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From what I can tell, the big reason that supermarkets in mainland Europe can work around this by ordering from different suppliers is that they're willing to p
by makomk 4y ago
From what I can tell, the big reason that supermarkets in mainland Europe can work around this by ordering from different suppliers is that they're willing to pay their suppliers more and pass the cost increase on to their customers, whereas UK supermarkets aren't so willing to do this. That is, the main contributing factor seems to be precisely our supermarkets' unwillingness to engage in "price gouging" - and if they had put prices up, you can bet that would've been blamed on Brexit as well.
- skywal_l 4y agoI don't think that raising your price because your cost increase is price gouging. Gouging occurs when the price increase do not relate to the cost increase and the difference is being pocketed by the intermediary, here the supermarket. What you describe mainland european supermarket doing is just what happens in a free market. Not price gouging at all.
- cnelsenmilt 4y agoCharging more because your costs are higher is not really gouging. Obviously there's no precise definition -- it's a social judgement -- but generally it's taking more profit than is "fair" for a situation, like tripling the price of your bottled water after a natural disaster.