Report comment

How many of us compare our prices against the competition every week? or even month? Price reduction will cut the margin for the Co-Op's own stores but clearly I would suggest its a case of staying competitive on price which they are not in many areas and to be honest most of us are not either. The customer is king now, price competitiveness goes hand in hand with store environment and service, note how all the examples in this article are fresh food lines. When Budgens rolled out Tesco price match many retailers saw volumes on those lines increase significantly, which can offset the cash margin decline seen on those sales at an individual level.

Of course there are no guarantees and the quantity of Co-Op own label fresh which now price marked or have multi buy stickers on them is increasing so retailers stocking these products will not have the option to price them differently.

Interesting times.