UK food shoppers, flight buyers, music lovers: are you
paying more than you should?
Why do consumers sometimes pay up to 30% more for goods they buy
in the ‘local' versions of supermarkets - and what are those
supermarket majors doing to ensure that all shoppers, including
those on lower incomes, benefit from affordable and competitive
prices?
What are airlines doing to ensure that travellers see the
benefits of dynamic pricing, as well as seeing what their flight
will really cost and being able to properly compare it and shop
around?
UK music-lovers typically have very few choices when it comes to
buying tickets for gigs – but the same applies to the musicians
looking for venues and promoters to put them on.
The live music promotion scene is dominated by a few players that
can control access to venues as well as to the ticketing and
pricing structures offered to fans. But the biggest
“entertainment company”, Live Nation – which also controls the
biggest UK ticketer, Ticketmaster – stands out as a different
order of size from its nearest competitor even in this narrow
field.
The Competition and Markets Authority has been tasked by
Government with adapting its approach to help drive the national
economic growth mission. But what is it doing to
keep markets competitive, and make the increasing use of
dynamic pricing fair to consumers?
Rt Hon , Chair of the BTC,
said: “Week after week, families tell us the same story:
prices keep rising—on food, on flights, on fun—and no one can
quite explain why. That's why our Committee is digging deeper. We
want to know: are regulators doing enough to stop markets from
malfunctioning? Are dominant firms using their power to squeeze
consumers and shut out competition? And are shoppers, travellers
and music lovers paying a fair price—or simply paying through the
nose?
“We built markets to serve the public—not to fleece them. So we
need to ask: are regulators defending the powerless, or just
watching the powerful take more than their share?”/ENDS
