Consumer Association 'Efektiva' Calls for Boycott of Retail Chains in Serbia between Feb. 10 and Feb. 14

Efektiva Calls for New Boycott of Retail Chains in Serbia (BETAPHOTO/DRAGAN GOJIC)

The consumer protection association “Efektiva” has urged Serbian citizens to boycott again the five major retail chains in Serbia between Feb. 10 and Feb. 14, including Delhaize Serbia, which owns Maxi and Shop&Go supermarkets, Mercator, the owner of Idea and Roda stores, DIS, Lidl and Univerexport.  

"Effectiva" stated that the call was also supported by another two consumer associations, namely, Prosperitet of Novi Sad and the Republican Union of Consumers, headquartered in Belgrade. The organization explained that if the boycott failed to produce a concrete response again, they will, together with consumers, decide to boycott individual traders for a longer period, in order to lower prices.  

A professor at the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade, Goran Petkovic, said on Feb. 10 that the call for the boycott might have negative marketing effects on the five corporations, but that it could not lead to long-term price cuts. He explained in a comment for BETA that the retail price consisted of three components: the purchase price, or the producer's price, the difference in price that traders appropriate, and the third is the tax that belongs to the state.

"I don’t think it is enough to deal with only one link, the margin, but it might be an incentive for the Commission for the Protection of Competition to deal with this issue more comprehensively," Petkovic said. He said that there were probably production monopolies in Serbia, and that the Commission should find out who they are. Likewise, the government can  classify certain products as those a lower VAT tax applies to.

“Efektiva’s” Dejan Gavrilovic said that the Commission for the Protection of Competition reported violations to the rules of competition in 2023, finding also that price jumps were twice as high as inflation rates. The 2023 margins, as he put it, went up from 19 percent to 38 percent, and in some stores even to 45 percent, and the total revenue of these traders increased from 3.8 billion dinars to 18.6 billion dinars.