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What readers have been saying on irishtimes.com/blogs/pricewatch

Tesco gets more for less in multi-pack offers

RETAILERS IN Ireland are frequently accused of mispricing their multi-pack or bigger-sized products to create the impression that they are better value when the truth is that they actually cost more.

Gerry Loughrey has come up with some fine examples he spotted in Tesco Artane recently. “A two-pack of O’Hara’s Madeira cake sells for €4 and is labelled as a ‘great value pack’,” he says. That’s fine, but a single pack of the same cake is €1.99, which would make two bought separately 2 cent cheaper.

If it seems as if our reader is being excessively picky – after all it is only 2 cent – then read on. “Complaining about an extra 2 cent for a ‘great value’ pack although valid may seem petty,” he says “until you check the weights.” The single pack contains one cake which weighs 350g and the “great value” pack contains two cakes which weigh 330g each – a total of 660g. “If priced at the same unit price as the single pack, the ‘great value’ pack should sell for €3.75, not €4. So, Tesco make an extra 25 cent, or over 6 per cent, on every ‘great value’ pack!”

That wasn’t all he spotted. He also saw 450g of Kellogg’s Rice Krispies selling for €2.50 while 600g of the same cereal cost €3.45. “Let’s say you buy one 450g pack a week for four weeks, it will cost €10, or you could buy three larger packs, which will weigh exactly the same as four of the smaller packs, but cost €10.35. So you pay an extra 3.5 per cent for a larger pack. An extra 6 per cent here, an extra 3.5 per cent there . . . no wonder the profits keep rolling in.”

He says there was a time when single people felt aggrieved because they had to pay more for smaller quantities. Supermarkets argued (with some logic) that smaller packs cost more in production, packaging and shelf space. “I have yet to hear the logic for penalising families for buying larger quantity packs!”

Getting a grip on the cost of tyre repairs

CIARAN O’BYRNE got in touch last week with a good news story. “A few weeks ago I got a slow puncture in one of my car tyres,” he writes. It is a “run flat” type tyre so he was able to keep going for a few days until he brought the car to what he describes as one of the big chains of tyre replacers.

“The man there told me it would have to be replaced, and quoted me about €240 for a replacement, which in any case he would have had to order, meaning I would need to come back in a couple of days. I was a bit surprised and said I’d go off and check some other places. Luckily, as I was leaving, a man who was next in line told me that he thought you could actually get these repaired in Butler’s Tyres, down in Harold’s Cross. A quick phone call confirmed this and, within an hour, I had an, albeit temporary, repaired tyre for €10. This tyre is going fine so far.”

Rip-off on batteries for hearing aids

A READER got in touch asking us to highlight the huge price differentials that exist when it comes to hearing aid batteries. She wears hearing aids and normally buys the batteries directly from the hearing aid supplier where she pays €2.50 for six of them. “I recently ran short and went to my local chemist where six batteries cost me €6.99. The batteries were Duracell and the ones I buy are Power One, but that cannot justify the price differential,” she fumes.

She points out that she is still fit and well and “can buy her batteries in the city centre outlet, Bonavox, but older people may not be able to do this. People who live outside large towns may have a similar problem, if the only supplier of batteries near them charges the sort of price my pharmacy does.”