Price Lists and Discounts

Keeping prices low without jeopardising quality was important to John James and Mary Ann Sainsbury from the beginning. Communicating clear price information to attract new customers and keep regular customers was also important. Sainsbury's published price lists for customers from 1903. From the 1920s these were issued fortnightly for the benefit of customers who had their orders delivered. The majority of surviving price lists in the archive date from the 1920s and 30s, but there are also some useful later lists.

Sometimes these lists also included recipe suggestions. As product ranges expanded, so did the price lists. Separate lists were issued for different departments, such as the off-license, or for seasonal specialities.

Sainsbury's Freezer Magazine, available in Freezer Centres and delivered free to customers during the 1970s, included a comprehensive price list for frozen foods.

In self-service stores, individual items needed to be price-marked using a rubber stamp known as a 'plonker'. A 1957 article in the in-house magazine JS Journal states: 'The use of rubber stamps for price marking is probably the most economical method… The alternative of stick-on labels is slow in comparison and particularly irksome on small items such as chocolate bars'.

Informative shelf-edge labels and signs using clear unfussy letters and numbers were a key feature of Sainsbury's design philosophy from the 1960s.

In January 1978 the company launched a new campaign to reduce the price of over 100 items in store. Overnight, items were re-labelled and many items were reduced by as much as 15%. 'Discount 78' proved a hit - sales increased by 25% and the company's market share rose. The Discount campaign was repeated each year until 1983. It was described by JD Sainsbury as 'without doubt the most important new marketing strategy since we established our unique range of own brand products many years ago'.

Download a table comparing the prices of five products for the period 1903 to 2007 (PDF 14k)