mprove competition,” Dr Rob Nicholls, an expert in corporate regulation and governance at the University of Sydney, told Inside Retail. “There is no trust-busting power, no breakup power, given to the ACCC… and they’ve never asked for a breakup power,” he added. “It’s not a regulator that is ever very shy about asking for new powers if it thinks it needs new powers.” Instead of calling for an industry breakup, the ACCC has deferred to the government and handed down 20 recommendations to increase competition. After the report’s release last week, the government said it welcomed the report but did not commit to actioning the recommendations, saying it “agrees in principle” and that they “will be considered as part of our existing work”. A better competitive analysis One suggestion, in particular, has the potential to effectively lower prices for consumers if rolled out at scale – a dynamic price comparative service.  “Think of it like this. You have a shopping list from which you buy your groceries each week. You then use that list in an app to decide where it is best to buy your shopping,” explained Dr Nicholls. “If all prices were published and up to date online, you could choose which supermarket you visit on a week-by-week basis,” he added.  For those who have the time to go to more than one supermarket, there are already third-party services trying to increase price and sale visibility for consumers. Last year data scientist Adam Williamson went viral after creating a web browser plug-in that acts as a window into the supermarket pricing machine, predicting patterns with products that often go on sale. However, a dynamic price comparative service to encourage cross-shopping, like the ACCC proposed, would require supermarkets to share real-time data with third-party app developers. Cross-shopping, the practice of consumers comparing prices before making a purchase, has been a term used by both Coles and Woolworths in their recent earnings reports to account for drops in sales. “I think that Coles and Woolworths use cross-shopping in a way that’s probably an understandable rationale, but I’m not sure it’s really supported by the figures,” said Dr Nicholls. “It makes so much sense, except that the vast majority of people are time-poor,” he added. From Dr Nicholls’ perspective, consumer loyalty to the big two supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths, is already baked in with the Flybuys and Everyday Rewards programs – something the ACCC agrees on. The “gamification” of loyalty programs makes it difficult for consumers to discern if they are in fact getting a good deal, or spending thousands of dollars to get ten off. Transparency as a deterrent  While a dynamic price comparative service might provide greater price visibility for consumers motivated to cross-shop, it could also have a knock-on effect on supermarkets, which may be incentivised to beat their competitors’ prices. “It’s got a second benefit that I think is actually the more important one, and that is, what else will be looking at this application’s programming interface to dynamic prices,” stated Dr Nicholls. For instance, supermarkets could be driven into stronger competition with each other, to the consumer’s advantage. On top of that, there would also be greater oversight for the ACCC and government. “If they [supermarkets] follow each other on pricing, that looks like what’s potentially called a ‘concerted practice’,” said Dr Nicholls. “That’s where you’ve got something that has changed in pricing, but it’s actually the same pricing change across multiple players – you’ve got this potential issue that the ACCC can then more effectively monitor how competition is playing out between the major retailers,” he continued. According to Dr Nicholls, the ACCC doesn’t have to use it, they just need access to it.  “You only need a small amount of discipline in a market to ensure that things remain as competitive as they can be, and the worry about price-matching [being] on the way up will be a more increased worry,” concluded Dr Nicholls.