The pound pricing is deceptive as you can not see your pound request
weighed out in pounds. The person doing the weighing has to convert your
request to grams and then weigh out the equivalent grams on the scale.
Just like in the UK. A customer may be limited to asking only for certain
specific sizes that can be easily converted to grams.
And just like the UK you seem to think this is a problem. Well at least you
seem to have accepted that that practise of buying food by the lb exists in
the UK, and Canada now.
In reality people are not experiencing a problem. You could ask for a
pound, and get a pound. You could ask for half a kilo and get 500g. As the
customer you simply ask and receive, and leave the work to the seller.
However, if any of us went into the same store, we could ask for any amount
in grams, even something like 656 g, and not have the attendant do anything
more then weigh it exactly as we asked for it.
Take it from me, from a country where metric can get used in stores and as a
neighbour to countries that are almost fully metric - this DOES NOT happen.
Never ever have I heard someone asking for a precise amount to that degree
of sillyness. Furthermore - should you ask for 656g then as well as being
loooked at in an odd way you'll likely get 660g or even something like "just
over <something> grams". Furthermore, you might ask for a bit under a qtr
pound and get offered 100g or ask for a little over 100g and get a qtr.
However - this is a distraction. People will tend to ask for pounds, qtr
pounds, kilos, half-kilos or n-hundred grammes. It's actually more simple
than one would sometimes perceive from certain discussions.
And since the prices are pre-programmed in kilograms, we would be paying
the real kilogram price, not the price on the display. The label affixed
to the package that is handed to us to take to the cashier will display
only the metric information. The customer who still depends on pounds
would never know what he/she really got if he/she looks at the label.
You (and, surprisingly 'euric/kilopascal') keep saying this. If I want a
pound of cheese - I ask for it - I entrust the server to prepare me it (or
maybe "just under/over"), he/she then tells me the price and I pay for it
later on with a multitude of other things. People DO NOT stop at the till
and examine the bar codes and exact figures. Trust is placed in the
provider to get that right and we have simply no way of checking this since
we don't all have prototype kilo brass weights with us.
A person wanting 13.5 ounces of something would have a hard time getting
it.
For the number of years that I have frequented this planet and the thousands
of trips I have made to the supermarket I have never heard anyone ask for
"something point something ounces/pounds/grammes/kilos". In reality people
really don't do this - the trip to the supermarket tends to be that of a
simple, mundane nature - not an outing with the school science class.
The continued use of pound pricing is designed to keep people from
adjusting to kilogram price so they can easily cheat the customers. The
perfect means to cheat a customer is to price it in one unit and conduct
the sale in another.
Except in either method:
1) the scales are accurate, but in any case you have no way of checking.
2) People simply aren't that thick.
3) The prices are shown in both units
'Reality' is a trip to a local UK supermarket (and from the sounds of
things, Canada too)
Personally I'd channel your energies in getting US supermarkets to at least
give the choice of metric as well as USC/impeiral.
