The Commerce Commission has this morning announced it will file criminal charges against Woolworths NZ, Pak’nSave Silverdale, and Pak’nSave Mill Street — alleging inaccurate pricing and misleading specials.
Commerce Commission Deputy Chair Anne Callinan said, in a statement, supermarkets have “long been on notice about the importance of accurate and clear pricing and specials” and said the Commission was not satisfied with “continuing issues we’re seeing across the industry”.
“Pricing accuracy is a consumer right and an expectation of a competitive market. The major supermarkets are large, well-resourced businesses that should invest the time and effort to get pricing and promotions right,” she said.
In response this morning, Woolworths NZ managing director Spencer Sonn conceded mistakes happen with pricing but the supermarket chain had a full-refund policy and was installing better systems in its stores.
A spokesperson for Pak’nSave owners Foodstuffs said its stores worked hard to ensure prices on shelves were what shoppers paid at checkouts, and agreed that any inaccuracies were unacceptable.
The commission said charges would be filed separately against Woolworths NZ, Pak’nSave Silverdale, and Pak’nSave Mill Street. Investigations into other supermarket operators were also ongoing.
Callinan said shoppers should have confidence that the price they see will be the price they pay, and that specials really are special.
“Since the Commission’s 2022 market study into groceries, we’ve had a sustained focus on pricing integrity in the sector. Our chair John Small and Grocery Commissioner Pierre van Heerden, have made our expectations clear to the supermarkets that they have to improve things.
“The charges we’re filing against major supermarket brands are to remind all supermarket operators that we expect them to fix ongoing pricing accuracy issues and implement better processes to prevent issues like these in the future,” Callinan said.
Grocery Commissioner Pierre van Heerden said the work the commission was doing to put in place a mandatory disclosure standard under the Grocery Industry Competition Act would make it easier to identify trends and issues, so they could be remedied.
“The standard will require the major supermarkets to regularly disclose information about customer complaints, including around pricing and promotional issues,” van Heerden said.
He said major supermarkets did not have “consistent processes for recording customer complaints” and the lack of clarity means supermarkets can’t identify potential compliance issues within their businesses.
“This impacts consumers as their complaints may not be being dealt with effectively, which we would expect in a competitive market.”
Woolworths reponds
Woolworths New Zealand’s managing director, Spencer Sonn, told 1News “errors occur” but the chain had a market-leading refund policy and was introducing electronic shelf pricing to improve accuracy.
“We know how important it is that our customers can trust that the prices we advertise, or have on our shelf labels, are what they pay at the checkout. But sometimes errors occur,” Sonn said.
“To address this, Woolworths New Zealand has a long-standing and market-leading refund policy. In summary, if a customer is charged more for a product than the price we advertised it for, or is displayed on our shelf, they get a refund and to keep the product.
“More broadly, we are also in the process of introducing electronic shelf labels in all of our stores — to ensure that there are no paper-based shelf label errors. To date, 130 of our 186 stores have electronic shelf labels in place.”
Foodstuffs responds
In a statement to 1News, a Foodstuffs spokesperson said the Pak’nSave supermarkets involved “take this matter seriously and have co-operated fully with the Commerce Commission in relation to its investigations”.
“Foodstuffs North Island’s stores process millions of transactions a day and, while errors are relatively rare, we agree that any inaccurate pricing is unacceptable.
“We’re working hard to ensure that the price customers see on shelf is always what they pay at checkout, and that all specials offer clear savings.
Foodstuffs said any customer who believed they had not been charged the correct price should let store teams know.
