Have You Been Scarificing Margins?

[Rob]

In the UK the latest inflation were released a few days ago and the British Retail Consortium said yesterday that their members were actually protecting the buyers from the full effect.

Stephen Robertson, Director General of the British Retail Consortium, said "Retailers are the good guys here. Overall inflation would be a lot higher if it weren't for retailers' efforts to shield customers from the full impact of rising costs, even at the expense of their own margins."

With that dreaded 'R' word now been spoken of more often has anyone resorted to cushioning the blow of potentially higher prices by scarificing their margins? I guess the key question is whether it worked or have sales been affected anyway?

[PaulSimister]

Rob

I thought you were introducing me to a new word as it's in the heading and the text.

Times are definitely going to get tough and the where the power lies in the relationship is going to become clear.

Those people who have differentiated themselves so that there is clear difference between them and their closest competitors should be able to protect margins by passing on cost increases.

Those selling commodity products in plentiful supply will have a problem.

[Rob]

Oh dear, took me a minute to see what you were referring to ! :o

I put it down to me typing that at gone 11 pm my time last night!

Back onto business - you're right the ones with a clear edge and a defined niche will be able to ride this out but the others mmm...

(I think my spelling was OK this time!)

[PaulSimister]

scarificing - possible definitions - spoiling appearance, making ugly

But then dropping from a 30% to 25% margin IS ugly so perhaps you have invented an appropriate new word