Supermarket deals lure buyers into over spending

Special offers like buy-one get-one-free seduce supermarket shoppers into spending over £1,000 a year on average than planned, a new report revealed.

According to The Money Advice Service (MAS), 76 per cent of people regularly spent more than they meant to in grocery stores due to the deals and "bogof" (buy one get one free) offers.

People, on average, said they were spending £11.14 more than they intended on each shop visit.

According to the MAS, which considered average number of visits per week at 2.2, this meant the average person was overspending £1,274 per year.

Research also revealed that those who made a shopping list and stuck to it, typically spent £200 a year less than those who rarely or never did so.

The study also asked more than 2,000 consumers to select the cheapest options when presented with four sets of offers as they might be found in a supermarket.

Only 2 per cent selected the best value option from all four sets of offers, while 74 per cent answered at least one question correctly.

John Penberthy-Smith, customer director for the MAS, said, "The problem is that quite often we see a special offer at the supermarket and we don't want to  miss out. So we throw it into our trolley without really thinking about whether it is a good deal or whether we actually need it.

Meanwhile, it was understood that the consumer watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), could now initiate action against big supermarkets such as Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda.

A spokesman for the CMA said, "We have been undertaking further analysis of the potentially misleading practices identified in our report and establishing our priorities for further action.