They have been doing this for a long time. What they do is they have a sign that says, '$5 for 2, Save $2.58 when you buy two. Now this always (except for today) causes me to buy two items. My friends too. Does it mean if you buy one only you pay regular price?
Yes, it does, and I wish they would just cut it out. I don’t want two gallons of milk, but the price for one is the highest in town. It’s OK if you’re buying something like canned soup, but I don’t want two pounds of butter in my fridge at once.
This seems to be their current answer to the club card stores. I appreciate not having to carry a card around, but I don’t like the multiple purchase requirement. They seem to be doing it more and more recently.
I can’t wait until the new Trader Joe’s opens up near us.
Actually, my experience is different from cher3’s. In the Lucky near me, when an item is advertised as being on sale for “2 for $5.00”, a single item is rung up as $2.50.
I think it’s a ploy to make people think they have to buy two to get the special. (It worked on me for a while, until I for some reason bought such an item individually and noticed the price I was charged. I asked the checker, and was told that the sale price applies even if only one item is purchased.).
Note that they do not explicitly say that you have to buy two items to get the discount, even though the implication is certainly there. “Save $2.00 when you buy two,” is true, but they don’t bother to mention that you’ll save $1.00 if you buy one.
YMMV in different stores, but I now routinely buy only one of such sale items, and am careful to note that I’m still charged the sale price.
I was also talking about Albertson’s. I’m not sure they do it on all the items marked that way, but they charge full price for one gallon of milk.
Every time I’ve checked a store’s receipt (including Albertson’s (including milk)), I’ve gotten the deal only buying one. You know, it’s really not that hard to check…
Err…make that Albertson’s. I had a brain fart and forgot about the not-so-recent name change.
As a kid, this had me messed up in math BIG TIME! I used to buy Hot Wheels cars at 3/1 or 1/.40, let’s say…
So when the teacher would ask how much is one, I could NOT understand HOW you could know! (Since it was apparent the store set the rules.)
Guess what? The stores STILL set the rules! 
- Jinx
Well, they charge full price for one gallon of milk here. I’m not sure about other deals. And, yes, I have checked.
Hey wow!
I work in an Albertson’s. I’m the Dairy Manager*. In the district my store is in, we don’t sell milk at “2 for***”. That seems odd that the store where cher shops does that.
I’ve noticed that whenever something is on sale and more than 1 item is specified in the price, 99.9% of customers will buy that amount. It’s weird. I used to think it was dumb on the part of the customer. Now I think it’s clever on the part of the store. Why sell 1 box of cereal for $1.00 when you can sell 5 for $5.00?
Ask someone in the store who would know.
*Dairy Magager. By default anyway. I’m the only full-time dairy person in the store. It sounds better on a resume, but I don’t have a monster ego to feed. I refer to myself as “Dairy Guy” 
The stores also often say “limit x”. Do you often find that people buy x?
BTW, am I the only one irritated by sometihng like “You pay only 2 for $5.00”? It should be “$5.00 for 2”, dammit!
One note to add, because I used to work in a grocery store too: if the deal is for an odd-numbered price, the first item will cost the extra penny. As in, if soup is 2 cans for 89 cents, the first can will cost 45 cents and the second 44. This happens also with threes; if the deal is three for a dollar, and you buy four, they’ll ring up as 34-33-33-34.
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The stores also often say “limit x”. Do you often find that people buy x?
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Yes. Absolutely. We had 1-Gallon jugs of orange juice on sale recently and a woman bought 2 cases (all I had ordered) right off the pallet. I never put any of it on the shelf.
Today a guy asked if we had any more Diet Mountain Dew 2-Liter botles in the back room “You don’t have very many on the shelf”. I glanced in his cart and he had 6 already. I climbed around like a monkey in the back room and managed to dig 6 bottles out of a giant stack of Pepsico pallets. I was afraid to get any more. I thought I might cause an avalanche.
The limit is to prevent someone from buying all of it. Believe me, they will.
Getting back to the original post:
Usually, if the price advertised is 2/$5.00, the price for one item is $2.50. But, I have seen for some years now the trick of advertising milk jugs with a special price only if you buy two, something like $3.50 for one, but $5.00 for two. However, the store has to make clear that the item has a different pricing for buying multiples at a time, else its no different than offering 5 pounds for a dollar, and selling one pound for $0.20.
Nob Hill Foods in Central California priced milk that way, as did Lucky.
As a cashier myself (part time, underpaid) I’ve seen the all too subtle difference in wording in the ads. Typically, the ‘Two for x amount’ ads do indeed appy equally to the items (if you bought a twelve pack of Coke and its on sale 2 for 5 this week, it should ring up 2.50). Its the ‘Buy one get one free’ ads that require you to buy both items. I still haven’t managed to get someone to understand that no, I do not have some twisted personal agenda against them buying only one jug of whatever…plus the added fun caused because my particular register will not subtract the buy one get one free sales until the subtotal…argh!
In the area I live, in NC, the various stores are split. Half do it the honest way (one is 1/2 price), and half do it the horrible way (1st full price, 2nd free). I wish there were a standard on this. However, having worked for most of the chains in town, I’ve noticed that the more sophisticated the computer systems, the more likely they are to opt for situation two. In regard to the question about item limits, I read a book about grocery store stats (yes, I have no life), and if you limit 3 vs. limit 4, more will opt for the limit of 4, but those that opt to go 3 do more repeat business for that limit. Having worked in the grocery stores for 10 years, the only thing I can figure out about consumers (including myself) is we’re all nuts.
I used to own a small grocery store. We experimented with multiple pricing all the time. We almost always sold x if it was marked x/$y. But we never did the First a regular price, you only get the discount if you buy the multiple. I think that sucks.
My favorite conversation along these lines.
Me,“You should get some bananas, they’re four pounds for a dollar.”
Customer, “But I don’t want four pounds.”
I work in an Albertsons-owned store (Jewel-Osco) and we sometimes run into these deals. Sometimes, it’ll only take off of the second or last item, sometimes off both.
It really gets comfusing when it’s buy one get 2 for free. The first two ring up full price, and the last one is negatively priced. (for instance, we had some ice cream going at 2.10 buy 1 get 2. the last one was -$2.10) Very few customers got this, and I had to explain it several times.
If you think you should be getting a savings on the “save when you buy two…” deals, go to the service desk. As long as your polite, they usually will give whatever should be coming to you.
To the guy who works in the dairy department: Woo! I love our Dairy Guys. Even now as a Checker, I spend a decent portion of my weekly hours doing stuff in the back end of the store. I know those managers almost as well as I know mine. (Grocery managers give me candy)
At Publix, it’s one of the following:
Buy one, get one free:
You may as well buy two… once you buy one (at regular price) you get a second one, free of charge. No point to get just one.
Two for the price of one:
For the regular price, you get 2. For half the regular price, you get one.
And for some items (say, gum that costs 33.3333333… cents)
it’s priced: 3/$1.00
I think it won’t be long before someone sues Albertons about this pricing practice.
Anyway, milk at ALbertsons isn’t priced under the idea I have above. Milk is always on sale there so they don’t say its on sale. What they do is they have a one gal reg milk for $3.65 but if you buy two of them, then it’s only two for $4.25. Usually the second gallon is only about 65 cents more. This seems to be only for Albertsons milk.
I haven’t shopped at Albertson’s in quite some time, but I do often see the “Save $X on two” on the sale tags at various grocery stores. Since it always seems that the sale price applies to a single purchase as well, I would say that the language is simply a way to call attention to the perceived value of the sale.
For example, if a store were to have a sale on soup, which for the sake of argument is normally priced 1.00 per can, and reduce the price to .75, they could advertise it a couple of ways:
.75 per can: Save .25
or
$3.00 for four cans: Save $1.00 on four
Saving a quarter just doesn’t sound nearly as good as saving A WHOLE DOLLAR. Never mind that it works out the same, it’s A WHOLE DOLLAR. It makes the sale more noticeable, and prompts the customer to but more, to “take advantage” of the sale price.
The system works well when the numbers aren’t nice and round, too. If you have that same soup an sale at three for two bucks, that’s either “Save a dollar on two,” or “Save 33.33 repeating cents.”
I actually appreciate the basic concept of spelling out how much I am saving off the normal price, as while I am perfectly capable of doing the math, I would like to think as little as possible while actually in the store and shopping–it’s in and out for me.