Pigs Get Fat, Hogs Get Slaughtered – The Pricing Conundrum
The February CPI report showed inflation rates continuing to accelerate. Unless you recently hit the lottery and don’t care, we are all paying more for pretty much everything. Customers and clients are getting wary of the constant price increases as businesses try and stay ahead of continually rising costs. So, what’s a business owner supposed to do in this environment? From “shrinkflation” to “dynamic pricing”, companies are coming up with ways to pass along higher prices without calling it a price increase. Below are some interesting articles to ponder:
- Why Companies Raise Their Prices: Because They Can – HBS Working Knowledge
- How ‘Excuseflation’ Is Keeping Prices — and Corporate Profits — High – Bloomberg
- Building a procurement strategy during inflation | McKinsey
- 12 Ways to Raise Prices Without Ticking Off Your Customers (americanexpress.com)
- 19 Strategies Business Leaders Can Leverage To Avoid Passing On Rising Costs To Customers (forbes.com)
- Dynamic Pricing Keeps Spreading, Despite Protest From Wendy’s Customers | Inc.com
- Shrinkflation 101: The Economics of Smaller Groceries – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Implementing price increases is fraught with risk and can hurt a company if they aren’t honest and straight with their customers. However, I can’t blame them for coming up with innovative ways to pass along their higher costs. Remember, a price increase helps a company at least maintain if not expand their margins. However, on the flipside, I am also reminded of a saying – “Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered”. Please keep that in mind when you are looking at increasing prices.
Here are a few other items of interest:
- Learn How to Strengthen Your Organization’s Cybersecurity (eisneramper.com)
- Independent Contractor vs. Employee: DOL Announces Final Rule on Worker Classification Test (eisneramper.com)
- Navigating Tax Opportunities in 1031 Exchanges Webinar Series (eisneramper.com) (3/13; 1-2pm EST)
- Webinar | Borderless Workforce: Unraveling State Wages and Reporting for Travelers (stambaughness.com) (03/19/24 @ 2pm)
As always, please don’t hesitate to email myself (jsanders@mpl-law.com), Andy Miller (amiller@mpl-law.com), Christian Miller (cmiller@mpl-law.com), Erik Spurlin (espurlin@mpl-law.com), Brad Leber (bleber@mpl-law.com) or anyone in our office with questions or comments. Please see all of our prior updates at this link or if you would like to be added to our email list, please click here.