I go food shopping at 2 different supermarkets in my neighborhood. A Safeway and a Smart & Final. Often, Smart & Final has better prices - IF they have the item. They do carry my ice cream, Dreyer's Slow Churned (light).
Today, I needed vanilla "light" ice cream so I thought I would try Smart & Final. I drove to the store, parked and entered the store. I went to the ice cream section and, voila, there it was, on sale. The item is usually priced at $5.99 retail and today it was marked $2.49! Yay!
At that price, I decided to take 2 and went to pay for them. At the checkout, they charged me $3.49 each. I said that I believed the listed price was $2.49 each, on sale. The checker shrugged and just stood there. As there was a line behind me, I decided to pay the $3.49 each, go check the price and come back and get a cash refund for the difference.
I paid and went back to the ice cream freezer section. There it was, my ice cream, the price tag clearly said $2.49. Aha, I was right! I looked closer. In tiny print, below the $2.49 price it said you had to buy 3 of them to get that price. I didn't have room in my freezer for 3 of them! I was disappointed. And annoyed. NOBODY would notice that tiny print ... until they checked out and discovered the price was not the price. Smart & Final misled me. With small print. I had always trusted Smart & Final. Now, I don't.
The good news is that, even though I was misled, I still saved money. Even though I paid $3.49 each for the ice cream, it was a lot better than $5.99 or the usual sale price of $4.99.
Hey, retailers, if you have a sale price item minimum, make it large enough on the price tag so shoppers can see it!
Update
Dreyer's has lowered the sugar content of my chosen ice cream. Now It tasted lousy, bitter, not quite sweet enough. As a result I reluctantly have given up "light" ice cream and am using whip cream instead. Tasty. Containing not a lot of sugar and only 25 calories per serving.