Hi-tech price matcher will guarantee shoppers get the best deal, at last?

Sainsburys are trialling Brand Match till technology that instantly checks the prices of branded goods at other chains.

If the cost of the basket would have been cheaper elsewhere, the customer is given a voucher to the value of the difference

The technology for Sainsbury’s Brand Match covers about 12,000 items. It is being trialled at 12 Northern Ireland stores but could be extended to more than 930 premises across the UK. This will save shoppers the inconvenience of shopping around

With rival chains modifying current policies and apparently trialling similar schemes, coupled with the wide range of products being affected, this could be a price war with a difference, resulting in genuine price reductions across the bulk of a supplier’s distribution.

The retail ‘winners’ will be the more efficient companies that can afford to use their greater efficiencies to survive deep price-cuts, and have the muscle to pass some of the pain back up the pipeline…