This National study was designed to examine, validate, and ultimately ensure “Equity in the Marketplace,” by confirming pricing accuracy and fair competition in commercial transactions of retail items. Pricing accuracy was measured by comparing the advertised price of goods at retail locations to what consumers are charged at the checkout.
The survey reported 7,462 price verification inspections conducted at 7,367 different retail stores. A total of 419,237 prices were checked by comparing the item's advertised price with what was charged at the register. When considering all errors, 77% of these inspections had an accuracy rating in compliance with the EPPV, which is the recognized standard for pricing accuracy. That means 23% of all locations failed to meet price accuracy requirements. If consideration was given to excluding the undercharges, a compliance rating of 88% could be applied.
Of the 1,711 inspections which did not pass the criteria in the EPPV, the percentage of errors ranged from 3% to 80%, with the majority (1,288), 75% having a range of errors from 3% to 10%.
Some broad conclusions can be reached based on the retail locations inspected during the survey.
The overall survey inspection failure rate is 23%, which is a concern for pricing accuracy. This means that 23 % of retail locations inspected, failed. Of the 5751 (77%) locations that passed the inspection, 1,508 still had price errors.
The survey indicates some store types have higher pass rates than others. There are significant areas for improvement in overall pricing accuracy.