Six major retailers are going to make it easier for consumers to price shop. This feature, mandatory in stores, has not been in place for online shopping. Now price comparisons can be done without the math necessary to equalize the quantities.
US: Six Major Retailers To Reveal Unit Pricing Online
Six of the biggest retailers in the US have agreed to a deal that will see them offer unit pricing information on their websites. The list of retailers includes Walmart, Costco, Walgreen, CVS, Drugstore.com, and FreshDirect – but interestingly, Amazon declined to participate.
The deal, which was brokered by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, will see the companies add unit prices to their product pages by March 2015. Walmart and Costco said they would roll out the service by the end of this year itself. The move will affect websites as well as mobile apps.
In the US, unit pricing is mandatory at physical stores in 19 states and the District of Columbia. In a statement, Schneiderman said: “As the Internet becomes the shopping mall of the 21st century, we need to ensure that consumers have the same robust protections online that they do in brick-and-mortar stores”.
Remarking on Amazon’s refusal to join the deal, Schneiderman said the online giant “claims it will extend unit pricing to its subsidiary Quidsi, which operates online stores like Soap.com, but refused to commit to that in a written agreement”. He noted that Amazon has unit pricing on some pages and doesn’t provide the information uniformly across its platforms.