The Commission for the Protection of Competition has started the procedure against four trade chains (Deleuze, Mercator, Univerexport and DIS), which together occupy more than half of the retail market, on suspicion of having entered into a restrictive agreement, which had as its aim "significantly limiting, distorting or preventing competition".
What happens when competition is prevented? Prices are rising, they don't think about God, so the prices of food and soft drinks reach the average prices in the EU. And that in a poor country where average salaries in the EU will be unattainable for decades to come.
Well, this - this is a real "best price" action, not Parisians and mayonnaise, "two eggs" and circus performers on stage. It's a promotion that lasts for years and is really great, it couldn't be better - for traders.
Because, as the Commission has already determined, the observed retail chains kept the consumer basket of 45 selected products at the level of 35-38 thousand dinars (the lower figure is a consequence of a large number of promotions, not lower original prices). The "control" store, which had much worse procurement conditions and had no stocks, sold all this for about 30 thousand.
Best price, right?
Double the margin
Every month, eight thousand dinars more than is necessary drips from each household. Then multiply the number of consumers, then multiply the number of months and then you get the situation that all four trade chains, according to the Commission, from 3,7 billion dinars in business profit in 2016 jumped to 18,6 billion in 2023.
How? Easy, when the gross margin from the purchase value is twice as high in 2023 compared to 2016 (38 versus 19 percent).
If the Commission proves that the retail chains negotiated sales prices - which, by the way, were the same in all four chains, despite the different purchase prices - the perpetrators should be punished somehow.
The penalty can be high: up to 10 percent of the annual income. However, it doesn't have to - seven years ago, the Commission found something similar for about 15 sellers of sports equipment and fined them all together with around 400.000 euros. What do you think, are we paying "realistic" prices for sports equipment today thanks to that fine?
But even if the Commission finds responsibility, even if the penalties are maximum, no one will return the poor citizen's hard-earned money that he had to leave for the sake of enriching big companies. For his money, he got the aforementioned artists moving around on television, eating bread, mayonnaise, Parisian cheese and extolling the importance of "two eggs".
