Watching a documentary, there was aremark from the journalist on how, due to how wildly taxation on goods may vary, from area to area, in the US, most retailers do not put the full prices on the shelves and instead just tally it at checkout.
This made no sense to me, a european, as when I go to any regular shop, prices already include all taxes applicable to the product.
There are specialty stores where VAT and other taxes may not be applied on the price on the shelf but those are usually wholesellers, selling for professionals, that already know what additional taxes will be added and at which rates, at checkout.
Not having the full price you’ll be paying, on display, seems very underhanded and a bad practice. The client should know how much they are going to pay from the moment they pick an item.
All of that is nonsense.
I worked for 2 corporate retail chains that would send the stores the price labels for sales and we would print out a file for other tags.
In a quarter, most labels would be replaced and they would send irregular price changes every week. We would spend probably 10 man-hours a week taking down and putting up labels under typical operations.
Items don’t generally move far or often, except for rotating display spaces at the ends of aisles for promotional items where every tag changes. Every few years they might make radical changes to item placements, but they tend not to because it confuses customers.
There is no reason to exclude the tax in the price labels except for tradition and/or concealing how much you will actually pay with the tax added. Most people know what the taxes are in the area they shop and will just round up to the next dollar or add 10% if they are on a budget.
Bring on wireless electronic price tags that show the price including tax.
I’d rather not… They already use these to implement dynamic pricing based on stock levels, best before dates, etc. Only a matter of time before they feed surveillance camera data to the system to take the appearances of nearby customers into account. (I wonder if it’s already a thing in those no-register stores in the States? They can probably also pull in your shopping history, search history, etc?)
Why would they take appearance into consideration when they can detect your phone and know exactly what your income level is and your purchasing habits?
Would you support an individualized pricing system if it meant that disadvantaged individuals could afford a better quality of life that is subsidized by charging wealthy people more?
You’re not from around here, are you, pardner?
Shhhh, I am providing an argument in favor of a dynamic pricing structure that they have expressed opposition to.
We are talking about two different things. I mean clothing tags. You are right about prices on shelves.