I can’t remember the last time I went into a supermarket and there wasn’t some kind of offer on, such as “25% off!” or the infamous BOGOF (Buy One, Get One Free). It demonstrates that UK supermarket systems are set up to offer variable and conditional pricing.

Cue a story which I saw on Facebook this morning about a Danish supermarket, sourced (by several different people) from meme hub 9gag. It indicates that the store offered a reasonable price for one dispenser of hand sanitiser and a vastly inflated price for two. The site isn’t a reliable news source but, even if the story isn’t true, it’s a brilliant idea.

I’m sure hoarding behaviour would be quickly reduced if, instead of attracting discounts, multiple purchases were put on an exponentially increasing price scale. Supermarkets also have huge amounts of data on purchasing patterns, so they are well placed to determine what a reasonable quantity of a given product is.