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The announcement this morning by Which? to raise a serious complaint to the OFT regarding promotional pricing in grocery seems to me to be a case of closing the gate several years after the promotional horse has bolted.

The UK grocery market is renowned as one of the most competitive markets in the world with prices on grocery shopping significantly lower in the UK than across the euro zone. And not only that in the UK we love a bargain and the thrill of getting a deal - the success of Black Friday last December demonstrated our passion for bargains like never before.

Which? do raise some specific issues which are relatively small in number that could be delivered through human error. If Which? statistics are correct - if promotional participation hits 40 percent in an average supermarket - that's a possible 15,000 products on promotion in any given week so 4 errors whilst frustrating, is hardly the tip of an iceberg - more perhaps a reflection of the complexity of the businesses in an increasingly competitive market.

And it turns out over the last 7 years whilst Which? have been running their research they've missed what's been happening to the market. We shoppers have switched in enormous number to discounters like Aldi and Lidl and Pound stores where there has never been unit pricing displayed just straight forward prices which shoppers believe are keener than those offered by the big 4. This has (albeit in some cases belatedly) shaken up the market and ensured that for the shopper there's never been a better time to find great deals on the goods they want to buy. That alongside the accessibility to one and all of price checking in real time on your own phone means that we are all savvy shoppers and are keeping the retailers on their toes. How often have you seen someone standing at fixture checking the price of a deal and ringing a loved one asking: "Shall I get you one too? It's on better offer here than in retailer x"?

Surely if retailers create overly complex promotions and price matching schemes that require a degree in statistics to be understood then their customers will simply take their business elsewhere. The growth of the discounters would be testament to that. But the joy of the shopper is that they are not identical, they are driven to the various fascia's by many different factors including quality, availability, location - I could go on.

And you know I'm not sure how complicated 4 pints of milk at 89p really is and an 800g loaf of branded bread at 75p price matched by every retailer in the land is for the shopper.

It feels like Which? thinks the shopper isn't capable of making the right choice - my experience with shoppers does not bear this out. They couldn't be smarter and more aware and the retailers through their price focussed and value obsessed advertising have trained them to be so. That said, and despite all of the efforts by the retailers to get it right, clearly some shoppers are still cynical about the way promotions work, so it will be the retailers who adopt a simple and clear attitude to pricing that will win out. We don't need legislation to do this just plain old fashioned market forces.

We are lucky enough to live in a country with an economy driven by market forces, a grocery market which has clear legislation around pricing and an adjudicator to mange its behaviours. Will even more scrutiny help the shopper? I very much doubt it - the shopper has done pretty well in driving out unpopular promotions and offers by voting with our feet and shopping elsewhere.

The concerns around price transparency most shoppers I talk to are around pricing of their utilities, telephone bills and their home media. Maybe that’s where the consumer champion should avert its gaze.