It appears that at least one grocery store thinks that the average shopper is not very well educated.  In fact, they are counting on it in order to make a few extra bucks. 

Check out the following link: Winn_Dixie_Weekly_Specials

You will notice that they are advertising their brand of charcoal lighter fluid in the 32 oz. size.  You can buy two of these for $5.00 or one for $2.50.  That is, if you use your Customer Rewards Card.  So you can only get this deal if you have one of their loyalty cards.  On the shelf, they have a nice ‘Sale’ or ’Special’ tag right under the product that says 2/$5.00 so that you can spot these ’specials’ they have throughout the store.

In this particular case there were a few other types or sizes of charcoal lighter fluid next to the one advertised in the special.  They had their brand of charcoal lighter fluid, but it was the 64 oz. size.  Then next to that, they had the Kingsford brand charcoal lighter fluid in two different sizes as well.

I noticed that quite a few of the advertised charcoal lighter fluid bottles were gone already from the shelf.  The 64 oz. size that was next to it had an advertised price of $3.79.  It wasn’t on sale or on ’special’ and it also didn’t require you to have a Customer Rewards Card in order to get that price.

What’s sad is that evidently quite a few people picked up two bottles of the 32 oz. size for $5.00 because it was on ’special’ and they ended up paying more than if they had picked up the 64 oz. size bottle.  I wonder if it’s just the mistaken idea that if it’s on ’special’ or ’specially marked’ that it’s cheaper than anything else or if it’s just that people don’t know how to add or if people are just so much in a hurry that they don’t look carefully at these types of things to see if they are really getting the best deal?

The stores want to make money and sometimes they resort to practices like this in order to do so.  So the next time you’re reaching for something because it’s on ’sale’ or on ’special’, you might want to take a closer look to see if it REALLY is cheaper than any of the other products next to it.  You could be deceived into thinking that you’re getting the best deal because the product is listed in the stores weekly specials when in fact you’re actually paying more for it.