Woman Goes To Florida Publix. Then She Refuses ‘Buy One Get One Free’ Deal—And Instead Asks For 50% Off The One Item

From couponing to meal prepping via a weekly deals list, hunting the grocery store for discount products can be exhausting. “Buy one, get one,” or BOGO, deals make things a little bit more straightforward. The one caveat is that participating in a BOGO deal often requires customers to purchase two of the same product. However, one South Carolina woman revealed that in some grocery stores, customers can simply walk to the checkout with one product and still get 50% off.

Ashley Chapman (@ashleyrchapman) attempted to get 50% off a watermelon without having to purchase two at a Florida Publix.

In her video, Chapman went inside a Publix in Florida. While there, she tried to purchase a watermelon that happened to be part of a BOGO deal. The content creator only grabbed one watermelon and took it to the checkout. While there, the cashier let her know about the BOGO deal, but she didn’t want to purchase two. Chapman asked if the watermelon was just going to be half off, but the cashier said, “No.”

This surprised Chapman. She later went to the customer service counter to ask why the watermelon wasn’t half off despite it being part of a BOGO deal.

There, a manager explained that in the state of Florida, BOGO deals require customers to purchase two products. They cannot get savings on one product without taking another one.

“ I did not know that that was, like, regulated by your state, and I just thought that was very interesting,” Chapman, who seems to be from South Carolina, said. “I just thought if something was buy one get one free and you only bought one, it was half off. But apparently in Florida they do things a little bit different.”

Can Customers Ask For 50% Off Instead?

BOGO deals usually offer customers 50% off a product on a technicality—they still have to pay the full price of one product to get a discount on the second. But is it true that most customers can simply purchase one item for 50% off?

As Ashley learned, it depends on the state. In certain areas of the country, grocery stores allow customers to purchase one item for 50% off instead of getting two for the price of one. According to Food Republic, varying theories exist that have tried to explain why certain grocery stores allow customers to purchase singular BOGO items.

The blog Geek Mamas offered one explanation for the discrepancy in a post about Publix, writing, “As Publix moved into the northern states, those states had an existing and current food tax. Each item sold has to have a food tax attached to it. Therefore, allowing those states to offer half price on bogo items.”

Inadvertently, this resulted in some stores just offering BOGO items for 50% off. Since then, however, state laws have changed in certain areas. According to a statement attributed to Publix on a public petition, the grocery store chain kept the 50%=off rule in certain stores and areas deliberately.

“We began advertising BOGOs differently in these market areas due to state tax laws. Since then, the laws no longer apply; however, we have elected to leave the BOGO pricing in effect in these areas because our customers have grown accustomed to the way the pricing was established,” the statement said.

BroBible reached out to Chapman via TikTok direct message and Publix via email for comment.