Dutch market authority takes a close look at prices and discounts in supermarkets

The Dutch Consumer & Market Authority (ACM) is setting its sights on supermarkets: the watchdog is taking action against misleading discounts, while investigating why Dutch people feel they pay more for their groceries than in neighbouring countries.

False discounts

The regulator is presenting a new guideline on price comparisons, which aims to prevent sellers from basing discounts on artificially inflated reference prices. “For example, we saw that the base price was temporarily increased to make a discount bigger, or the discount was given on a never used recommended retail price. This is not allowed”, Director of Consumers Edwin van Houten explains.