Some consumer advocates and lawmakers believe that requiring stores to individually price each item will improve accuracy and give shoppers a convenient means to verify price consistency at the checkout. Five states currently have item pricing laws, along with many local jurisdictions. No - just the contrary. Individual item price-marking provides more opportunities for human error. Instead of making a single price change on the shelf tag, item pricing requires employees to reprice the entire stock of each item - often involving hundreds of price changes.
Comparative data show that stores that item-price have higher error rates.
Price error rates range from 4 percent to 7 percent in stores that item-price, according to the NCWM, compared with rates that are half as much in stores that only scan. In addition, item pricing could lead to cost increases to cover the extra labor required to label each individual product. Labor is the largest single cost for supermarkets, accounting for 36 cents out of each dollar that consumers spend on food. Supermarkets can achieve 100 percent accuracy rates with improved management practices, technology and other measures - without item pricing.