Retailers establish code over faulty scanner prices
By MARINA STRAUSS
RETAILING REPORTER
Tuesday, June 11, 2002 – Print Edition, Page B1
Canada's top retailer groups will announce today that they have banded together to ensure that consumers are compensated when they catch an error at checkout price scanners.
Four groups are set to unveil a code of conduct putting the onus on retailers to give shoppers money back if mistakes are made by scanners, industry officials said.
The code was drawn up with the backing of the Competition Bureau, which found in a study that more than half of Canadian retailers surveyed had flunked a scanner accuracy test.
The bureau has pushed senior executives for improvements.
"It will be resolved immediately by the cashier in the consumer's favour," David Wilkes, a senior vice-president at the Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors, said in an interview about the code.
It will no longer simply be at the discretion of the retailer to give money back when shoppers find a mistake at the scanner, he said.
The grocery council represents major chains, such as Toronto-based Loblaw Cos. Ltd. and Sobeys Inc. of Stellarton, N.S. Also part of the pact are the Canadian Association of Chain Drug Stores, the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers and the Retail Council of Canada.
They plan to hold a news conference today in Toronto to announce the measures with representatives from the Competition Bureau as well as the Canadian Association of Consumers and the Consumers Council of Canada.
Mr. Wilkes said the code will provide for consumers to be compensated if they are charged a price that is different from the one on the shelf or the one advertised in a flyer.
"This is going to be a standard set of rules and commitments that [retailers] are going to be behind," he said.
Arthur Konviser, a spokesman for Shoppers Drug Mart Corp., which is one of the retailers involved in producing the code, confirmed that the announcement will deal with concerns about scanner accuracy.
"In the event of a problem, the customer benefits," Mr. Konviser said in a brief interview. He could not be reached later for further details.
Officials of other groups that will participate in today's news conference did not return telephone messages.
Mr. Wilkes said his council has no estimates on how much money consumers lose annually because of errors at checkout scanners. The retail council also had no figures on scanner accuracy.
But Mr. Wilkes said scanners are generally "highly accurate . . . The errors are very much the exception. It doesn't happen very often."
Nevertheless, a federal study released in early 2000 showed some retailers overcharging customers 10 per cent of the time.
The survey involved undercover checks of checkout price scanners at 83 stores across Canada, representing nine retail chains.
Thirty-nine stores owned by four chains passed the test, overcharging customers on fewer than two items of every 100 purchases in the survey, which was the limit set by the Competition Bureau.
However, the rest crossed this threshold, overcharging customers for as many as 10 items of every 100 purchases.
The survey included grocery, drugstore, department store, office supply and hardware retailers. It was the bureau's fourth national audit of price scanner accuracy since 1996.
Good performers were dropped from the survey to focus on the problem companies.
Price scanners read bar codes imprinted on labels and packaging and then cross-reference the codes against a price list in a data base.
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