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> aside from sales tax not being included, but that's been universally true in the US forever so everyone is used to it.

Why are you putting this under the rug so easily? It's never too late to changes those ludicrous behaviors, even if everyone is accustomed to it.




It's not about being used to it. There's good reason sales tax isn't included in the price, which is that sales tax varies locally. It isn't even the same per ZIP code. You couldn't advertise a statewide or nationwide price if you had to include sales tax. You couldn't display prices online at all until you entered your full address, which seems antithetical to privacy.

This is different from most other countries, where the tax is the same nation-wide.


This is a distraction.

The regional supermarket chain in new england that is owned by kroger ALREADY localizes their weekly sales flyer TO THE STORE despite every store in the state having the exact same tax rates.

They STILL don't include the tax in the price listed because fuck you, this is america


No, it's not a distraction.

Not all ads are weekly sales flyers, obviously. And not all states have the same sales tax throughout, of course.

Also, you know that most items in a Kroger's don't even have sales tax in the first place? So that's an odd place to use as an example.


>The regional supermarket chain in new england that is owned by kroger ALREADY localizes their weekly sales flyer TO THE STORE despite every store in the state having the exact same tax rates.

Do they actually "localizes their weekly sales flyer TO THE STORE", or you only think that way because they ask for the exact store location to view their flyers? It could very well be that they ask the exact store for analytics purposes, but all the stores have the same flyer.


Probably because it's just not as impactful as hidden tariff costs would be. Sales tax is relatively small and consistent. Depending on the product a tariff could be negligable or it could double the sticker price and the customer would have no way of knowing until checkout.




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