The Price Marking Order 2004 (PMO) took effect in Great Britain in 2004. Its aim was to provide greater transparency to consumers about the prices of goods. Unless an exemption applies, the PMO requires that both the selling price and the unit price should be displayed in a way that is unambiguous, easily identifiable, and clearly legible. However, it came under scrutiny recently because consumers have been shopping around and trading down in grocery and other shopping, as the cost of living has risen and they have tried to save money.
Due to this scrutiny, last year, the government made a new Price Marking Order to amend the PMO. We wrote about this at the time – find our article here:
The Order was due to take effect on 1 October. However, a new Price Marking (Amendment) Order 2025 delays this to 6th April 2026. In addition, it:
- Expands the requirement in Article 5 of the PMO to include unit pricing for more product types that must display quantity or are packaged in specified quantities. This now covers additional packaged food items such as dried fruit, cereal, and pasta, as well as non-food items like detergents, cleaning products, and cosmetics.
- Modifies Article 9 of the PMO to stipulate that traders can only indicate general reductions through a general notice (or other visible means) if it is not feasible to display the reduced selling or unit price as required by the PMO (for example, on the product itself). The initial amendment in the 2024 Order, which required traders to display both the reduced selling price and the reduced unit price during general reductions, will no longer be implemented.
- Specifies that the traders' exemption from displaying the unit price when a product consists of an assortment of items, as outlined in the 2024 Order, applies when it includes items sold at varying weights or volumes, some by weight and some by volume, or at different prices when sold individually.
Businesses will welcome the extra time to prepare for the changes, especially with the CMA having beefed up enforcement powers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.
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