It is time for supermarkets to step up over repeated pricing errors that may be making a big dent in pocketbooks for many, customers say.
It comes after Consumer NZ found 65 percent of shoppers were noticing pricing inaccuracies at the supermarket and 12 percent were spotting them rather frequently.
In Nelson, the shoppers RNZ spoke to were in the habit of checking their receipts.
Liza recently took something back to the supermarket after she was charged the wrong price for it.
"It was just something that had been reduced and I bought it for that reason, and I was fortunate enough to get a refund."
But she said supermarkets could be doing more - especially given how expensive it was to get by these days.
"My personal opinion is that people are doing it tough here in New Zealand and the [supermarkets] are the ones that are making money - big money."
The industry is worth about $25 billion and the mistakes at the till are estimated to add up to tens of millions each year.
Another woman said she noticed when shopping recently that she was charged full price for a product that had been marked down. When she took it back to Woolworths, she was refunded the full price of the item.
"I got about $30 back, so it was a fair go."
Sharon said it was about time action was taken.
"I think supermarkets have really got to lift their game, quite frankly."
Consumer NZ agrees. Head of research and advocacy Gemma Rasmussen said the organisation was not happy the process was being put back on the consumer to sort out.
"We need the shoppers to report it and then for the supermarkets to report back to the Commerce Commission, it doesn't really seem to be very solutions-focused, particularly when we know that shoppers are seeing this as an ongoing issue when they go into the supermarket, 65 percent of shoppers are noticing pricing inaccuracies."
Rasmussen said they had collected evidence that supermarkets had systemic pricing issues.
They included loyalty card pricing being displayed as the default, and multibuys that worked out to be more expensive than purchasing the products separately.
"In 2023 we collected 600 examples of pricing discrepancies which came from the public which is now the grounds for a fair trading investigation from the commission which we hope will result in a meaningful enforcement outcome and when I say that, I mean fines for supermarkets."
A Woolworths spokesperson said its refund policy for pricing mistakes was that if customers were overcharged, they got a full refund and got to keep the product.
Last year, it commissioned an independent review into pricing integrity and had since added electronic shelf labels in 123 stores to reduce errors, implemented systems to better detect pricing discrepancies and set up a special working group to deliver improvements and identify further changes that could be made.
The spokesperson said if a mistake was identified but the customer could t be tracked down, the refund would now be donated to charity.
Meanwhile, a Foodstuffs spokesperson said if customers identified a mistake with pricing, they would be refunded.
A review of Foodstuffs' refund policy and customer complaints tracking systems was under way and it would carefully consider the Grocery Commissioner's recommendations as part of that.
Grocery Commissioner Pierre van Heerden said supermarket giants needed to get things right for consumers.
"What I want to do is make sure the refund policies are more generous so that when a consumer complains, they can actually get something in return, but also that the supermarket gets stung and they have a commercial incentive to get this right."
The major supermarkets will now be required to regularly disclose information about customer complaints, including around pricing and promotional issues, to the Commerce Commission.
