Small retailers set to be made exempt from unit pricing

According reports in The Australian, retailers under a specific physical size benchmark – probably 1000 square metres – will not be required to comply with the new regime, which requires retailers to display the price of goods in per-unit terms as well as

James Thomson

Small retailers appear to have won an exemption from the Federal Government’s unit pricing regime.

According reports in The Australian, retailers under a specific physical size benchmark – probably 1000 square metres – will not be required to comply with the new regime, which requires retailers to display the price of goods in per-unit terms as well as its total cost.

While consumer groups have welcomed the unit pricing scheme, retail groups including the Australian Retailers Association have criticised moves to make such a scheme mandatory, saying it will add to the sector’s costly compliance burden.

“If retailers want to bring in unit pricing, let them do it themselves,” ARA executive director Richard Evans says.

A number of big supermarket chains including Woolworths, Franklins and Aldi have started rolling out their own unit pricing systems ahead of the introduction of the mandatory scheme.

But consumer rights group Choice says these individual schemes have already created confusion among some shoppers, as the different chains have used different units of measurement.

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