Fresh legislation has taken effect impacting shoppers at Britain's leading supermarkets, including Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Asda, Aldi, Waitrose and Lidl. The new regulations require prices to be shown clearly on all products, with standardised measurements aimed at cutting confusion and helping customers compare prices while better grasping money-saving deals.
Extended Unit Pricing Rules
The changes have extended unit pricing rules to additional items including cereals, pasta, dried fruits, detergents, cleaning products and cosmetics, with metric measurements needing to be standardised - per kilo, litre, metre - irrespective of product size.
Practical exceptions exist for mixed product bundles, such as gift hampers containing items typically sold using different measures, while deposit sums must be left out of the shown selling price.
Loyalty Card Pricing Transparency
When retailers provide varying prices for identical products, such as loyalty card reductions, they must prominently show both the regular price and the reduced price, with terms for securing the lower cost displayed clearly beside the product. The overhaul is designed to enhance pricing transparency and make comparison shopping easier, requiring retailers to review their pricing systems, provide staff training, and potentially redesign both physical and digital price displays.
Alexa Lamont, Managing Associate, Knowledge Lawyer said: "The reforms are designed to enhance transparency and make it easier for shoppers to compare products across a wider range of goods. The additional preparation time will allow retailers to adapt their systems and processes to meet the new requirements when they come into effect."
Stricter Presentation Standards
The reforms introduce stricter standards for how prices must be presented:
- Legibility and font requirements: Prices must be clearly legible using fonts that are clear and of reasonable size.
- Delivery charges: Any delivery charges must be unambiguous, easily identifiable, and clearly legible.
"One of the most substantial changes involves expanding the range of products that must display unit pricing alongside their selling price. The new rules will require unit pricing for additional categories of packaged goods, including cereals, pasta, dried fruits, detergents and cosmetics. This expansion means consumers will have better tools to compare value across a much wider range of everyday products," Ms Lamont added.
Standardised Measurements
Under the fresh regulations, when metric unit prices are displayed, they must be shown using standard measurements: price per kilogram, litre, metre, square metre, or cubic metre, as appropriate. This requirement applies regardless of the product's actual size.
Mixed product packages are subject to exemptions, recognising the complexity of certain retail offerings. Under the new rules, retailers won't be obliged to display a unit price for packages containing different items sold together, where some products are typically sold by weight, like cheese, others by volume, such as wine, or at varying individual prices when bought separately.
Ms Lamont added: "There are also reforms as to how retailers handle different pricing tiers, particularly loyalty card schemes. When retailers offer different prices for the same product - such as a standard price and a discounted price for loyalty card members - they must:
- Clearly display both prices
- Explain the conditions required to obtain the lower price
- Show these conditions prominently near the product
- Apply this requirement to both selling prices and unit prices where applicable
For instance, if a retailer offers a product for £5 normally, but £4 with a loyalty card, both prices must be clearly displayed alongside an explanation of the loyalty card requirement, positioned where customers can easily see it when considering the purchase.
