THE cost of a school uniform was cut to £4 yesterday, in prices not seen since the 1970s.
The three-item outfit for children aged from three to 12, excluding shoes, goes on sale this weekend at Asda, at a flat price, regardless of age.
The supermarket claims the reduction was made in a bid to help parents already struggling with risin
g food and fuel bills.
It said the cost of an entire uniform could now be as little as £32 a year – saving families up to £290, Asda said.
In 2007, the equivalent school uniform from the store was £6.25 and in 2005 it was £10.25.
In 1988 buying the outfit from a supermarket would have cost parents in the region of £18.
The announcement comes barely a week after Marks & Spencer unveiled its lowest price uniform, at £6.50, though this was only for children aged up to six, while a uniform for children aged 12 would be £13.50.
Anthony Thompson, managing director of George, Asda's clothing arm, said the price cut was "necessary" in the current economic climate.
"The average family spends more than £320 a year on uniforms for up to 12-year-olds," he added.
Dr Leigh Sparks, Professor of Retail Studies at Stirling University, believes such dramatic price cuts are loss leaders designed to drum up trade.
"It is being deliberately eye-catching at a time when people are trying to save money, so it's probably being done as a loss leader to get shoppers into the store in the first place," he said.
"This is perhaps a bit of the Walmart (Asda's parent company] influence coming through. You see this regularly in the States. They are much more aggressive about it. You have to remember the scale of volumes that Walmart have mean they probably buy ahead much more heavily right across the whole of their chains, so you will see a similar product with a different label over in the US as well. The more volume you have, the better deal you can get with your manufacturers."
Dr Sparks also said that quality was not an issue at such low prices: "It's almost that you are buying one or more and treating it as a disposal product.
"If your consumer expectations are that it won't last but it will do the job you expect it to do because of what they paid, you've got no worries. If anything it says 'great price, does the job'." He added, though, that once consumers got beyond the bold price, there may still be ethical and environmental concerns about how Asda reached that price.
However, the company has defended itself from such claims, saying that it forces prices down by using its own in-house design team, working on economies of scale – buying material by the mile, using a smaller number of manufacturers – and advanced planning.
A spokesman for the company also insisted that it worked with third-party auditors to ensure that suppliers adhere to its own ethical policies.
Dan Welsh, a researcher and writer with the Ethical Consumer organisation, agreed, adding: "It may seem contrary but it isn't a simple as judging the supply chain by retail price. The amount of material these companies deal in means that the highest costs are from in-store marketing rather than producing these items."
The full article contains 573 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
