Morrisons axes promise to match Aldi and Lidl
Morrisons has dropped its pledge to match prices at Aldi and Lidl - just a year after deciding it was the only way to save the struggling supermarket. From 2 November it is changing the rules of its Match & More loyalty card, so it no longer matches any prices.
Morrisons is blaming 'confusion' among shoppers for its decision. Apparently shoppers were confused that sometimes they would earn points on their shopping (if the price match showed it was cheaper elsewhere), but on other occasions they wouldn't get any points at all (if the price match showed that Morrisons was the cheapest supermarket for their shop).
Julian Bailey, spokesperson for Morrisons, said: "Our customers said that sometimes they were confused by the price matching scheme, where sometimes they got points and sometimes they didn't.
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The new scheme
The change is a wholesale revamp - from being essentially a price matching card - that gives you points to make up the difference if you could have got your shopping cheaper elsewhere - to a loyalty card that just gives you a fixed number of points depending on what you spend. The supermarket has confirmed that it plans to change the name of the card too -to reflect the fact its no longer does any matching.
In future, you'll just get 5 points for every £1 you spend, and a £5 voucher for every 5,000 points you collect - plus extras for things on promotion and 10 points per litre of fuel you buy. It essentially becomes more like a Tesco Clubcard or a Sainsbury's Nectar Card - without offering the kind of price matching deals that their competitors run alongside their loyalty cards.
The reaction on social media has been overwhelmingly negative. There are plenty of people pointing out that a loyalty scheme offering £5 back for every £1,000 is terrible value when there's no price match scheme ensuring that you're not overspending by £5 each time you shop there. One comedian tweeted: "In line with the new terms and conditions, @Morrisons "Match and More" scheme will now simply be called "Less"."
The social media team has been busy replying to messages - largely with stock phrases pointing out that people will earn points from now on, and "I am sorry that you're unhappy with the new changes to the scheme and will make your feedback known to the team".
Where should you shop?
Anyone who has been shopping at Morrisons specifically because of the price match, may well be tempted to look elsewhere.
Three of the major players still have price match deals. Tesco's price promise will pay back the difference if your branded, own-brand shopping, or fresh produce would have been cheaper at Asda, Sainsbury's or Morrisons - and applies on any shop of ten items or more.
Sainsbury's, meanwhile, only compares branded goods, and only compares against Asda. It also applies on shopping of ten items or more.
Asda's deal is more generous - applying as soon as you buy eight items or more, and offering to make up the difference if your shopping is less than 10% cheaper than Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons or Waitrose.
Price match is only part of the picture, however, as these schemes have fairly severe restrictions. Aldi and Lidl don't have schemes like this, but on many items they offer rock bottom prices.
By far the most thorough approach is to put your shopping list into mysupermarket.co.uk, and it will tell you which supermarket is currently offering the lowest prices on the items you want to buy. You can then choose to buy at the supermarket that's cheaper overall, or hunt down the cheapest for each individual item in a number of smaller trips to various shops.
But what do you think? Do you have time for a thorough price comparison? Do you rely on price matching? Or do you just stick with a discounter? Let us know in the comments.
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