Tesco will take your Sainsbury's Brand Match vouchers

In the latest move in the supermarket price wars, Tesco has announced that from today until June it will accept any Sainsbury's Brand Match coupons. It's a brilliant wheeze, designed to remind people that while the Sainsbury's scheme is coming to an end, Tesco is still matching prices on brands. But should you be convinced by this offer, and seduced by brand matching?

Sainsbury's announced last week that from 27 April it would no longer be brand matching against Asda, and offering shoppers a voucher for the difference. Instead, it has said it will focus on cutting the cost of the essentials.

Sarah Warby, Sainsbury's marketing director said: "Customers have told us that they want lower regular prices, and that this is more important to them than Brand Match. We've taken this on board and will now be investing all of the money from the scheme into lowering the regular prices on everyday products."

Tesco has come up with a cunning wheeze to use the change to win customers from its rival: it has said it will accept any remaining brand match vouchers in its stores until June.

It's a master-stroke, because it will appeal to the kinds of shoppers who like brand match, and will remind them that if they switch to Tesco, it will continue to match prices on brands against Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury's, and automatically refund the difference.

Matt Davies, Tesco UK and ROI CEO said: "This is a little help for Sainsbury's customers from us at Tesco. It also provides the opportunity for Sainsbury's customers to experience Tesco's Brand Guarantee, which we launched in October, and has been universally welcomed by our customers."

Brand Match

Matching prices against their rivals has been a mainstay for the supermarkets for the past five years. At one time, all the biggest stores offered it. However, in November, Morrisons stopped matching prices against Aldi, Asda, Lidl, Sainsbury's and Tesco. Its scheme had only run for a year before the chain decided it was too expensive, and not effective enough at retaining customers. Sainsbury's will be the second to fall by the wayside.

This leaves the Tesco Brand Guarantee Scheme. There's also the Ocado Low Price Promise - where you get a voucher if your comparable shop would have cost less at Tesco.

The Asda scheme is still standing - and remains the most generous. The Price Guarantee compares the shop against a comparable one at Morrisons, Tesco, Sainsbury's and Waitrose. If it isn't 10% cheaper than its rivals, it will give you the difference back (up to £100 a month). To qualify for the scheme you need to buy at least eight items - one of which needs to be comparable - you also need to go online with your receipt to do the comparison.

Are price comparison schemes any good?

The supermarkets that stand by their schemes argue that it's an easy way to ensure that your shopping is as cheap as possible - without all the hassle of shopping around.

The supermarkets with no such scheme argue that price matching isn't the best way to be certain of a good deal. It's an argument that certainly rings true when you consider the fact that none of the discounters have ever done price matching - and are often far cheaper than the alternatives.

Brand matching in particular is seriously flawed, because brands cost significantly more than the supermarket's own brand. Shoppers who rely on brand matching to get the lowest price, and stick with expensive branded products, will be paying over-the-odds, regardless of the vouchers they receive.

The other issue is the opportunity cost of brand match schemes. If the supermarket is spending its money on ensuring that you are refunded 2p because your Kellogg's Cornflakes cost £2 in Sainsbury's and just £1.98 in Tesco, then that's 2p it can't cut off the cost of its own brand cornflakes. If we are really interested in saving money, then surely it's better to cut 2p off the own brand option - bringing it down from £1.45 to £1.43.

Asda stands above its competitors - because it matches own-brand products too. However, even when a scheme promises to match a comparable shop, there will be a number of items in the basket that don't count. It means you cannot be sure how much of your shopping is being compared - and whether you are getting a full picture.

Then, of course, is the fact that the schemes don't compare the cost of shopping at all the alternatives. Morrisons was the only store to include the discounters - and it has now dropped the scheme.

The only way to know if you have got the best deal on your shopping is to put the full shopping list into mysupermarket.co.uk. Then you can either buy everything where it is cheapest - or visit the supermarket that comes up as cheapest overall.

But what do you think? Do you shop around, or do you prefer to use price matching? Let us know in the comments.