Saving money on your supermarket shop has just become a whole lot easier, as experts pointed out a secret hack. Experts at Which? explained how supermarkets sneakily tell customers when discounts and promotions will end without shoppers even realising.
All you have to do is look closely at the product labels. Which? wrote on Instagram: “When we spot a tempting promotion, our impulse is to snap it up in case the offer ends soon. But it’s easy to check exactly when Tesco Clubcard Prices will finish: the date an offer ends is written backwards in smallprint on the shelf label. If it says ‘241001’, that offer will end on 1 October.
“Shelf labels for Sainsbury’s Nectar Prices have the date the promotion started in smallprint, which gives a clue to how long it will be valid for – offers usually run for a fortnight and end on Tuesdays.
“Even if an offer is ending soon, our research has found that a lot of products regularly go back on offer again and again, so it’s best to only buy the item if you were already planning to do so.”
So where can you find these clues? In its video, Which’s expert headed directly for Tesco’s shelves, where the product is labelled.
Clubcard deals and savings in Tesco can be identified with a yellow sticker, showing the lower price. Next to it will be a white label with its original price, where you will be able to find – if you look closely – the small fine print with the secret code.
Pointing to the small sequence of number, Which? said: “Look closer. This is the secret code that tells you when something is going to end on promotion at Tesco.”
They continued: “They put it backwards so it can be a little tricky to spot, but the first digits, the 25, means the year, the middle is the month and the last two are the date.”
This can tell you how long you have to buy a product, or bulk buy, before the promotion ends. However it’s not the same at every supermarket.
Waitrose is “upfront” about its deals, posting the day and the month of when the promotion will end at the bottom of the white label. This sticker will also have the original and discounted price.
But others, like in Sainsbury’s, may be a little trickier to navigate. Which? said: “While other supermarkets like Sainsbury’s only show when the date that a promotion started, though Sainsbury’s typically end their deals on Tuesdays, so that can give you a pretty good estimate of the end date.”