Misleading Advertising online by well known retailer - buy any 3-cheapest item free

[Guest]

Buy any 3 the cheapest item will be free. Maximum 20 promotional items per customer.
This is what a well known retailer was offering online. The offer was across a range of products.

Product A - I bought 3 of these all priced at £10.00 - expecting the cheapest item to be free.
Product B - I bought 3 of these all priced at £2.00 - expecting the cheapest item to be free.

Instead the retailer has charged me full price for Item A - so 3 @ £10.00 and for Item B has charged me £2.00 - giving me two free.
I don't believe this is correct as it quite clearly says 'buy any 3 - cheapest item will be free' - I bought 3 items of Product A and 3 of Product B.

I think this is grossly misleading. Had I bought 1 of Product A and 2 of Product B - I appreciate I would get one Product B item free of charge but I didn't I bought 3 of Product A and 3 of Product B.

Their advert doesn't say 'buy any 6 the two cheapest item will be free' or 'Buy any 3 and cheapest will be free unless you buy in multiples of 3 and then the cheapest items out of the multiples of 3 will be free'.

Grateful for your opinion.
Thank you.

[des8]

Well tbh, I don't find the advert misleading at all.
It says ANY three and you bought a total of 6 items and received the cheapest 2 free.
It does not say "Buy three of a particular item and get one of them free"

[Guest]

Well tbh, I don't find the advert misleading at all.
It says ANY three and you bought a total of 6 items and received the cheapest 2 free.
It does not say "Buy three of a particular item and get one of them free"

Thank you Des for your reply, however, if I had just bought 3 of Product A @ £10 each - I would have got one item free. If on another delivery I'd bought 3 of Product B @ £8 each I would have got one item free. So they've bundled my six items together and given me the cheapest two free but that's not the offer. I've bought similar deals online before, for example buy packs of fish - get the cheapest free and buy 3 packs of meat get the cheapest free - the store didn't mix and match where they applied the discount.
Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly. On the website Product A was on offer 'buy 3 get cheapest item free' so I bought 3 of them and Product B was on the same offer. It wasn't a range from which I picked 3 of one and 3 of the other.

[des8]

The two products were on the same offer.
You get the cheapest free.
Still think the offer is clear and properly operated.

But, hey, I didn't see it; but in any case what do you plan to do over such a small amount (£8 on post 1 figures but £2 on post 3 figures)?

[2222]

I have sympathy with Greenboy. It has been programmed that way, but if you contact customer service they will probably sort it out. Failing which, return the whole delivery and shop elsewhere.

[Amethyst]

I usually do more than one transaction if taking advantage of these kind of offers in store as otherwise they seem to do what you say and just do the cheapest items regardless of 'group'

Actually just had a look on boots and they have the normal offers on so tried it out - in store I expect the berocca to be used as two "cheapest" as the "free" but online it calculates it as you'd want. I wouldn't expect the brushes to be used as the "free" as they're a different offer
Or. The berocca to be used as the free item on the brushes. ( the underneath non bold numbers are the discounts )

[Amethyst]

Maybe if u tell us website and items ( if not too weird lol) might be easier to see if it's misleading and wants reporting to ASA and arguing with store.

[Guest]

Thank you 2222 and Amethyst [and for investigating so thoroughly with Boots online!]
The store is Ocado [I don't usually shop with them but they sent me an offer hence I did a couple of shops with them] and after contacting customer service I have already received the difference in money back which they describe as a 'goodwill gesture' however my concern is that others may have been similarly misled and perhaps not checked their receipt. See attached.

I added to my basket 3 x Firelogs at £7.99 each expecting one to be free.
I added to my basket 3 x Firelighters at £2.59 expecting one to be free.

As per my earlier post - if I had added 2 x Firelogs at £7.99 AND 1 x Firelighters at £2.59 I understand perfectly that the cheapest item would be free but this was not the case. The offer isn't buy 3 or any multiples of 3 and we'll add them all up together and then only give you the cheapest items free therefore I think it is misleading.

Comments from Ocado's C/S include:

There can be a slight confusion in that, our system will work out a percentage rather than provide the items for free. Whatever the percentage of the saving,
this will be applied across the items as a whole rather than charging them as zero.

I understand where you're coming from, where you've ordered 3 of each product so expected 1 of each product to be free and I will pass your comments on to the relevant team in the hope that this can be made more clear in future. If you click on the pink label that describes the promotion on a product, you'll see all those items which are included in the deal.

I

The fact that CS has stated they work out a percentage rather than as per the advert 'cheapest item free' is concerning I think.
Many thanks

[2222]

That's worrisome. We get a weekly delivery from ocado! I will check some recent receipts.

[QCKate]

If you had purchased in two seperate transactions you would got what you wanted!

[Guest]

If you had purchased in two seperate transactions you would got what you wanted!

That would have meant me doing two separate online shops at £50 each [otherwise I would have had to pay delivery charges etc.] so I didn't want to do that and the website says 'buy any 3 get the cheapest free' - not 'buy any 3 get the cheapest free or if you buy in multiples of 3 we'll bundle them together and you'll get the cheapest items out of the bundle'! I've just found out that Ocado/Waitrose operate this way - the other big supermarkets don't and give you what is stated on the website - hence my original assertion that the website is misleading. I'll take it up further and report back. Thank you.