‘Nothing makes sense anymore’: Shopper questions Kroger employee after doing math on cheese ‘sale’

A Kroger customer uploaded a video showing off a head-scratching price tag that appears to advertise a sale on cheese that punishes customers for purchasing multiple quantities of the product at once.

Usually, it's the other way around, or that's what a TikToker named Mark (@imperfectmark) assumed while shopping at a Kroger location and seeing a price that seemed to indicate bricks of Colby Jack cheese were a dollar off. The initial $2.49 price was marked down to $1.49. However, it's a third price tag affixed to the shelf where the item lay that got the coals in his head burning, which reads that two of the bricks would cost customers $4.

Confused, Mark said that he decided to quip to a Kroger worker that customers were being charged an extra dollar for purchasing more cheese. However, the employee's response just left him more confused.

He begins his clip by showing off a green-screen photograph of the cheese's price tag in the clip.

"See this cheese? It says $1.49 for one block, two or more is $2!" he explains. "So I try to joke with a store employee, and I tell her, I said, 'Oh wow. So if I buy more cheese it's more expensive? What?'"

The Kroger employee then tried to explain the pricing to Mark—which did not clear much up.

"And she's like, 'Oh no, honey,' and she comes over and she shows me. She's like, 'This is the price if you buy two or more, that's the price that you get,'" Mark recalls, even more confused. "I said, 'I know but it's $1.49 but if I buy 2 or more it's gonna be $2? That doesn't make sense.'"

Mark says the Kroger worker then told him that a lot of customers fail to read the bottom tag—the one stating 2 or more blocks of cheese are $2 each.

"She's like, 'A lot of people do this. They don't read the bottom tag and then they get frustrated. That's the price at Kroger's if you buy more than one. You get that price,'" Mark remembers. "And I said, 'I know, but the top price is cheaper than the bottom.'"

At this point, the Kroger worker repeats her nonsensical explanation, and Mark gives up.

"She said, 'No you gotta buy more than one, you gotta buy two or more.' And I'm like, 'Oh, oh OK...'" Mark concedes.

At the end of the video, he whispers into the camera, "She might've been the one that did that."

Looking at the Kroger price tag structure for the block of Colby Jack Cheese, it reads that the regular price of the cheese is $2.49, but there's a sale price of $1.49 with red and yellow text. There's a third tag that says in yellow, on a purple backdrop: "Buy 2 or more!" and reads that 2 of the bricks of cheese are 2 for $4.

It seems that the confusion stems from the fact that the pricing options for the cheese are grouped up into three different types of price tag designs.

However, there were plenty of viewers who had their own ideas when it came to what the triage of price tags meant for the Colby Jack cheese. A lot of them think that the Kroger card was a factor that wasn't discussed in Mark's video. "I think it’s 1.49 if you use your Kroger card or 2.49 without. but 2 for $4 without card if you buy 2 or more," one viewer wrote.

Someone else echoed this sentiment, writing, "1.49 is the sale price but u only get it for the sales price if u have a Kroger card. if u don't have a Kroger card it's 2.49 each. so the $2/4 is."

However, there was one person who responded in the comments section who believed that this was just a simple case of someone messing up: "I work for Kroger someone manually made those and messed up."

Another former employee also said that it looked like there was a mistake by whoever printing out the price tags for the items: "I use to work at Fry's (owned by Kroger) it's 2.49 WO card. with its 1.49 or 2/4 if you buy 2+. so he's correct in confusion."

One TikToker claimed that the marked-down price showed that a shopper could actually get 6 blocks of cheese for $4, rather than 2. "Original price $2.49 sale price $1.49 double that it's $2.98 2 or more = $4.00 so 6 blocks of cheese is $4.00," they wrote.

@imperfectmark #greenscreen the Kroger Saga continues #krogers #cheese #math #deals ♬ original sound - Just Mark

Multiple users in the comments section of the video also lambasted Kroger's mobile application that forces customers to scan two different barcodes to get the lowest possible price. As one commenter said, "Why do I have to have two f*cking accounts to 'use a digital coupon '. I hate Kroger."

Confusion surrounding Kroger's pricing structures has made headlines in the past, like this Equities post that discusses the ire many shoppers of the popular grocery franchise have had regarding its mobile application. Local news outlet WCPO 9 also reported in 2022 that a widespread change to Kroger's "fuel points" payouts was also leaving shoppers up in arms.

Mouse Print also highlighted the ire geared at grocery stores, like Kroger, by customers who aren't so digitally savvy for seeing promotional prices of products in fliers, but then being denied those prices when they were in store because they didn't procure a digital coupon.

The Daily Dot has reached out to Kroger via email and Mark via TikTok comment for further information.

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