Il controllo pubblico del pricing commerciale: verso un bilancio sulla questione sottocosto

The retail grocery sales slump and the changes in consumer behaviour have generated an intensive price competition. In a marketing context where retailers strategies are increasingly price-based, it is worthwhile to investigate a phenomenon that has been particularly discussed over the past decade: below-cost selling. After the new legislation about loss-selling was approved in Italy in 2011, the topic has attracted no interest whatsoever. The purpose of this paper is to understand, four years after words, the impact of the loss-selling law on retailers strategies and channel relationships. By comparing the findings of a survey conducted in 2005 with those of 2001, we discuss wheter the expectations about the law’s effects have been confirmed or not. Keywords: below-cost selling, retail price competition, channel relationships, competition law.