It was January, and the mega-corporation that owns Acme Markets had just lost $202 million. Its top executive was blunt: There are customers who think prices are too high.
"Insult pricing" is how Supervalu Inc. chief executive officer Craig R. Herkert, a former WalMart Stores Inc. executive, termed the problem in a dismal call with investment analysts. That is when daily prices are so high that customers boycott an item for months until it goes back on sale, or they just start shopping elsewhere.
The company says it is urgently trying to end the practice at its beleaguered 120-year-old Acme supermarket chain and at other chains it owns across the country. But while high regular prices can become a retailer's nightmare, there is no cheap or easy fix.
For Supervalu especially, a debt-burdened company with other costly challenges on its plate, lowering prices is already proving dicey because it, too, costs money.
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