Total dollars available, family tastes storage and preparation facilities, end use, and item cost all affect a buying decision. Unit pricing can help by taking the guesswork out of the price factor and simplifying cost comparisons. Unit price is just what its name implies—the price per unit. To be more specific, unit pricing gives you the cost per ounce or per pound or per 100 or per square foot. This
price per unit enables you to ready find the best buy, dollarwise, among several items in different size packages with different total prices. Thousands of retail food chain stores now have unit pricing programs. Such programs are required by local laws in several areas, but generally the programs are voluntary. Stores that offer unit pricing generally use a shelf tag system—a label on the shelf edge below the item gives the name of the item, the size, the total price, and the unit price. When unit pricing was first introduced the shelf tag system posed some problems because keeping the tags on the shelves in the right location can be difficult. But as unit pricing has gained acceptance, some of these mechanical problems has been overcome, and the label information has become more usable from the shoppers’ standpoint.