Consumer official wants electronic pricing
Tuesday, October 26, 1999 04:07 PM
BOSTON -- The state's top consumer official has recommended that supermarkets be allowed to use electronic shelf pricing, instead of stamping prices on individual items.
Consumer Affairs Director Daniel A. Grabauskas said the move would improve the accuracy of prices, which sometimes differ from the item's price tag to the shelf listing to the checkout counter.
"Price accuracy is consumers' No. 1 concern," Grabauskas told The Boston Globe on Tuesday. "I think this addresses that No. 1 concern in a way that really is better than the current system."
Massachusetts is one of five states with a law requiring food stores to put prices on individual items.
Storeowners have complained that placing tags on individual items takes time away from employees who could be helping customers elsewhere in the store. They also say it's difficult to coordinate the price on the item with the price on the shelves and at the checkout counter.
Electronic shelf pricing would reduce those problems, Grabauskas said. The system relies on products' bar codes, which are entered into a central store computer along with their price.
To change the price of an item, a store employee enters the new price into the computer, and it is transmitted automatically to the price display on the shelf and to the checkout counter.
Some consumer advocates say eliminating individual item-pricing is a bad idea.
"Consumers potentially will be losing an important tool to help them shop more wisely," said Edgar Dworsky, who wrote the item-pricing law when he worked for the state in 1987.
Dworsky and Deirdre Cummings of the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group said research has shown that consumers like to check prices by looking at price tags, rather than trying to decipher abbreviations on electronic shelf tags to know which product corresponds to the displayed price.
Grabauskas, who is leaving consumer affairs to head the state Registry of Motor Vehicles, made his recommendation to the Legislature's Commerce and Labor Committee.
A lawmaker who heads the committee, Rep. Peter J. Larkin, D-Pittsfield, said the committee would probably craft legislation that would exempt far more items from individual pricing if a supermarket installs electronic shelf pricing.
The systems cost about $125,000 to install.
Grabauskas suggested that supermarkets with the new systems be exempt from item-pricing if they provide aisle scanners and grease pencils so consumers can easily record and write down how much the items cost.
He also suggested that stores be required to pledge that no employees' jobs will be cut when the new electronic systems are put in place.
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