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Comment by sidrag22 | Hacker News Reader

> What I want is an anti-costco. More like a bodega. Still curated, maybe a larger mark-up, but smaller quantities of everything. Half loaves of bread, small bags of frozen veg, enough sugar or flour to bake just a couple batches.

This is becoming even harder to achieve nowadays, there is all this variety in size of products and more and more over the years(at least in the midwest) it seems that grocery stores want to take the small product and apply minimums to deals.

there will be an 8oz offering and a 14 oz offering, the 8 oz will be on sale but only if you buy at least 2 or 3, its incredibly frustrating.

It has incidentally made my junk food habits better though, If i see 2 for 5$ for a package of cookies with no minimum purchase, I'll likely grab a box. As soon as they apply that minimum, i am gonna be thinking "do i really wanna eat all those cookies?" instead i end up with 0.

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> the 8 oz will be on sale but only if you buy at least 2 or 3, its incredibly frustrating.

Have you tested this by buying just one, and checking the price on the receipt?

I ask because someone once told me this was illegal in the US; that a shop was allowed to display the sale price only for a larger quantity, but they had to honor the same price per unit if you only bought one. (I think we were discussing produce at the time, in case that matters.) I've long wondered if that was true or just an urban legend.

The computers are not dumb. If you do not purchase the correct number of items, the discount is not applied. Also, if you do not have a member/loyalty account, you do not get those discounts. They now have a new level that requires you to have their app for "digital" coupons that are on top of the loyalty prices. There are many times where I don't input my number in until the very end, and then see it calculate all of the deductions. Sometimes it's not much, but I've seen it drop $30 from the "member" price discounts.

> The computers are not dumb.

Nobody has suggested that they malfunction.

I thought this was obvious, but to spell it out: I was suggesting that they might not necessarily be programmed to apply a different price depending on quantity. An item might have a flat price of $1 each, but labeled on the shelf/bin as "special: five for $5" to encourage larger purchases.

I have personally encountered this. Meanwhile, I do not recall an example of buying a quantity smaller than suggested and being charged a higher price per item. Hence my question about labeling and law.

> Also, if you do not have a member/loyalty account, you do not get those discounts.

I'm not talking about membership discounts.

> An item might have a flat price of $1 each, but labeled on the shelf/bin as "special: five for $5" to encourage larger purchases.

That's not a special, that's just math. I've only ever seen that kind of nonsense from Amazon. I've seen Buy 3 for $5, while the individual is $1.99. If you buy one you pay $1.99, if you buy two you pay $3.98, but if you buy three, you end up paying $5. The receipt will show 3 @ $1.99 with a discount under the item bringing the total to $5. My store routinely has various meat offerings of Buy 1, get 2 free. If you ring up one, it shows the price. If you ring up 3, it shows all three items, but discount the cheapest two prices so you only pay for the single highest priced item.

Major chains are not going to be futzing around with gotcha tags. They know they'll be called out for it. It would be the bodega style places that I'd be suspect of that kind of shenanigans.

> I'm not talking about membership discounts.

Why not? It clearly shows two different prices. If you are not using a discount/loyalty card, you pay the full price. A lot of times I've seen when you use a line with a human checker they'll have a card on stand by (probably their own) to get the points while giving the buyer the lower prices.

> That's not a special,

It is a special when the usual price is $2 each.

> Why not?

Because I'm not interested.

Counterpoint: Publix will absolutely show a special price of "2 for X" and will charge you X/2 if you only buy one. I did it just this morning.

iirc yes it did not apply on purchase as well, on the label it is always also explicit about cost if not bought in those quantities(2 for 5 in any quantity is still sometimes the actual offering). I am assuming my memory is correct because its baked into my shopping experience to ensure i am reading the label correctly now.

Meijer is slowly becoming a bad offender of these types of things, Jewel has been horrifying for years, to the point where i avoid their store entirely. The final straw was this limit applied to gallons of milk.

My grocery store does both. If the label says "Sale: 2/$5, Was: $3.99" and I buy one, I get charged $2.50. If the label says "2/$5, Single item: $3" and I buy one, I get charged $3.

Most likely that pricing rule was/is at a more local level. The national level in the US doesn't have anything like that, but there are some states or cities or counties that can and do.

> I ask because someone once told me this was illegal in the US; that a shop was allowed to display the sale price only for a larger quantity, but they had to honor the same price per unit if you only bought one.

No, WTF? That's not a thing, why would you even credit such obvious nonsense?

At my Winn Dixie and Publix (FL), tags often say "must by in quantities of 2." for products on sale.

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