Cao Zhen
FRENCH retail giant Carrefour announced yesterday the establishment of the price centers at three of its Shenzhen stores to achieve tighter supervision of prices after being fined for overcharging certain customers.
At the price centers in Carrefour s Poly, Meilin and Xinzhou stores, price coordinators will accept customers inquiries about prices, handle price complaints, and refund customers for overcharged products.
It will take just 10 minutes to answer a price query. The price centers also invite volunteers from neighboring communities to work as inspectors.
In January, the National Development and Reform Commission, China s top economic planner, fined Carrefour and Walmart a combined 9.5 million yuan (US$1.4 million) for deceptive pricing practices at a small number of stores around the country. The accused stores were found to let consumers pay higher prices for products than indicated on price tags and that they falsely portrayed the size of discounts, inflating them, by deliberately altering original pricing.
Carrefour has issued three written statements to apologize for overcharging since the scandal emerged. Walmart also apologized to customers after being blacklisted and has launched internal investigations in stores nationwide.
It is not enough to just make apologies. The key is to take effective measures to correct the mistakes, said Eric Thevenet, manager of Carrefour Shenzhen/Dongguan Region, at the establishment ceremony of the Poly price center yesterday.
We check all the price tags in every store every day and invite the price bureau to provide training on price laws and regulations to our staff members, said Thevenet. We will use the most advanced technology to improve our technical information system.
Thevenet said if the price centers at the three Shenzhen stores can prove to be useful in solving price conflicts, Carrefour will open more price centers in the other five Shenzhen stores, as well as the others in China.
