Smarter Pricing: How to capture more value in your market

Err . . . I don’t know how much it is normally

In fact, customers’ knowledge of retail prices is generally poor. With the typical household buying several hundred different items from the supermarket each week, most customers do not know individual product prices and would be reluctant even to guess. Prices vary considerably week-to-week, store-to-store and items are no longer price-marked as barcodes and shelf markers replace individual price tags in leading supermarkets.

Instead of knowing each price, customers use prices of key items as benchmarks. These are called known value indicators. In the UK a standard loaf of white sliced bread, a kilogram pack of white sugar and 415gm tin of Heinz baked beans are known value indicators. Customers ...