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Comment by living_room_pc | Hacker News Reader

Had a "oh shit" moment reading the article. I live in Germany, and of course buy groceries. The "discount" games seem very obvious now. Food expenses have risen very significantly recently.

Great article, I hope this gains more traction and or legal ramifications for the grocers.

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One trick I noticed while doing data input for supermarkets (in a different market) is that price rises are always advertised as promotions.

Say a supermarket has a $1.10 item and they want to increase that product to $1.50. They'll up the price to $1.50 immediately, and add a "40c off" to the ticket. The consumer sees "promotion" and assumes it's a discount, when it's actually just the same price as usual.

Then ~2 weeks later(depends on average buying frequency) the promotion sticker comes off and the product is now at the higher price.

Every time you see a promotion ticket, you can cynically assume it's a price increase.

Now in Poland every promotion needs to display lowest price for the product in last 30 days l, effectively countering this strategy.

Wow, I love Poland now.

That's a whole EU thing I think. We have it in Ireland.

https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treat...

Indeed it is. Czech Republic too, including e-commerce sites.

Poland has still been hit by inflation, though. I have taken advantage of having a registered business in order to do a lot of my shopping at the wholesaler Makro, where prices still lag well behind ordinary supermarkets.

not relevant to the comment to which you are replying. truth in advertising has nothing to do with inflation.

but it's also absurd to suggest that price controls are a valid means of addressing inflation

It is relevant to the context of this thread in general. Even if Polish consumers are spared the trick of raising prices through fake discounts as the OP mentioned, they still suffer from the same surge in prices that many of the European posters here are complaining about. Nowhere in my post was I calling for price controls.

your comment was suggestive of it whether that was your intention or not

Where? In that post I shared my own personal strategy for saving money by doing my shopping at a wholesaler instead of an ordinary supermarket. No state intervention required.

In precisely the part that you just left out

The only part I could have left out is the plain statement “Poland has still been hit by inflation, though.” That doesn’t even suggest calling for price controls. Yours was a kneejerk reaction.

In context it is very suggestive. Maybe you are incapable of inferences but other people are not, so I decided it was best to dispel that idea ahead of time.

It is unreasonable to infer what the original author has said he has not implied.

You didn't say that you didn't imply it until after I brought it up. In fact, you never would have said that unless and until I raised the issue. So I accept your apology.

Maybe look at who you just replied to there?

He didn't say that he didn't imply it until after I brought it up. In fact, he never would have said that unless and until I raised the issue. So I accept his apology.

That explains why Good Old Games has that display for games that are "on sale". Does Steam honor that requirement?

I haven't seen one, but changing the base price of the game requires support if I remember correctly and there is also a 30 day minimum wait time between discounts. https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/discounts

They did add it, not for everyone but it is there: https://x.com/SteamDB/status/1664912800806842370?s=20

Pretty much not for me. I both have a bunch of products imported from receipts over the years, and I remember many per 100g prices for products I regularly buy. This simply does not happen, at least not at the stores I shop for the products I buy (note that I don’t buy any finished meals or processed food outside the occasional salami, so my habits are pretty different from most people).

Same, I track the prices of a few dozens of products across the six supermarkets I go to, in France and Belgium (every day, automatically) and this has never happened.

I think that would be illegal in most European countries. It has to be a "real" discount. Often means to have been sold at the original price advertised for at least a month.

Kroger do this all the time. I don't know about other stores but kroger is actively using this tactic aggressively and other dark marketing schemes.

it's like a warning: last chance to get this item at the old price.

This exact behaviour was used in Coles supermarkets here in Australia, to raise the price of cheese just over a month ago.

Noticed it happening at the time, and kept an eye on it.

What's your preference, that they just raise the price to $1.50 without the discount?

As long as the price doesn't go back to $1.10 after the promotion is over, I don't see anything wrong with that.

REWE and Edeka have trained me to only buy “fancy” (Mövenpick, Cremissimo) ice cream when it’s 1,99 EUR, not “normal” price of 3,99, and to prefer whichever is “on sale”.

And I detest that decent ice cream only comes in ridiculously-shaped thick plastic that’s only good for chucking in the Gelbe Sack, not in waxed paperboard or at least a sensible container to reuse for other things.

Of course you are supposed to keep and collect those useless containers (plus lid) since you "surely will be able to use them for something" in the future. For storing screws, rubberbands and Kulis that nobody has or keeps anymore... A roll of Gelbe Säcke might fit inside.

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