Minister of Finance Yair Lapid and Minister of the Economy Naftali Bennett signed regulations today for promoting competition among Israel's food retailers by obliging every large retailer to publish its prices on the Internet. The regulation applies to nineteen retailers in Israel. They will have to publish on the Internet prices for all the food items they sell in their stores.
The aim is to enable consumers to compare prices easily and choose from which supermarket to buy. Retailers will have to update the published prices hourly.
"With the passage of the Food Law, the Consumer Protection and Fair Trade Authority has begun intensive work to formulate regulations that stipulate the technical specifications and the way in which information will be posted and updated on the retailer's website," the Ministry of Finance said in a statement, "The Authority's work in conjunction with the Ministry of the Economy and the Budgets Division at the Ministry of Finance was carried out in consultation with computing experts, and included extensive discussion with the retailers to which the law will apply. Applications developers were also brought in, in the expectation that they will us the information to develop price comparison applications."
The aim is to develop a special mobile app that will enable the consumer to enter the list of products he or she wants to buy, and use the app to carry out a price comparison and advise which nearby supermarket is the cheapest.
"We continue to fight against the cost of living. Through price transparency, competition between the retail chains will increase, leading to cheaper prices," Lapid said.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 3, 2014
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2014