Supermarket Labels

To the Editor.

Dear Sir, last Saturday morning (13th), in the course of the weekly grocery shopping expedition, I had an experience at Gardens New World that I complained about at the time but that I consider deserves a wider airing.

Walking in through the produce, I noticed a sign with ‘Special’ in large letters at the top, ‘$1.69’ in large letters in the middle and ‘Whole Watermelons’ in large letters at the bottom. OK, thinks I, some sort of clearance, I’ll have one.

At the checkout, my bill was larger than expected and it turns out that the watermelon is $1.69 per kilo. In the spirit of learning a lesson, I bought it then went back to look at the sign. Even then, scanning the sign, I missed at first the word in small type low to the right ‘kilo’. Not ‘/kilo’ or ‘per kilo’, just ‘kilo’.

It couldn’t have been more clearly designed to escape detection and it certainly escaped mine on first and second pass. If I had been buying a trolley load, I’m sure I would still be ignorant of the over $5.00 cost of the melon.

This is deceptive practice and now that I know this supermarket may set out to deceive its customers with its labeling, I intend to be much more attentive to their marketing tricks.

Caveat Emptor.