Everything changes in Hungarian shops on 1 July: here is what to expect

A new price monitoring system will launch on the 1st of July, to provide a solution to the abolition of price caps. Customers will be able to browse through the offers of six retail chains and around 1,200 smaller shops.

As we have reported HERE, the end of the food price cap is nearing with the 1st of August. Many fear that the prices of basic foodstuffs, which are currently protected by the price caps, will increase significantly after the abolition. However, this is not the case, as supermarkets have to provide a 15 percent discount on at least two items which are included in the current price cap scheme. For further help, the Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) has set up a website for customers. The price monitoring system was developed and launched in an extremely short time.

The development

As Index reported, developers had a short time span to set up the price monitoring system. Creating the database was a really challenging task for working groups, developers and retailers. There were only two months at their disposal for research, technological planning, testing, creating the infrastructure and creating the legal background. The main goal was to provide a responsive system for customers. The use of the price monitoring database will significantly increase transparency for customers.

The participating supermarkets

The six biggest supermarkets involved in the monitoring system are Aldi, Auchan, Lidl, Penny, SPAR and Tesco. These chains update information in the database on a daily basis. It is important to provide the latest information for customers regarding available goods, including the exact name of the product, a clear indication of its price and upcoming or currently running discounts. The initiative can also help to increase the intensity of competition in the retail sector.

The functions

IT developers had to prioritise which functions are the most important for launching the system, as they had an extremely tight deadline. The development is not fully completed, new functions and changes will be added accordingly to the users’ feedback. This will help the developers on finding what functions are worthy of allocating R&D budget to. Similar systems in Greece, Romania and Germany were also developed on the way. The main objective of the changes is to keep customers up to date about the latest prices and discounts. The Hungarian Competition Authority aims to automate the process for small retailers and shops that volunteer to join the database. The development of a mobile application is also on the agenda.