A majority of Canadians have discovered flaws on their grocery receipts when they check them out over the past year, according to a new survey that shows some shoppers are leaving savings while shopping. . food inflation rage.
Latest report from Agricultural food analysis laboratory at Dalhousie University announced Tuesday that 67 percent of Canadians have discovered a mistake on their grocery bill at least once in the past year.
“A lot of people don’t look at the grocery bill. … They might actually be leaving money behind,” Sylvain Charlebois, director of the lab, told Global News.
According to more than 5,500 Canadians surveyed by Caddle for the March report, the most common error found when checking for errors was that the final price on the invoice was different from the price on the shelf, with 78.5% of respondents giving know they noticed. this error.
Caddle’s survey found that when Canadians find errors on their grocery bills, these are the most common.
Charlebois said the lab wants to address receipt errors because he believes it’s a topic “often overlooked.”
Nearly half of those surveyed for the report (49.5%) said they always check their grocery receipts for errors.
Charlebois says shoppers are often rushed home after checking out, because they may not have much time or go shopping with kids.
But not looking closely at an invoice — or giving up on receiving it altogether — means that shoppers are essentially “losing” the chance to spot a mistake, he said.
“The average consumer can save up to $50, $60, $70 a year just by looking at bills and potential mistakes.”
Where does the problem happen?
New Brunswickers and Manitobans were the least likely to find errors on their invoices, with a finding rate of 61%. Meanwhile, Newfoundland and Labrador residents posted the highest reported error rate of 84%.
The report did not specify which grocery chain consumers found to be making the most mistakes.
Charlebois says coding errors are common in the often busy environment of a grocery store, with thousands of items to stock and frequent fluctuations and sales to review.
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One of the areas where consumers most frequently report problems is that daily discounts aren’t applied to perishable items like bread or meat – frequent “tonight take-home” deals apply significant discounts.
“If you’re walking around the grocery store looking for a bargain, it might just be an illusion if you don’t check your receipt when you leave the store,” says Charlebois.
“Being out there gets confusing. To really pause after you’ve paid for your food, looking at your receipts can really allow you to save and make sure you’re paying for what you’re actually getting. “
About 9.2% of survey respondents identified tax errors as an issue, and Charlebois says he believes so-called contractionary inflation — in which commodity prices hold steady but packaged quantities of reduced producer — is having an impact here.
When a grocery item falls below a certain threshold, it can be taxed as a snack, he said, adding that he considers 9.2% of items wrongly taxed as a low number.
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The report found that around 84% of shoppers who spot an error on their receipt will complain about it.
Of those who haven’t complained, nearly 40% said they didn’t feel it was worth the money, while 31% said they didn’t have the time.
After bringing it back to the cashier or the store’s customer service counter, 87.1% of customers said they were satisfied with how the merchant responded.
In Canada, most grocery stores actually register a code that dictates how they react in such cases.
The Retail Council of Canada and the Federation of Independent Grocery Stores of Canada established a code of conduct for scanners in 2002. These rules stipulate that when a scan error is found on a receipt, the store Participating grocery stores must offer a $10 discount or give the item away for free if it costs less than that amount.
Among those who voluntarily signed up to the code were Loblaw, Metro, Sobeys, Walmart, Costco and Canadian Tire, and in Quebec, it’s the law.
Canadian grocers like Loblaw have gone to great lengths to emphasize how tight margins can be on food sales. Loblaw CEO Galen Weston Jr. repeated several times in his testimony before members of Congress earlier this month that the grocery store only earns $1 in profit for every $25 spent at its stores.
Given how tight these returns are, Charlebois says grocers should want Canadians to report technical or customer service problems in their stores to identify problems and prevent restocking. bias before it starts to affect their bottom line.
“I think grocery stores really want to hear from consumers because they don’t want to make the same mistakes over and over,” he said. “If they actually end up offering hundreds of products for free with very low margins, they will end up paying the price.”
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