{"id":522123,"date":"2026-04-09T21:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/522123\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T21:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:02:08","slug":"supermarket-dynamic-surge-pricing-could-be-on-the-way-bank-of-england-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/522123\/","title":{"rendered":"Supermarket dynamic &#8216;surge pricing&#8217; could be on the way, Bank of England warns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph-text\">The Bank of England warned more companies are now planning to use \u201cmarket-responsive pricing tools\u201d, with around a third of firms expected to adopt them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Clare Lombardelli, the Bank\u2019s deputy governor for monetary policy, said digital technology had made it far easier and cheaper for businesses to alter prices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">She said: \u201cDigitalisation has radically reduced what economists call menu costs \u2013 the expense of changing listed prices \u2013 so-called historically because of the costs associated with having new menus printed with updated prices. Digital pricing allows firms to change prices frequently at negligible cost.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Although supermarkets are not currently using surge pricing, many are moving towards digital shelf labels, which make price changes much easier to implement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Read More: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lbc.co.uk\/news\/cost-living\/how-much-uk-petrol-cost-us-iran-ceasefire-announced\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">How much does UK fuel cost? US-Iran ceasefire announced<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Read More: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lbc.co.uk\/business\/ee520a2725d64460bf7ee9e973f3547f\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Major supermarkets face call to reinstate pay in line with real living wage<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Lombardelli added: \u201cWe are seeing some sectors experimenting with technology that could enable dynamic pricing in the future, such as electronic shelf labels in supermarkets, which are already widespread in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Morrisons has said it plans to roll out digital displays across all 497 of its supermarkets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Any move towards dynamic pricing in grocery stores would likely prove controversial, given that food is an essential purchase unlike concert tickets or flights.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Supporters of the model argue consumers already benefit when prices fall, and say shoppers can limit the impact by choosing where and when they buy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Some forms of flexible pricing are already common in supermarkets, including reductions on products nearing their sell-by date.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Clive Black, of Shore Capital, told The Times: &#8220;Changing prices is very expensive. When Tesco changes prices, it has to replace a piece of plastic or cardboard across thousands of stores. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">&#8220;The initial drive for these displays is operating efficiency, standardisation and compliance, but the longer-term possibility is dynamic pricing. Whether that is in the interest of shoppers or shareholders is a moot point.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bank of England warned more companies are now planning to use \u201cmarket-responsive pricing tools\u201d, with around a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-522123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}