When Reduced Price Grapes Cost More
A good starter activity here.
True story:
I picked up two boxes of these grapes and when I got to the self-scan checkout, I found that one had a reduced price sticker on it that I hadn’t seen when I chose it.
These grapes are ??2.34 each.
Two for ??4.
One was reduced to ??1.89.
What price could it be argued that I should pay?
reflectivemaths's Blog 
I would say that the reduced grapes have not cost you any more. Had you purchased them on their own, they would have cost you less than half the price you paid for two boxes, but if you wanted two boxes of grapes, it would still be cheaper to buy the reduced ones and the regular priced ones together rather than separately.You could argue that the financial value of the reduced price grapes was less than that of the regular priced grapes, but you still obtained two boxes of grapes for a price of ??4 instead of either ??2.34 + ??1.89 or 2 x ??2.34, which still represents a saving.While the reduced price grapes have effectively reduced the amount you have saved, you still have the same amount of product for the same price as you would have paid if you had picked up two boxes of grapes without a reduced sticker on either one.Of course, you could argue that the reduced price grapes don’t have the same value as the regular priced ones, but clearly a difference in quality wasn’t clear enough to notice, otherwise you presumably wouldn’t have selected them in the first place.
Hi Max,I don’t think that many people would agree that they didn’t cost more.The fact that they were reduced ‘removed them from the special offer’ and meant that I was supposed to pay ??2.34 + ??1.89.Even if they had been charged at ??4.00, I think that my view would be "That means the boxes were ??2.00 each and yet this one was supposed to be ??1.89".Also, as it happens, if there hadn’t been a two for ??4 deal on, I probably would have just bought one box (although I accept you weren’t to know that! 😉 )Strangely, both boxes had the same best before date on…
I also wasn’t to know that the fact they were reduced stopped them from being included in the special offer. :)While I accept your point about the individual price of each box being effectively ??2 under the conditions of the special offer (i.e. 2 boxes for ??4 = ??2 per box), my point was that the cost of two boxes was ??4 but the cost of a box was either ??1.89 or ??2.34. Presuming there was only one box priced at ??1.89, it would not be possible to get two boxes for cheaper than ??4 (if we also assume the ??1.89 can be included in the offer). The only way in which using the the reduced price box could actually cost you more would be if it’s price was 35p less than ??2 (i.e. ??1.65), in which case it would be cheaper to buy the boxes separately.Of course, it can be argued that the offer enticed you into buying a second box believing it would effectively reduce the price per box from ??2.34 to ??2, when one of them was already reduced to ??1.89. Thus costing you 11p more for the reduced box than if you had purchased it without the second box. However, as my original point stated, the saving on the other box was more than 11p, so you still saved money and got two boxes of grapes. Which means the reduced price box cannot be said to have cost you more.You could of course say that the special offer cost you more, as you purchased two boxes of grapes when you would have probably only purchased the one had it not been for the offer. So in effect, you spent ??2 more (if we pretend that the reduced price was not there – reasonable I believe, as you have said you didn’t notice it when you took the boxes and therefore it could not have factored in your decision at that time – and treat the two boxes as costing ??4 in total instead of ??4.68) in order to save 34p (or possibly 68p, if the saving on the additional – albeit previously undesired – box played a part in your decision).It’s no wonder that supermarkets have these kinds of offers.