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In practice, the products are identical, but the price can vary greatly. The Consumer Council is now taking a hard line against the electronics giants.
In Elkjøp there is a TV called Samsung UE65TU7175. It is difficult to know how much it costs in other stores. Websites like prisjakt.no and prisguiden. don’t give just one search result: Elkjøp, and there the TV costs 7,990 kr.
A similar TV is the Samsung UE65TU7075, but it is only sold by Elkjøp’s competitor Power. The price is 9999 crowns and the only difference on the Elkjøp TV is the color of the support leg.
The two power chains have clear ambitions to have the best price on the market. But when each of them has only one of two very similar products, you can’t compare the price.
– This is misleading, says Gunstein Instefjord, Director of Consumer Policy at the Consumers Council.
(After Nettavisen reached out to us, Power adjusted the price of the aforementioned TV. We’ll get back to that)
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– Makes it impossible to match the price
On the Danish TV show Kontant, a former employee of El-Giganten (corresponding to Elkjøp in Norway) talks about a widespread practice with different names for similar products:
– It is the same product, but a letter or a number has changed, plus a tiny and insignificant detail. Therefore, price matching cannot be used, says the employee, who is anonymized on the TV show.
On the TVs mentioned above, the technical specifications are identical. But the support leg on one TV is titanium gray, on the other it is black. In the Danish documentary, Samsung confirms that the two televisions are identical except for color.
Since the product number on televisions is different, although the product is practically identical, extensive detective work is required to compare the price. Typically this is done at the press of a key on online services such as prisjakt.no or prisguiden.no.
– unnecessarily difficult
It is a well-known phenomenon that products with similar specifications do not appear in the same price comparison, confirms Are Vittersø, Norwegian manager of Prisjakt.no:
– It is difficult to say the scope, but it is a pity that it is so. This makes it unnecessarily difficult for the consumer. Then you need to dig into the specs to find out if there are differences. The consumer shouldn’t need that, says Vittersø.
– What are the consequences for consumers who want to compare prices?
– Consumers are losing this. This is nothing new and occurs in various segments. But you can’t blame the stores, it’s the manufacturers who control this, says Vittersø.
– Are there methods that make price robots discover that products are similar?
– We use the EAN code (Barcode), that’s what you have to match. And each code is unique for each product. So when the products are the same, but with different EANs, price transparency is avoided. Then you have to do a lot of research to dive deep enough and find differences, and then the prices are not in the same competition as fully comparable products.
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Same washing machine – two different names
Also, when it comes to appliances, there are many products with item numbers that only one of the chains has.
A random sample related to Black Week showed that Elkjøp and Power have lowered the price of an expensive Miele washing machine. It has roughly the same price, but different product names.
Comparison is challenging. The design of the specs is completely different in the two stores. To find out if the washers were the same, we first did a price comparison that showed quite correctly that, with the exception of Power and Elkjøp, respectively, only Miele sells the machine.
When we review the product description on the Miele pages, the match is almost 100 percent consistent between WWI860, which sells Power, and WEI875WCS NDS, which sells Elkjøp.
– No two machines are identical, says Espen Tho, sales manager at Miele Norway.
As with the TV above, there are a few color details that are different and drum lights in one. But the functionality is 100 percent the same. And therefore you cannot compare the price of the two on prisjakt.no or prisguiden.no.
– Destructive and an excursion
– We have seen this unfold. It’s a completely obvious way out, and something the consumer loses at, says Gunstein Instefjord at the Consumer Council.
A simple price comparison, which is good and desirable, becomes difficult and, at worst, impossible, he says.
– This has probably also developed because price comparison has become easier in a digital reality.
But the bottom line here is that if the practice is used to its fullest, the retailer will be the sole supplier of a product, Instefjord notes:
– Competition is weakened, because the manufacturer and the importer can charge a higher price as the sole supplier of a product. So this is detrimental to competition and a departure.
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– They are not the same machines
According to Miele, the washing machines are different enough to have different names, although the technical specification is the same. There are different design series:
– One is ‘white edition’ and the other is ‘chrome edition’. It is normal that we have different article numbers in different design series, says Espen Tho at Miele.
– When we checked today, at Elkjøp and Power, eight out of ten Miele washing machines had a product ID, which meant they were only available in one of the stores. Are these all different machines?
– There are different washing machines, says Tho.
– So, as customers, we can be confident that the machines you sell at Elkjøp are different from those you sell at Power.
– Yes.
– Why doesn’t Miele sell several models of machines with the same name in different electrical chains?
– Miele produces a wide range of machines for the European market. The different chains choose assortment and models.
– How does Miele assess the customer’s ability to assess prices against each other when the chains do not have goods with the same product name?
– All the different Miele models can be found on our websites, where the customer can compare product specifications, says Espen Tho.
But first you need to find out if the products are similar to each other through the Miele website, and then you can compare the prices between the different but similar products. It’s a complete task: Miele sells around 50 different washing machines in Norway.
– worthless and misleading
What about the price promises, which many stores operate with? Does the product number have to be the same to claim compensation if the store has a price guarantee?
According to the Consumer Council, it is the similarity in the product that should determine whether a price promise can be met, not the name of the product.
– Our clear focus is that when players make a price promise, the specs and functionality will decide. When the same manufacturer and spec exists, and otherwise no noticeable difference, we expect a price promise to apply, Instefjord says.
– But what if the store rejects such a claim?
– Robot-based price promises are worthless, if it is about anything other than misleading marketing. Otherwise it is useless and misleading.
Power changed the price
Both Elkjøp and Power tell Nettavisen that they choose products based on what the manufacturers offer; why do they end up with so many nearly identical, but still slightly different products, we don’t get good answers.
After Nettavisen contacted the chain’s CEO in Norway, Power cut the price of the Samsung TV to the same price as Elkjøp. The chain denies that it avoids price comparison by having different product names:
– This is not something that Power does to be able to take a different price than our competitors, or to confuse customers. We want the opposite: to be as cheap as possible and to make it easier for customers to buy, says Siri Røhr-Staff, Power’s communications manager.
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But differences in color or design can differentiate product names, he says:
– In some cases, the client will be willing to pay more for certain design details, but our policy is that if the specification is the same, we should also be approximately equal to our competitors in price. So in the cases you are targeting, we should have had equal prices for these products. Now we have entered and adjusted.
Power wants the pricing robot to connect two different product numbers if the specifications are the same, says Røhr-Staff.
– Until that feature is in place, we have introduced new internal routines for price comparison, so now specs are also compared, so that we avoid situations like the ones referred to here.
– We understand that it is not easy
Elkjøp also explains differences in product codes with market design and adaptations, stating that it is a goal to make product comparison easy.
– According to the Consumers Council, with different products it is easier to take a different price than the competition, because the comparison is demanding for the customer. You do this to avoid price comparison? If not, why not?
– When we market our products, we always carry out comprehensive assessments of the price landscape of similar products on the market. Then the evaluation is done according to the specifications and not the SKUs. We understand that it is not always easy for our customers, so we think it is very positive that good price comparison services exist today, says Madeleine Schøyen Bergly, communications manager for Elkjøp Norway, in an email to Nettavisen.
– What is the explanation for the fact that almost no Miele washing machine has the same name in Power and Elkjøp?
– We strive to price products based on specifications and not product codes. Miele has a global strategy around series and specifications. In addition to our own models, we have included all the market models available from Miele.
– The Consumer Council also believes that a possible price promise should apply to the same functionality and specification from the same manufacturer, even under different product names. He does that?
– We do not have control over all derivative models that exist in the market from all providers. That being said, we must always be competitive on price and strive to match these models if we are aware of them, says Madeleine Schøyen Bergly.
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