Companies have a coordination problem when applying this strategy. There was a week in early '22 when the major media outlets all shifted from "the economy is s

Companies have a coordination problem when applying this strategy. There was a week in early '22 when the major media outlets all shifted from "the economy is struggling" one day to "inflation is a major concern" the next. This provided the necessary synchronization point and public acceptance that rising prices had a cause. But synchronization alone can't account for everything. The pricing variability that the public has grown accustomed to, starting with the pandemic, has opened people's minds to be less reliant on price stickiness. TP is up this month, bread the next, eggs the next, is great cover and pretext to everything is now pricier.