None of these a reasons the store, which posts it’s own prices and barcodes, can’t just include the total on the tag, or better yet set the price to the nearest whole number (or division of .10/.25) and take the tax out of that full amount. I know because I live in the midwest, I worked in retail/grocery store and our store piloted a test program of doing exactly that. Customers were incredibly happy and our overall sales actual went up because people who didn’t normally shop with us started to because it was easier to budget.
We got shut down by corporate beancounters who were freaking out because we were supposedly making less money. Except our sales and profits were up for the 8 weeks we demo’d the program and 4 weeks after we were forced to stop sales dropped below our year-on-year average. Literally forced to stop a program that benefited the customer and retailer because corporate greed couldn’t tolerate the customer not being screwed.
Prices tags are normally prepared using computers which are famously good at maths. Here in the UK, England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have different rules for tax on certain products and yet everything is advertised with the final price.
Prices are printed on packaging for many things too, books, magazines, bags of potatoe chips.
So then stores would have to cover the manufacturer price with a higher one just in their store. Which is a waste of time and material if you can just condition a population to ignore the price jump at the register.
But the point is the same right? Whether you call them countries or states or counties or municipalities, there are multiple levels of government with their own distinct tax structures, but Europe has no problem displaying the final sale price on their tags. Why would this be harder to implement in the US than in Europe?
All there is to comprehend is that the US contains states that have distinct sales tax laws.
None of these a reasons the store, which posts it’s own prices and barcodes, can’t just include the total on the tag, or better yet set the price to the nearest whole number (or division of .10/.25) and take the tax out of that full amount. I know because I live in the midwest, I worked in retail/grocery store and our store piloted a test program of doing exactly that. Customers were incredibly happy and our overall sales actual went up because people who didn’t normally shop with us started to because it was easier to budget.
We got shut down by corporate beancounters who were freaking out because we were supposedly making less money. Except our sales and profits were up for the 8 weeks we demo’d the program and 4 weeks after we were forced to stop sales dropped below our year-on-year average. Literally forced to stop a program that benefited the customer and retailer because corporate greed couldn’t tolerate the customer not being screwed.
There is zero reason that can’t be on the price tag.
There isn’t zero reason, you’re just unwilling to accept the reasons.
Prices tags are normally prepared using computers which are famously good at maths. Here in the UK, England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have different rules for tax on certain products and yet everything is advertised with the final price.
I would love tax-included pricing (or maybe VAT?), though from what I know:
TV ads, sponsorship spots, circulars all complicate this.
Prices are printed on packaging for many things too, books, magazines, bags of potatoe chips.
So then stores would have to cover the manufacturer price with a higher one just in their store. Which is a waste of time and material if you can just condition a population to ignore the price jump at the register.
Or you can just put it on the shelf like every store does now.
And counties that have their own sales taxes. So not even within the state is the rate the same.
So does Europe.
Europe is not a country, and Germany is not a state.
But the point is the same right? Whether you call them countries or states or counties or municipalities, there are multiple levels of government with their own distinct tax structures, but Europe has no problem displaying the final sale price on their tags. Why would this be harder to implement in the US than in Europe?
Germany certainly is a state if you use the right definition.