A Study of Price Accuracy in the New Zealand Supermarket Industry Available to Purchase

The advent of optical scanning technology at supermarket checkouts has meant the replacement of item pricing by shelf pricing and an accompanied concern about price accuracy. An empirical study of 86 New Zealand supermarkets compared the shelf or item price of goods with their purchase price to determine the number of errors and their monetary value. These errors, in the form of overcharges or undercharges to the consumer, are affected by several supermarket and environmental variables. Fewer errors were made in scanning stores, although the monetary value of these errors did not differ significantly from non‐scanning stores. Sale price goods had a higher error rate than regularly priced goods, and price accuracy also varied by store ownership, food retail group membership, the day of week, and time of day. The implications of these findings are discussed and it is shown that the New Zealand supermarket industry is sustaining substantial losses from price accuracy.