ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) has responded to the Competition and Markets Authority’s Price Marking Report, highlighting the overall high rate of compliance on pricing in the retail sector. 

The report, published this morning, includes the result of inspections of 139 shops between November 2023 and February 2024 to check price marking and pricing accuracy. 

Of the CMA’s 139 visits, 51 inspections were at supermarkets, 55 inspections were at Symbol Convenience Stores, 18 at variety stores and 15 inspections at independent food stores. Levels of non-compliance were found to be highest in symbol group convenience stores (14.4%) and independent food stores (7.8%).

ACS chief executive James Lowman said: “Convenience retailers are constantly working to deliver accurate and transparent pricing across their stores - with thousands of product lines on sale and a regular cycle of promotions and other price changes to deliver value to customers, this is no small task.

“We are pleased that the research found that only a very small handful of convenience stores made errors in price marking, and that those errors were sometimes in the customer’s favour and sometimes in the retailer’s favour. While we are disappointed with any instances of non-compliance found in the CMA’s inspections, these findings and the results of regular trading standards surveys into price marking show the vast majority of the industry are handling compliance very well. We will continue to promote compliance among our sector, including sharing some helpful new resources produced by the CMA.” 

The full report and the CMA’s new pricing accuracy poster is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-calls-on-grocery-stores-to-make-accurate-pricing-a-priority.