Yahoo Finance Charge for item you could 'get for $1 at Coles' a warning for Aussies
A retail expert has warned businesses that consumers are on the lookout for 'ridiculous' add-ons, and the consequences could be diabolical.
An Australian diner's outrage over a "ridiculous" $3.50 charge on their dinner bill is a stark warning that surcharging is only "going to get crazier", a retail expert has claimed.
The group spent $235.99 at the restaurant for a meal including fried rice, duck, dumplings and bao, but the Sydneysider was thrown by an extra charge of $3.50 for chopped chilli, often a staple at Asian restaurants.
Professor of Business Management from Flinders University, Roberta Crouch, told Yahoo Finance people could understand they might need to pay extra for more expensive add-ons, like truffles, caviar or saffron, but said it didn't pass the pub test to be charging a premium for "chopped chilli you can pick up at Coles for a buck”.
Have you copped a wild surcharge? Let us know at yahoo.finance.au@yahooinc.com
“This is just getting ridiculous,” the College of Business, Government and Law professor said. “$3.50 for some chopped chillies? I don’t think so. It’s not even airport prices right, where you have to pay $10 for a bag of chips?”
The hospitality industry is under significant pressure with costs jumping for food (4.6 per cent), non-alcoholic beverages (4.2 per cent), alcohol (10.7 per cent), and electricity and gas (12.9 per cent), according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
RELATED
Coles shopper’s $200 grocery bill reveals why supermarkets can ‘jack up prices'
$14 airport sandwich sparks ‘price gouging’ warning to Aussie travellers
Angry diner accuses restaurant of ‘sneaky’ charge on meal bill
Crouch said it was understandable that restaurants were struggling with high overheads and should be "cut a bit of slack", but that little additions like this were "getting out of hand".
Unfortunately, she thinks things are only “going to get crazier”.
“When people do stuff like that, what they're trying to do is punish you out of asking,” she said. “When organisations use prices like this, they're saying: ‘We don't want to do this, and if you want us to, we'll make it so expensive for you that you won't do it again’.”
Many Australians are feeling the cost-of-living crunch and are pulling back on spending, the ABS reports.
If consumers feel they are being overcharged, and baulk at going out to eat, this could be diabolical for the hospitality industry.
"The food and beverage sector, unfortunately, is likely to experience higher rates of business failures over 2024," chief economist at CreditorWatch Anneke Thompson said. "The business failure rate in this sector is already the highest across all sectors, at 6.7 per cent as at November 2023."
Supermarkets vs eating out: Is it all getting too expensive?
While Crouch made a point about restaurants needing to remain measured in what they charged extra for, the complaining diner copped some unexpected criticism.
“After supermarkets, they should investigate Sydney restaurants,” the Sydneysider wrote on Reddit. “We got charged $3.50 for some chopped chillies.”
Others struggling with rising costs questioned their credibility in complaining over a small surcharge when they could afford to spend $80 on duck and $45 on fried rice.
“It always amazes me, if things are so tight and money is hard to come by, why whinge when you spend $236 on a meal?” one person wrote. “You can’t be too short of cash if you can afford to spend that amount of money on a meal.”
“Chooses to eat out, spends $200+, compares that to groceries where people have no choice, either pay or starve,” another said. “[A] little tone deaf.”
Supermarkets like Coles and Woolworths are currently being investigated by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission over allegations of price-gouging.
Follow Yahoo Finance on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter, and subscribe to our free daily newsletter.
