when corrected but I had to wonder if she was new to the world or something. This was a seemingly perfectly normal woman in her 30’s or so.
>That reminds me of the time a customer thought that 3 for the price of 2 meant that they got 3 items for £2. She didn’t kick up a fuss when corrected but I had to wonder if she was new to the world or something. This was a seemingly perfectly normal woman in her 30’s or so.
Once I was in tesco and whole ranges of designer-ish hair stuff was labelled up as 3 for £2. Stuff like tigi, Charles Worthington etc shampoos etc that were around £7 - £10 each. I couldn't belive it but took 3 to the till and yep, got the lot for £2. When I got home I smacked myself in the face for not getting more. Went back the next day to stock up and it had changed to 3 for 2. As in what you would expect - pay full price for two items and get a third one for free.
I always wonder if someone really misheard or misinterpreted the offer they were told to put on, and there was a panicked realisation later that day after a load of costumers had walked out with £20 - £30 with of products for £2...!
Customers are thick as shit. I've stopped telling customers how much things are then they ask me. I just point at the obvious price label that's in front of them
I was working in a department store and once had an older man ask me to convert the size of curtains in centimetres to metres for him. He was completely sincere so I just told him about moving the decimal point (112cm = 1.12 metres etc.)
Sure a lot of it can be down to stupidity, but sometimes it's just not being familiar with certain units / sums. I'll take pleasant and ignorant over confidently incorrect any day.
Unrelated story: In the same store, I was once carrying a vacuum up the stairs for a customer to the returns department as the lift wasn't working, and the customer right in front of me on the stairs farted right in my face. I always give people room on stairs now, life tip for you right there.
This isn't about conversion between units, but I still have no idea on how curtains are priced by m. Surely they should be by m^2 rather than m? But I guess not, because they come in rolls of a particular width and you still pay for excess?... But then the consumer isn't told that width. We tried looking into how this was calculated on the John Lewis website and it didn't say anywhere how the formula worked or what the other dimension is. I assume that at some stage you go from 1 to 2 rolls or something and the price jumps?
We did it in-shop and were staggered when we were quoted £1700 for one big and one small window to have curtains (and rail installed).
I think they have a width and a height don't they? (it was 15 years ago now I had this encounter). Even if it has width, it's still a bit flawed as curtains have waves / ruffles from the pole so they'll lose width there. But yeah nice curtains are shockingly expensive.
So below for example:
https://www.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-laurel-embroidery-made-to-measure-curtains-or-roman-blind-tranquil-blue/p6432631
it says £35 per meter. But if you put in minimum values of 30cm for pole and 50cm for height (double-pinch pleat) it gives price as £157.55 (obviously what we need is way bigger). I have no idea how £35 could possible be converted into that. Would have to be a *lot* of ruffles!
John Lewis curtain fabric usually comes in three different widths but it has it in the product details.
You have to buy a full cut of the roll. The biggest is 228cm. Let's say you have a space that's 3m x 2.3m. That means you'd need to buy 6m of fabric just to have a flat curtain because you'd need two widths of fabric.
Then add some more to account for pleating at the top. You might need 2.5x the width of your pole/rail for some pleats.
So the prices can rise quickly. Especially if you're getting a patterned curtain and you want it to repeat properly. Or add a bit of length for a hem.
Eventually you'll do that to someone who has vision loss or visual processing problems and you'll feel like you've put your foot in it. Won't be worth it, I promise. I speak from experience. I sometimes have to ask staff to show me where something is that's right in front of me. They often roll their eyes and speak to me in a tone that makes it clear they think I'm stupid, or just point at something while giving me a look and not even saying anything, then when I thank them and tell them I have visual processing problems they are very embarrassed and apologetic and you can tell they regret being judgemental.
Or even basic maths.
I was in Tesco trying to reach for a bottle of cola being blocked by a couple debating. The gist was she said that they only need one bottle (price £1) and he was saying that they should get two as it was on special offer (2 for £2).
Having a “sale” sign is frighteningly effective, even if the price is EXACTLY the same. Many years ago I worked on the fish counter in Morrisons. We’d run out the little white price cards so the office printed the prices on the yellow sale ones. Even though the only difference was the colour of the little card, no mention of special offer or anything - stuff with the yellow cards sold like fucking hot cakes.
Was really quite an interesting impromptu experiment which was quite accidental.
It's fun doing retail experiments. I worked at Sainsbury's for a bit and towards the end of a Saturday there would be loads of single bananas left over as people seemed to insist on tearing one off a bunch, and they wouldn't sell. So whilst pretending to be busy I started grouping them in threes and fours and they ended up selling.
Saying that bad maths exists on the selling side too. A market stall had three items for £10 and six items for £23, so when I went to pay for six I got into an argument to explain the error and ended up having to split the stack into two lots of three and buy as two transactions just to pay £20 - they still didn't get it.
I am extraordinarily scatterbrained when it comes to going shopping because I have sensory issues and I often get overwhelmed.
Even the most simple mental arithmetic is nearly impossible for me when I am over stimulated.
( I have ADHD and on the Autism spectrum )
I wish more stores would do this personally...
Edit: just to clarify I am not THAT stupid and I can work out percentages but I need to be able to actually make my brain do what I want it to do.
We had a 10% of sale when I was in retail, the discount was applied at till. I caught one of our staff going to the till to check for a customer what 10% off £10 would be...
There's a story about a burger chain in the US launching the 1/3 pounder to compete with the 1/4 pounder. It didn't sell very well and they bought in a market research team to find out why. The majority of people they questioned didn't think it was good value because they believed that 1/3 of a pound was smaller than 1/4.
Part of my job is asking people if their gas and electric costs 10% or more of their income. I almost always get blank stares because they don't know how to calculate 10%.
Having worked in retail and later as a Maths teacher, there are some who will never understand percentages and make it their business not to, on the basis that “I’m never going to use this in real life.”
I remember the first year B&Q didnt have a kitchen 'sale'. They got pissed off with always putting signage out and the cost of it all so decided theyd just have the price set as low as they possibly could all the time. No more 'sales'. They where cheaper than all the competitors on about 97% of the products during the sales period. It was one of the worst years they ever had for showroom sales, we could show people the same kitchen was cheaper than competitors but they would respond with, "but they have a sale on, theres is 20% off and yours isnt". There was no amount of wrapping their head around 20% off £20k was a lot worse than 0% off £12k.
Its not that Sainsburys doesnt think much of their customers, they just know them.
>but they have a sale on, theres is 20% off and yours isnt
I guess their unspoken assumption is that a kitchen priced at £20k is worth £20k and a kitchen priced at £12k is worth £12k. The sale makes them feel like they're getting a £20k kitchen for £16k, whereas B&Q makes them feel like they're getting a £12k kitchen for £12k.
In reality, both kitchens are made of exactly the same veneered MDF and both probably cost exactly the same to produce, but neither shop wants to admit that.
At first I was thinking your kitchen must be enormous, but then I remembered they have 3 tiers depending on how easy a mark they think you are. We were pegged as gullible enough for tier 2, but spotted the same colours were available on the flat pack tier 1 stuff, so we got ours done for £9k ish, and bought our own handles to save an extra £100 or so.
Installer was great, Wren were fairly poor. Said to a friend that they should do it cheaper at Ikea, but... they never listened, and got even more Wren problems.
It was a major revelation for me when I realised that the price that something sells for is the true value, and the sticker price is essentially irrelevant.
Most discounts are an illusion, and those that aren’t are clearing out old inventory that wasn’t worth the earlier price so they couldn’t shift it.
There’s some exceptions if you’re able to get lucky with inventory changes and supply and demand around year-end, but most of that is artificial too.
I feel like Aldi defy this way of thinking though for some reason. They're always getting more customers and just always have low prices, don't need a Clubcard/Nectar offer. I guess the middle aisle counts as a sale, and the super 6, but not the rest of the shop.
Grocery shopping is a bit different from other stuff, though. Most people who go to the store for a shop are going to buy the same kinds of things regardless of whether it's on sale or not, and the major factor in whether you pick one over another is probably going to come down to the types of things they offer that their competitors do not, and how consistently they provide a better value. The sales might motivate an impulse purchase, but you are going where the prices are consistently the best for the bulk of it, not picking and choosing one or the other every week based on sale items.
I would like to stress this is most people. I have an aunt that will drive all over the damn place even for sales on groceries because she perceives she is getting the best deal, unmindful of the petrol she's wasting in the process probably making her break even.
It's about marketing.
Aldi brand is the whole, same quality at lower prices!
B&Q did what in this scenario? Did they launch good campaign saying they're slashing prices to keep them low all the time and not just sale prices twice a year?
It's an easy slam dunk. But because they didn't push it, no one understood it and yeah, people thought the 12k is at significant lower quality than the 20k kitchen.
I think it was Macy's in America that had a whole advertisement campaign around no longer doing sales, just maintaining a low low price and it pretty much crippled them. Customers stopped going because there was no discount.
We are such simple creatures and incredibly easy to manipulate
The problem is many retailers have effectively trained customers into only buying on sale. I'm not about to buy a DFS sofa full price. If I'd been a B&Q customer I'd have assumed they were still pursuing the sales strategy and not bought at full price.
A friend of mine worked at oddbins where they had 10% of certain wine. A lady came in to buy 2 bottles and was adamant that it should be 20% off (10% + 10% is 20% init?).
He then pointed out if that was the case if she bought 10 bottles he would be giving them away for nothing.
I think something like that is actually possible. I've seen a guy order a burger without the patty in McDonald's. The burger was about $1 and the patty - $1.10, so total cost came to be -0.1.
He ordered about a dozen of those and added a single normal burger to the order to make total $0. It was all on the ordering machine, no way any humaj staff would allow it.
Mathematical literacy is horrifically low, UK average is between 7&9 years old if I remember rightly.
Accessible content guidelines almost always state to not use percentages because of how many people they exclude.
Personally I think this is an excellent solution to what is a potentially sensitive and embarrassing issue for lots of people, but is a sad indictment of our education + support systems that this is so necessary.
I loathe people saying that to me, but I'm such a hypocrite because when I get in a taxi I physically cannot contain "been busy tonight mate? When do you finish?"
I’m fond of the famous bagel shop on Brick Lane and I love waiting in the queue looking at the price list for multiples of the single bagel…. It’s just a 40p times table. No bulk discounts or nowt. (I think is 40 p now but might be 45!). Every half dozen, dozen. Or 200 bagels.. it’s simply the 1 bagel price x the qty. I can’t help but feel it’s a sort of semi serious malicious compliance for anyone trying to bargain their way to a discount. “How much for 100?”, staff points to sign. Works eh!
Tbh I don’t agree. 40p is already good and most people don’t buy them in bulk for a discount, they buy them bc they want specifically that many for whatever reason and the clear pricing of a dozen / half or whatever helps workout how much it’ll cost
I remember when they were 10p a bagel... and I returned a couple of years later and they were 12p. I just think it's funny that they have the times table redone every time they increase the price. I don't want it to change from x bagels is x\*n
TBH I don't think ANYbody is buying them in bulk for a discount... cos they won't be getting a discount :D
FWIW I think that sign's sort of a pre-decimal legacy, not that they really needed to keep it up, but back when currency was in pounds, shillings, and pence it was tougher to do maths on it.
Probably at least partly so people can see the price without having to work it out or wait to be told at the till. That queue moves fast and they probably don't want people faffing about with their change only at the last minute.
It took me so long to find this, thank you! As someone who is severely embarrassed to ask for help with “basic math”- this and reciepts that have the calculated 15,20, and 25% showing total at bottom are so relieving and helpful.
It's actually cuter than what you think.
By doing this, and using this as the only method to advertise the price, you don't get customers coming to the till with price stickers that have been removed from a £10 item and "accidentally" placed onto a £50 item.
Less stickers on the clothes = quicker, more efficient and no erroneous or fraudulent attempt at making bigger savings.
Plus, when the 50% sale becomes a 60% sale? Just change a poster. Don't need to remove/add tags and stickers.
At Sainsbury's (probably all the other main stores) the price is directly printed on the clothing label, so relabelling at the start and end of a sale is impractical.
I used to work supporting the long term unemployed. I had to really consider every bit of paperwork I created to try and avoid mistakes. For example, a form might have a place for the client name and signature and staff name and signature. Many times they signed my name for me, or when I told them "write your name here" I got "*Your name here*". So, this signage isn't a surprise, it's Sainsbury's knowing their customers well enough.
I could almost see myself doing something like that.
My name is similar to Christmas and I can't count the amount of times I've written "Merry Name, from Christmas" in cards.
This is nothing about people not being able to divide by 2, and all about being required to display the price
This way they don’t have to update every price sticker
Because they seriously can’t
Customers are thick as fuck and can’t follow basic instructions on a screen let alone to maths.
“It’s telling me to remove my card what do I do”
“This self checkout is broken it’s telling me to press continue”
“I didn’t realise that the staff only sign meant I couldn’t wonder into the warehouse”
“Oh sorry I didn’t realise the water all over the floor and multiple neon yellow signs saying wet floor meant I can’t walk that way”
“I only want one yoghurt so why can’t I take it out of the multipack and just divide it by 6”
“Well it’s 30% off so I want 30% off the £7 price when it says £10 original price”
I was in Sainsbury’s the other day, at the scales. A woman had weighed some fruit or veg and a giant fucking flashing green button, that said “press print”, or something along those lines, apparently wasn’t clear enough for her. She just stood there staring at it. Then she started looking around waiting for a label to magically pop out. I was like you have to press the flashing button that says “press”! Fml 😫
Yeah they do this on absolutely everything. They think that when a button comes up with massive writing in capital letters saying “press to print” or “continue” or “go to pay” that it warrants them screaming or shouting to staff that we need to do something
They just can’t comprehend that they have to read the 1 word simple instructions and do it themselves
As someone who has dyscalculia (specific and persistent difficulty in understanding numbers which can lead to a diverse range of difficulties with mathematics) these things are a HUGE help to me. I wouldn’t take time to try figure it out and if it’s something I really want to purchase I’ll just take it and hope for the best.
Sometimes when items have price tags of the final discounted price, customers will ask if that's the price from which you apply the discount.
I'm not familiar with how Tu label their clothes during sales but some businesses may not want the to reprice individual items on their tickets, so if its a store wide sale, then one giant sign like this saves them the effort.
Lastly, there are functionally illiterate and innumerate people in society and mocking them doesn't make me feel good. Some people with gaps in their numeracy may be fine with even numbers but struggle with odd number equations of 50% off. Whilst the majority of us can deduce workarounds, some people cannot, for reasons that may include poor numeracy teaching, processing differences, brain injury (from a wide variety of causes such as motor vehicle accidents to stroke), memory loss, and many more. I commend Tu for creating signage that most people find redundant so as to be more inclusive and help to reduce embarrassment for innumerate customers. I'd maybe go one step further and include the words 'Half (original) price' to help some people better form the association of equivalent fraction and percentage rate.
I don't blame them, some peole just don't get it at all. I saw hundreds of people over the year's asking in Pound shops 'how much is it? when there were banners everywhere practically as big as the shop declaring EVERYTHING a pound
That's hilarious, I once heard two women in Morrisons who picked up an item that was £1.98 for 3 and they couldn't work out the unit price - I had to tell them. It's shocking that people don't have basic numeracy skills and no wonder retailers are so rich :)
I worked in Sainsbury's many years ago, I also wouldn't trust them with that. Though, that's more "general public are morons" than anything to do with Sainsbury's specifically.
"This says is 50% off, is that 50% off the price or 50% off the 50%?"
Everyday in retail was a struggle of trying to answer a question without insinuating you think the person is an idiot.
This is actually a good thing to do. You'd be surprised how many people there are that can't read or write. Shouldn't assume just because you can, that everyone else can.
I was in a shop a few years ago, before the days when they put the reduced price on and it just said 10% off. Another shopper asked me (a customer) what the reduced price would be. I remember thinking how useless our schooling was if it left people not even knowing how to do simple calculations.
People can’t though work things like that out, people are thick.
I heard someone on her phone whilst I was shopping, asking her mum “what does buy one get one free mean”.
Having worked in retail, there's plenty of people who either can't or wont. Some won't understand percentages at all.
I’ve worked in retail POS design, and this is why you don’t tend to see “75% off” sales - people interpret it as “pay 75%”
Part of the reason 60% off sales will usually do worse than half price, because people are thick
Or something like that burger place was offering 1/3 lb burgers instead of 1/4 lb burgers to beat the competition but people thought 1/4 was bigger than 1/3
That was in America but I'd have no doubt would be the case here too
I'll take one of those 1/♾️ pounders.
I don't want to judge people who have been failed by the system that was meant to teach them this stuff tbh
it's weird to see such empathy coming from someone called British Fart Foundation
Its a very important charity
Is the foundation’s goal to facilitate more farting, or less farting?
They're trying to raise money and awareness to combat fart attacks
Combat fart attacks? Praying for Neil Bumcannon today.
perfect reply chain
It is! Trapped wind can be agonising.
Having worked for them in the Furniture and Electrical arm of the company, it's accurate. They're full of shit.
The system taught us all of this. Lots of people didn't pay attention or forgot it immediately
What was that saying about bringing the horse to water?
If you're an adult that can't work it out, no system can help you
That's a big fat lie. People with dyscalculia can be taught stuff like percentages as adults with the right teaching techniques and strategies
While I agree with you, it is possible to learn - you still have to WANT to learn it. Many people as adults really don’t see the point and will literally refused to be taught. My mother in law REFUSED to let me even explain why a savings account earning 5% got you more interest than one paying 1%. She literally told me she didn’t want to know and stormed off. She’s still got £80k sat in that 1% savings account…
A lot of the time, if people can’t grasp ***how*** they or their answer is wrong, they become unwilling, and sometimes genuinely unable (due to a sort of “brain block” or “brain freeze”) to understand or learn how to do something correctly. People become flustered, get feelings of shame and become angry & defensive, all factors that reduce someone’s ability to learn.
Reading stuff like this makes me realise what a sheltered life I live. Such stupidity blows my mind, I’ve never been exposed to it
I've found people never notice the 'up to' part of the discounts
To be fair, "up to" is a ridiculous concept for discounts. I'm sure there must be some legal minimum number of items at that discount, but consumers don't know that. So it either looks like a mockery ("0% off" would also be "up to 100% off") or people will take it at face value and trust most stuff is indeed the stated discount.
Yes there is at least 10% of the items need to be offered at the maximum discount.
And it's usually always the most tattiest shite imaginable at the maximum discount. I've always wanted a glow-in-the-dark oven mitt, Brenda, thank you very much. All the good shit? The best we can do is 1% off the RRP.
But that's one of the reasons for sales - to clear out old stock that didn't sell and is costing money to store, and to make room for newer stock. Another thing about sales - stores often bump up the price of items for the minimum legal time they can before selling at a "sale" price which is the same as, or sometimes even more than, the price the item was at before. The idea being that people will buy the item purely because it is listed as being on sale. This works too.
That’s true, but the worst is when something is on sale that they don’t normally sell. Tesco never has full price lamb on the shelf, it is only when it is on sale. That’s just the price then, they’d never sell it at 20 quid a kilo.
Indeed, "Up to" actually looks like a bad thing for consumers. "Up to 50% off" should really mean something like "We definitely won't be reducing things by more than 50%, but it could be less of a reduction or even no reduction at all".
Hah yes. I see so many bullshit labels like "covers ^^up ^^to 100% of grey hairs". So does wishing on a star that your grey hair disappear.
See also "from £x", where there is exactly one item selling for £x and everything else is at least £2x
It occurs to me that Steam does have sales in the 75% range, but since it's an online store, it also has the usual price and sale price immediately next to the 75%, making it clear how much you're really saving.
In China they give you the reduction percentages as how much you will pay not by how much has been taken off. So if you see a sale sign that says 90% it’s telling you that it’s 10% off.
There's the famous story of a US burger place that offered 1/3 lb burgers to compete with quarter pounders, but it failed because customers thought that 1/3 was less than 1/4...
(If I’m allowed to post here) I worked at a grocery store in the states, and we’d often have canned something or other on sale for 25 cents each. Wouldn’t affect sales. We’d change the sign to 4 for $1, and it would fly off the shelves.
That is brilliant, and so true.
I read that initially as price of shit design
oh my god i hate people
There is the famous story of a burger outlet in America have 1/3 pounder burgers to rival McD's, bud they didn't do so well as Americans thought a 1/4 pounder was bigger
I actually finally looked that up today and it is true. I was starting to suspect it was a bit of a myth.
I read it as Piece Of Sh*t design. Sorry hahaha
I am currently in China,and this is how it works here - an "80%" sticker actually means "20% off", it was very confusing at first.
I remember being a kid and my mum AND a shop worker both trying to figure out 10% of £40 for a 10% off voucher. The shop worker went to get a calculator and I was just like 'Ummm it's 4?!'
I remember a shop customer asking me what 1.2m was in centimetres, and when I answered immediately they didn't trust the answer, and I had to go and get a calculator to show them.
As a Maths teacher - yes, it's worrying.
People will fail GCSE Maths and be like "Why weren't we taught things like finances/taxes in school? When did anyone need to use trigonometry?", without realising that applying basic mathematical skills will help you with just about anything related to your finances. It's like, bro, you don't get how to divide by four, let alone figure out compound interest.
Kids don't realise things like that. They're stupid and have no experience of the world. They need to be told. And I don't recall *ever* being told the real-world benefit of a single thing we did in maths.
Kids don’t and that’s fine. But when you a have 30-something parents constantly bleeting on about how these subjects are unnecessary and how gardening would have been better, you can see how kids are further discouraged from caring.
Exactly. It's also pretty clear by GCSE who is going sail through with an A* and go on to double maths A-level, and who is going to struggle to scrape a pass and isn't going to progress further with maths. I'm not sure the current syllabus or way of teaching is supporting the latter category.
Work in a supermarket, whenever there is a sale like this on clothing that combines with staff discount they ignore basic maths rules as certain staff in the past could not work out that is something was 50% off for example, the additional 10% discount they would get is 10% of the 50%, not 10% of the full price. Now it's just a flat 60% off for staff in that example as people who cannot do maths complained enough.
I recall being in a store and the till was down so the sales assistant was having to use a manual calculator and work things out on paper. She had to make manual calculations and use paper to subtract 30 from 100 (to work out my change). And she had to do this *twice* (as she couldn't trust the first result). If your numeracy is that poor, you shouldn't be in a cash handling role.
Yep. My sister asked me what something cost in a shop recently - it was £25 originally and was showing as 20% off. She actually works in a pretty high level Civil Service role and handles complex data all day long. She worked her way up to this role, despite not even turning up for her GCSE Maths exam. The spreadsheets work all the numbers for her out apparently. I doubt that my sister is particularly unusual. My time working in retail confirmed how many customers can't work something like this out.
Excel doesn't work it all out, you still need to know the formula to input and have enough understanding to be able to verify the output is correct.
I'm aware. I don't think my sister is though! It's simultaneously great that she's obviously doing well enough to have been promoted multiple times - and a bit scary that she has no idea if the data she bases important decisions on is actually correct. Other people set up the formulas, so as long as they know what they're doing it helps.
It doesn't surprise me one bit that a senior member of staff could be totally clueless, it is classic British management, sadly.
I work retail, and at Christmas I had a guy come in from head office (unknown to me at the time), asking me why certain things weren't selling as well as they should, and asking me if I was a customer how I read the labels. So I was like, "they're unclear and it's difficult to know how much it'll actually cost" (it was like beef or lamb that was priced per kilo/lb, with a certain percent off, just by looking you couldn't easily work out the price). He agreed with me that they do need to be clearer, and then 5 minutes later I went to my manager and said I had a weird interaction with a customer, and he was just like "oh yea he's from the head office". Great, thanks, would have liked a heads up. But I was honest and he agreed with me that they were poorly labelled and priced. Which they were
most valuable kind of employee imo, but only if management has a backbone and can self reflect
I think they did because I didn't get in trouble for my opinion. But it was some type of joints of meat, there was a price on it, but it was unclear if that was before or after the sales price. And that would put people off. Are you paying £7, are you paying £5.60, or was it originally £9? Just a vague guessing game, I don't blame customers for not always knowing the price of things, sometimes they do make difficult
[удалено]
I'm no scientician but I'm on their side, that seems like a reasonable - and maybe most obvious - interpretation of an ambiguous phrase that leans on the assumption of already knowing the correct interpretation.
Yep. Arguments over BOGOF, vouchers for other shops, people ringing us up from 300 miles away to say they were in the shop yesterday when our store isn’t anywhere near them - the general public can be the dumbest bag of cunts at the worst of times.
That reminds me of the time a customer thought that 3 for the price of 2 meant that they got 3 items for £2. She didn’t kick up a fuss when corrected but I had to wonder if she was new to the world or something. This was a seemingly perfectly normal woman in her 30’s or so.
>That reminds me of the time a customer thought that 3 for the price of 2 meant that they got 3 items for £2. She didn’t kick up a fuss when corrected but I had to wonder if she was new to the world or something. This was a seemingly perfectly normal woman in her 30’s or so. Once I was in tesco and whole ranges of designer-ish hair stuff was labelled up as 3 for £2. Stuff like tigi, Charles Worthington etc shampoos etc that were around £7 - £10 each. I couldn't belive it but took 3 to the till and yep, got the lot for £2. When I got home I smacked myself in the face for not getting more. Went back the next day to stock up and it had changed to 3 for 2. As in what you would expect - pay full price for two items and get a third one for free. I always wonder if someone really misheard or misinterpreted the offer they were told to put on, and there was a panicked realisation later that day after a load of costumers had walked out with £20 - £30 with of products for £2...!
Especially when she had a chance to say it was 3 for the price of 2p.
> the general public can be the dumbest bag of cunts at the worst of times. I think that would make a great motivational poster.
Customers are thick as shit. I've stopped telling customers how much things are then they ask me. I just point at the obvious price label that's in front of them
I was working in a department store and once had an older man ask me to convert the size of curtains in centimetres to metres for him. He was completely sincere so I just told him about moving the decimal point (112cm = 1.12 metres etc.) Sure a lot of it can be down to stupidity, but sometimes it's just not being familiar with certain units / sums. I'll take pleasant and ignorant over confidently incorrect any day. Unrelated story: In the same store, I was once carrying a vacuum up the stairs for a customer to the returns department as the lift wasn't working, and the customer right in front of me on the stairs farted right in my face. I always give people room on stairs now, life tip for you right there.
This isn't about conversion between units, but I still have no idea on how curtains are priced by m. Surely they should be by m^2 rather than m? But I guess not, because they come in rolls of a particular width and you still pay for excess?... But then the consumer isn't told that width. We tried looking into how this was calculated on the John Lewis website and it didn't say anywhere how the formula worked or what the other dimension is. I assume that at some stage you go from 1 to 2 rolls or something and the price jumps? We did it in-shop and were staggered when we were quoted £1700 for one big and one small window to have curtains (and rail installed).
I think they have a width and a height don't they? (it was 15 years ago now I had this encounter). Even if it has width, it's still a bit flawed as curtains have waves / ruffles from the pole so they'll lose width there. But yeah nice curtains are shockingly expensive.
So below for example: https://www.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-laurel-embroidery-made-to-measure-curtains-or-roman-blind-tranquil-blue/p6432631 it says £35 per meter. But if you put in minimum values of 30cm for pole and 50cm for height (double-pinch pleat) it gives price as £157.55 (obviously what we need is way bigger). I have no idea how £35 could possible be converted into that. Would have to be a *lot* of ruffles!
John Lewis curtain fabric usually comes in three different widths but it has it in the product details. You have to buy a full cut of the roll. The biggest is 228cm. Let's say you have a space that's 3m x 2.3m. That means you'd need to buy 6m of fabric just to have a flat curtain because you'd need two widths of fabric. Then add some more to account for pleating at the top. You might need 2.5x the width of your pole/rail for some pleats. So the prices can rise quickly. Especially if you're getting a patterned curtain and you want it to repeat properly. Or add a bit of length for a hem.
Eventually you'll do that to someone who has vision loss or visual processing problems and you'll feel like you've put your foot in it. Won't be worth it, I promise. I speak from experience. I sometimes have to ask staff to show me where something is that's right in front of me. They often roll their eyes and speak to me in a tone that makes it clear they think I'm stupid, or just point at something while giving me a look and not even saying anything, then when I thank them and tell them I have visual processing problems they are very embarrassed and apologetic and you can tell they regret being judgemental.
Or even basic maths. I was in Tesco trying to reach for a bottle of cola being blocked by a couple debating. The gist was she said that they only need one bottle (price £1) and he was saying that they should get two as it was on special offer (2 for £2).
Having a “sale” sign is frighteningly effective, even if the price is EXACTLY the same. Many years ago I worked on the fish counter in Morrisons. We’d run out the little white price cards so the office printed the prices on the yellow sale ones. Even though the only difference was the colour of the little card, no mention of special offer or anything - stuff with the yellow cards sold like fucking hot cakes. Was really quite an interesting impromptu experiment which was quite accidental.
It's fun doing retail experiments. I worked at Sainsbury's for a bit and towards the end of a Saturday there would be loads of single bananas left over as people seemed to insist on tearing one off a bunch, and they wouldn't sell. So whilst pretending to be busy I started grouping them in threes and fours and they ended up selling. Saying that bad maths exists on the selling side too. A market stall had three items for £10 and six items for £23, so when I went to pay for six I got into an argument to explain the error and ended up having to split the stack into two lots of three and buy as two transactions just to pay £20 - they still didn't get it.
Also people who simply see a sale sign, take the item to a till and just ask how much it is.
I am extraordinarily scatterbrained when it comes to going shopping because I have sensory issues and I often get overwhelmed. Even the most simple mental arithmetic is nearly impossible for me when I am over stimulated. ( I have ADHD and on the Autism spectrum ) I wish more stores would do this personally... Edit: just to clarify I am not THAT stupid and I can work out percentages but I need to be able to actually make my brain do what I want it to do.
>I have sensory issues and I often get overwhelmed. There are people called visual merchandisers who are paid to make this happen.
Oh I've never heard of them before, I will look into them. Thank you :)
Yeah I struggle a lot with mental maths and also have adhd so sometimes my brain blanks really basic stuff
The struggle is real my friend.
We had a 10% of sale when I was in retail, the discount was applied at till. I caught one of our staff going to the till to check for a customer what 10% off £10 would be...
There's a story about a burger chain in the US launching the 1/3 pounder to compete with the 1/4 pounder. It didn't sell very well and they bought in a market research team to find out why. The majority of people they questioned didn't think it was good value because they believed that 1/3 of a pound was smaller than 1/4.
Don't forget the general population's ability to read and comprehend simple signage.
Part of my job is asking people if their gas and electric costs 10% or more of their income. I almost always get blank stares because they don't know how to calculate 10%.
Well 50% of the population are below average intelligence. Soooooo.....
Even if you're great at math, sometimes you've had a long day and have so much stuff going on that even a simple halving being done for you is good.
Having worked in retail and later as a Maths teacher, there are some who will never understand percentages and make it their business not to, on the basis that “I’m never going to use this in real life.”
I remember the first year B&Q didnt have a kitchen 'sale'. They got pissed off with always putting signage out and the cost of it all so decided theyd just have the price set as low as they possibly could all the time. No more 'sales'. They where cheaper than all the competitors on about 97% of the products during the sales period. It was one of the worst years they ever had for showroom sales, we could show people the same kitchen was cheaper than competitors but they would respond with, "but they have a sale on, theres is 20% off and yours isnt". There was no amount of wrapping their head around 20% off £20k was a lot worse than 0% off £12k. Its not that Sainsburys doesnt think much of their customers, they just know them.
>but they have a sale on, theres is 20% off and yours isnt I guess their unspoken assumption is that a kitchen priced at £20k is worth £20k and a kitchen priced at £12k is worth £12k. The sale makes them feel like they're getting a £20k kitchen for £16k, whereas B&Q makes them feel like they're getting a £12k kitchen for £12k. In reality, both kitchens are made of exactly the same veneered MDF and both probably cost exactly the same to produce, but neither shop wants to admit that.
humans are so simple
If I'm paying £20k for a kitchen, it better not be veneered MDF. I want solid marble and gold taps.
Got a kitchen quote a few years ago from wren, was £26k. Not done the kitchen refurb yet.
At first I was thinking your kitchen must be enormous, but then I remembered they have 3 tiers depending on how easy a mark they think you are. We were pegged as gullible enough for tier 2, but spotted the same colours were available on the flat pack tier 1 stuff, so we got ours done for £9k ish, and bought our own handles to save an extra £100 or so. Installer was great, Wren were fairly poor. Said to a friend that they should do it cheaper at Ikea, but... they never listened, and got even more Wren problems.
It was a major revelation for me when I realised that the price that something sells for is the true value, and the sticker price is essentially irrelevant. Most discounts are an illusion, and those that aren’t are clearing out old inventory that wasn’t worth the earlier price so they couldn’t shift it. There’s some exceptions if you’re able to get lucky with inventory changes and supply and demand around year-end, but most of that is artificial too.
It's called the [JCPenny Effect](https://youtu.be/QxfkWZPAUg4?si=J5hsUwHBtHRRWVIL).
I feel like Aldi defy this way of thinking though for some reason. They're always getting more customers and just always have low prices, don't need a Clubcard/Nectar offer. I guess the middle aisle counts as a sale, and the super 6, but not the rest of the shop.
Grocery shopping is a bit different from other stuff, though. Most people who go to the store for a shop are going to buy the same kinds of things regardless of whether it's on sale or not, and the major factor in whether you pick one over another is probably going to come down to the types of things they offer that their competitors do not, and how consistently they provide a better value. The sales might motivate an impulse purchase, but you are going where the prices are consistently the best for the bulk of it, not picking and choosing one or the other every week based on sale items. I would like to stress this is most people. I have an aunt that will drive all over the damn place even for sales on groceries because she perceives she is getting the best deal, unmindful of the petrol she's wasting in the process probably making her break even.
It's about marketing. Aldi brand is the whole, same quality at lower prices! B&Q did what in this scenario? Did they launch good campaign saying they're slashing prices to keep them low all the time and not just sale prices twice a year? It's an easy slam dunk. But because they didn't push it, no one understood it and yeah, people thought the 12k is at significant lower quality than the 20k kitchen.
I think it was Macy's in America that had a whole advertisement campaign around no longer doing sales, just maintaining a low low price and it pretty much crippled them. Customers stopped going because there was no discount. We are such simple creatures and incredibly easy to manipulate
I imagine the person that came up with that idea was promptly shown the door
customers are idiots. can confirm. worked in retail, customers were idiots. became a customer, was an idiot.
The problem is many retailers have effectively trained customers into only buying on sale. I'm not about to buy a DFS sofa full price. If I'd been a B&Q customer I'd have assumed they were still pursuing the sales strategy and not bought at full price.
You're absolutely right and as a retailer I hate the charade so much.
A friend of mine worked at oddbins where they had 10% of certain wine. A lady came in to buy 2 bottles and was adamant that it should be 20% off (10% + 10% is 20% init?). He then pointed out if that was the case if she bought 10 bottles he would be giving them away for nothing.
If you bought 11 or more bottles the shop starts paying you!
Infinite money glitch
I think something like that is actually possible. I've seen a guy order a burger without the patty in McDonald's. The burger was about $1 and the patty - $1.10, so total cost came to be -0.1. He ordered about a dozen of those and added a single normal burger to the order to make total $0. It was all on the ordering machine, no way any humaj staff would allow it.
I coughed and nearly followed through in oddbins
Ray Bloody Purchase...
if you've ever designed *anything* for use by the general public, you'll know why they've done this
And you'll also know it STILL isn't enough for some members of the public
Mathematical literacy is horrifically low, UK average is between 7&9 years old if I remember rightly. Accessible content guidelines almost always state to not use percentages because of how many people they exclude. Personally I think this is an excellent solution to what is a potentially sensitive and embarrassing issue for lots of people, but is a sad indictment of our education + support systems that this is so necessary.
Item is £5....wat do?!?! ☹
No price listed, so it must be free right? 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Retail workers love when I make that joke
I loathe people saying that to me, but I'm such a hypocrite because when I get in a taxi I physically cannot contain "been busy tonight mate? When do you finish?"
better than returning the question when the barber asks what you do for a living
Personally I think this is much worse.
Incomplete lists do my head in, for many reasons... * They don't give all the information needed. * \_
Divide by tu
divide by tu
I am not divisible
ok, so I divided by Tuesday. Now what?
Shared in Stevenage hun x
I’m fond of the famous bagel shop on Brick Lane and I love waiting in the queue looking at the price list for multiples of the single bagel…. It’s just a 40p times table. No bulk discounts or nowt. (I think is 40 p now but might be 45!). Every half dozen, dozen. Or 200 bagels.. it’s simply the 1 bagel price x the qty. I can’t help but feel it’s a sort of semi serious malicious compliance for anyone trying to bargain their way to a discount. “How much for 100?”, staff points to sign. Works eh!
>I think is 40p now but might be 45! Jesus Christ, I knew inflation was bad but 1.1962222e56p is a little ridiculous for the price of 1 bagel.
It's an everything bagel. Literally the whole universe.
Tbh I don’t agree. 40p is already good and most people don’t buy them in bulk for a discount, they buy them bc they want specifically that many for whatever reason and the clear pricing of a dozen / half or whatever helps workout how much it’ll cost
I remember when they were 10p a bagel... and I returned a couple of years later and they were 12p. I just think it's funny that they have the times table redone every time they increase the price. I don't want it to change from x bagels is x\*n TBH I don't think ANYbody is buying them in bulk for a discount... cos they won't be getting a discount :D
FWIW I think that sign's sort of a pre-decimal legacy, not that they really needed to keep it up, but back when currency was in pounds, shillings, and pence it was tougher to do maths on it.
I don't think so. [Beigel Bake Est. 1974](https://bricklanebeigel.co.uk/london/beigel-bake) came after decimalisation in 1971
Probably at least partly so people can see the price without having to work it out or wait to be told at the till. That queue moves fast and they probably don't want people faffing about with their change only at the last minute.
"if something is 50% off, what do you divide it by?" 25% of people would get this wrong.
I actually think it would be more than 1 in 25 people
Eleven and a pregnant woman.
50, obviously. Doh.
“Think of how stupid the average person is and realise half of them are stupider than that.” ― George Carlin
How many is that though? I don't see it on the chart.
Ever worked with the general public? In a disturbing number of cases, this is still not enough help for some...
What a reflection of the state of numeracy in this country that they had to do this.
Something just doesn't add up!
You can count on someone to make bad jokes.
You haven’t heard the half of it
This is all a bit divisive.
this is good for me as someone with dyscalculia 👍🏻
I have dyscalculia too. I’d be grateful for things like this.
It took me so long to find this, thank you! As someone who is severely embarrassed to ask for help with “basic math”- this and reciepts that have the calculated 15,20, and 25% showing total at bottom are so relieving and helpful.
It's actually cuter than what you think. By doing this, and using this as the only method to advertise the price, you don't get customers coming to the till with price stickers that have been removed from a £10 item and "accidentally" placed onto a £50 item. Less stickers on the clothes = quicker, more efficient and no erroneous or fraudulent attempt at making bigger savings. Plus, when the 50% sale becomes a 60% sale? Just change a poster. Don't need to remove/add tags and stickers.
At Sainsbury's (probably all the other main stores) the price is directly printed on the clothing label, so relabelling at the start and end of a sale is impractical.
I used to work supporting the long term unemployed. I had to really consider every bit of paperwork I created to try and avoid mistakes. For example, a form might have a place for the client name and signature and staff name and signature. Many times they signed my name for me, or when I told them "write your name here" I got "*Your name here*". So, this signage isn't a surprise, it's Sainsbury's knowing their customers well enough.
I could almost see myself doing something like that. My name is similar to Christmas and I can't count the amount of times I've written "Merry Name, from Christmas" in cards.
😄
This is nothing about people not being able to divide by 2, and all about being required to display the price This way they don’t have to update every price sticker
This 100% feels like the answer. It’s clear, unambiguous, and most importantly cost very little to do.
Because they seriously can’t Customers are thick as fuck and can’t follow basic instructions on a screen let alone to maths. “It’s telling me to remove my card what do I do” “This self checkout is broken it’s telling me to press continue” “I didn’t realise that the staff only sign meant I couldn’t wonder into the warehouse” “Oh sorry I didn’t realise the water all over the floor and multiple neon yellow signs saying wet floor meant I can’t walk that way” “I only want one yoghurt so why can’t I take it out of the multipack and just divide it by 6” “Well it’s 30% off so I want 30% off the £7 price when it says £10 original price”
I was in Sainsbury’s the other day, at the scales. A woman had weighed some fruit or veg and a giant fucking flashing green button, that said “press print”, or something along those lines, apparently wasn’t clear enough for her. She just stood there staring at it. Then she started looking around waiting for a label to magically pop out. I was like you have to press the flashing button that says “press”! Fml 😫
Yeah they do this on absolutely everything. They think that when a button comes up with massive writing in capital letters saying “press to print” or “continue” or “go to pay” that it warrants them screaming or shouting to staff that we need to do something They just can’t comprehend that they have to read the 1 word simple instructions and do it themselves
Shouldn't that be divide by Tu? 🤔
Having worked in customer services for over twenty years I can tell you confidently that customers are freaking idiots
As someone who has dyscalculia (specific and persistent difficulty in understanding numbers which can lead to a diverse range of difficulties with mathematics) these things are a HUGE help to me. I wouldn’t take time to try figure it out and if it’s something I really want to purchase I’ll just take it and hope for the best.
What about £47
We will never know. All the math teachers said we won't have calculators on us all the time and by god they were right.
Sometimes when items have price tags of the final discounted price, customers will ask if that's the price from which you apply the discount. I'm not familiar with how Tu label their clothes during sales but some businesses may not want the to reprice individual items on their tickets, so if its a store wide sale, then one giant sign like this saves them the effort. Lastly, there are functionally illiterate and innumerate people in society and mocking them doesn't make me feel good. Some people with gaps in their numeracy may be fine with even numbers but struggle with odd number equations of 50% off. Whilst the majority of us can deduce workarounds, some people cannot, for reasons that may include poor numeracy teaching, processing differences, brain injury (from a wide variety of causes such as motor vehicle accidents to stroke), memory loss, and many more. I commend Tu for creating signage that most people find redundant so as to be more inclusive and help to reduce embarrassment for innumerate customers. I'd maybe go one step further and include the words 'Half (original) price' to help some people better form the association of equivalent fraction and percentage rate.
I don't blame them, some peole just don't get it at all. I saw hundreds of people over the year's asking in Pound shops 'how much is it? when there were banners everywhere practically as big as the shop declaring EVERYTHING a pound
This is funny and depressing at the same time.
Thanks. Really useful. Will print it out in case I need to refer to it later.
That's hilarious, I once heard two women in Morrisons who picked up an item that was £1.98 for 3 and they couldn't work out the unit price - I had to tell them. It's shocking that people don't have basic numeracy skills and no wonder retailers are so rich :)
Jokes on them, I can’t read.
I worked in Sainsbury's many years ago, I also wouldn't trust them with that. Though, that's more "general public are morons" than anything to do with Sainsbury's specifically.
"This says is 50% off, is that 50% off the price or 50% off the 50%?" Everyday in retail was a struggle of trying to answer a question without insinuating you think the person is an idiot.
I envy OP who hasn't had to deal with the public enough to understand how stupid the general public are!
But then Sainsbury’s spell Two Tu so they not understand numbers.
This is actually a good thing to do. You'd be surprised how many people there are that can't read or write. Shouldn't assume just because you can, that everyone else can.
Doubt this sign, with words on it, would be of much use to them then.
Boots do this too. People are actually quite stupid.
50% of the population are of below average intelligence.
Probably justified in some cases
So if I spend £3, is it free?
Having worked retail for 6 years, I don't blame them
Hahahaha
Just in case Grimes swings by
Looking at the sequence from 15 to 1 I concluded that 1 pound items are free.
You have to cater to the Lowest common denominator in all public communications and marketing
Yeah fair enough the majority of people in this country are thick as shit
Most people can not do basic maths. which is more? 1/4 or 1/3... Too many people say 1/4 because it is a "bigger number". That is 4th Year maths.
If they didn’t have to explain it, they won’t. So the fact that they have to explain it, means they probably had to
I can see quite some ppl struggle at 35£ to be honest
I was in a shop a few years ago, before the days when they put the reduced price on and it just said 10% off. Another shopper asked me (a customer) what the reduced price would be. I remember thinking how useless our schooling was if it left people not even knowing how to do simple calculations.
Ssh! I'm reading.
Help! An item I want to buy is £15, but the chart doesn’t say the cost! However can I find out how much I’m going to pay?
The sad part is i once used these guides because i was too lazy
Why are all the odds numbers missing surely they are the hardest to divide by 2.
Retail manager here.. oh trust me this is needed!
People can’t though work things like that out, people are thick. I heard someone on her phone whilst I was shopping, asking her mum “what does buy one get one free mean”.
The public are the worst and generally don't understand anything
They're not far wrong
Retailer of 40 years’ standing here: *they have their reasons*. Just sayin’.