The price is wrong

Busy week this with the Christmas season really kicking off. One event definitely worthy of mention was the memorial held for the former Hobbs boss Nick Samuel, who died of cancer earlier this year. Despite the snow there was a very good turnout, and warm speeches from people including Blacks CEO Neil Gillis, TM Lewin FD Mike Trotman and ex-Adams boss David Carter-Johnson.

It wasn’t surprising that so many people turned out because Nick was one of the best-liked men in fashion. There was no pomposity or arrogance with Nick, just good humour and the sense that he really loved the business he was in. He was always the first to arrive at a do and the last to leave and I can’t remember anyone having a bad word to say about him. He’ll be missed.

Yesterday the OFT issued a report into promotions, threatening to crack down on businesses which mislead customers with promotions which aren’t widely available, where the so-called original price wasn’t widely charged or where extras are added so that the price paid bears little relation to the one advertised.

As a consumer I do sometimes get exasperated by promotions which are really rubbish value. The one that bugs me is fruit in M&S, where a small punnet of cherries or berries is always flagged as ‘half-price’ only to find that the actual price is still about £3.50. I’m sure no-one would ever have paid £7 for them, and I’ve never seen them on sale at that price but perhaps that’s what they were being sold for one week out of season?

But what I do is walk away and not buy them. Retail is a transparent market and as long as prices are clearly displayed customers can make an informed decision whether to buy or whether to walk away. M&S was caught up in a fuss about an champagne offer which sold out too quickly last week, but I’m sure there was no intention to mislead customers - they’d have been crazy to, because anyone who went to a store specifically to purchase the offer would have gone away disappointed and feeling let down by M&S.

Although all the coverage in the papers focussed on retailers - no surprise there - the real culprits are people like Ryanair and Ticketmaster. With low-cost flights or concert tickets it’s almost always impossible to find what you want to buy at the price it’s advertised for because of all the fees you have no option but to pay.

Now that’s what I call misleading, and all power to the OFT in dealing with it. But they should leave retailers alone; the market is too competitive for the multiples to get away with misleading customers, even if they wanted to.