Executive Director of Consumer Protection, Trish Blake has reminded customers that price scanning in shops is an area monitored by her Agency.
“Each week our team of compliance officers visit shops across the Perth metropolitan area to investigate whether prices advertised on store shelves match the amounts customers are charged when the goods are scanned at the checkout,” Ms Blake said.
“These checks are also done by our officers in country towns to ensure regional consumers are paying the advertised shelf price for goods,” she said.
Ms Blake said that, last year, Consumer Protection inspected 2,907 products in 196 supermarkets, liquor stores, pharmacies, variety stores and specialty stores.
“In reassuring news, only three per cent of the goods scanned by our officers didn’t match the shelf price,” she said.
“When auditing a store, our officers will fill a basket of commonly-bought goods, recording the shelf price of each item.
“They will then ask staff to scan the goods at the checkout, before comparing whether the two sets of prices match.”
Ms Blake said if the price scans were higher than the advertised shelf price, the officer would bring it to the store manager’s attention and ask for an explanation.
“The information is then relayed to the retail compliance team at Consumer Protection, who will consider if any action is warranted,” she said.
The Executive Director said price scanning audits were usually conducted on a voluntary basis and most stores were willing to have their pricing scrutinised by Consumer Protection.
She said discrepancies were usually genuine errors by service staff who might have made a mistake while stocking shelves or putting price tickets on display.
“Occasionally there might be a computer problem that was causing items to be scanned incorrectly,” Ms Blake said.
