Carrefour Promotes Temporary Discounts Through State-Funded Cheap-Basket Campaign
Carrefour is using the Israeli government-backed “Israel’s cheapest basket” campaign to advertise short-term promotions, even though the public-funded program was meant to secure lasting discounts on staple goods. Under the banner “Carrefour expands Israel’s cheapest basket,” the chain advertised price cuts on several products that are not part of the basket, but the fine print in the video said the discount lasts only three days and, for online purchases, applies only to orders of at least 200 shekels.
That is at odds with the terms of the Ministry of Economy tender won two months ago, which required the chain to reduce prices on 100 fixed products for six months in exchange for a 25 million shekel state-funded advertising campaign over the same period. In response to Ynet’s sister publication Calcalist, Carrefour said the wording was a marketing formulation that had been legally approved but caused confusion, and was therefore corrected. The company said, “The company is fulfilling its offer and its commitments regarding the basket and according to the instructions of the director general of the Ministry of Economy.”
This is not the first time Carrefour has been forced to backtrack on basket-related terms. A month ago, it had to amend the online delivery rules for basket products after stating that shipping for online orders containing only basket items would cost 59.9 shekels, compared with 29.9 shekels for items outside the basket. Carrefour said then that the rule had been changed before the basket launch to prevent wholesale purchasing, but was never actually implemented and was removed from the website.
The ministry’s basket initiative has also drawn criticism for steering shoppers toward one of the country’s more expensive chains. That criticism grew when dairy price hikes took effect, after Carrefour raised the price of Strauss and Tara cottage cheese by up to 16 percent, even though the dairies had raised the product by no more than 2.9 percent.
