3 July 2013 | Supermarkets | 7594 views

The relationship between supermarkets and suppliers:

This paper explores supermarket buyer power and the ways in which such power affects suppliers and  consumers. It finds that the abuse of buyer power is widely and routinely practised against suppliers and that, if not immediately, certainly over time, such abuse will inevitably damage consumers too. Yet competition authorities have largely failed to deal with this problem, so that detriments to suppliers and consumers have gone on for many years.
 
The paper concludes that effective measures to prevent unfair business-to-business commercial practices and the resulting detriments to both small-scale producers and consumers are urgently needed. Remedies should be based on a fundamental principle of fair dealing and should be enforceable and binding. All suppliers (in national, regional and global supply chains) should have effective recourse to protection. Consumer organisations have an important role to play in mitigating the negative effects of buyer power.