Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but in case you weren't: Normally when a business raises costs, regular customers react by blaming the business and taking

Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but in case you weren't: Normally when a business raises costs, regular customers react by blaming the business and taking their business elsewhere. But when all your customers are reading headlines about inflation, you kind of get a free pass to raise prices on your customers, and direct their ire toward the ambiguous specter of "inflation", regardless of whether or not you actually need to raise prices. When your competitor across the street sees you do this, and sees your customers still patronizing your business, and your profits skyrocketing, they do the same. Some portion of inflation was real, but a nontrivial part was simple herd mentality by the businesses and using pricing psychology to exploit their customers' irrational decision making.