Sursa foto: Inquam Photos / Octav Ganea
The National Authority for Consumer Protection (ANPC) has republished a draft order that orders all economic operators in Romania to display the commercial markup next to the prices of products, after it retracted it initially, saying it will be modified to apply only to food products.
The ANPC will require merchants to publish the commercial markup applied in relation to the “purchase price” of the product. The previous version of the order stipulated that the markup should be displayed in relation to the “base price” of the product.
The provisions seem to continue applying to all merchants in Romania, whether they sell food or non-food products, and to all products.
Thus, the order still does not seem to define certain economic operators, so it appears to apply to all economic operators in Romania. This includes agro-food retailers, fashion retailers, furniture retailers, as well as all other economic operators who display prices but are not direct producers.
It is also difficult to understand how economic operators with thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of products, such as agro-food retailers, will be able to implement this order. This is especially challenging since purchase prices constantly change, and the same type of product on the shelf might be purchased at different prices.
Such an initiative requires a significant effort, which would likely need to be done manually, as not all operators have systems integrated with the purchase cost for each product to automatically calculate the markup.
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Provisions of the new ANPC order:
Article 1. This order establishes the method of informing consumers about the commercial markup applied to products sold by economic operators in relation to the purchase price.
Article 2. In the case of direct sales, economic operators are required to inform consumers by marking the commercial markup applied to the product in relation to the purchase price, either on the product itself or in the immediate vicinity where the product is displayed. This must be in the same visual field where the price is displayed, using the same font, color, size, and other characteristics as those used for displaying the price.
Article 3. In the case of online sales, economic operators are required to inform consumers by displaying the commercial markup applied to the product in relation to the purchase price in the same visual field where the product price is shown, using the same font, color, size, and other characteristics as those used for the product price.
Article 4.
(1) For products from third countries, when these products are transferred to other intermediaries/distributors, in line with the transparency principle, they must communicate the import price.
(2) For products from the single market, in line with the transparency principle, intermediaries/distributors will communicate the price from the first distributor.
Initially, the order was published on Monday, but the ANPC temporarily withdrew it for “correcting a material error.” According to information from Economedia, the ANPC withdrew the order for legal adjustments to clarify that it only applies to agro-food products.
