May the 3rd, 2025 – Croatia is set to introduce an innovative new digital price control system with the hopes that more market transparency will be encouraged.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Croatian Government has introduced a new digital price control system that aims to increase market transparency and enable consumers to more easily compare offers from different retailers.
A key element of the Croatian digital price control system is the obligation for retailers to publish their updated price lists for basic product categories – food, drinks, cosmetics, cleaning products, toiletries and household products – on a daily basis. It also has to be published in a format suitable for automatic processing. Such an approach should enable better price comparisons and the development of digital tools for the benefit of consumers.
Economy Minister Ante Šušnjar said that thanks to the introduction of the Croatian digital price control system, consumers will be able to clearly see where prices are the most favourable and where they can spend their money most rationally. Price data will be available to everyone via retailers’ websites, and will be collected and analysed using software tools. The minister expects consumer associations to play an important role in this process, using the available data to develop their own applications and price comparison systems. The government intends to support them in this, and meetings have already been held to improve their digital capacities.
One of the key innovations within the Croatian price control system is the introduction of the so-called additional price, i.e. highlighting the price of the item valid on the day the measure is adopted. This is a kind of “price anchoring”, which should make it easier to monitor future changes. Retailers have been given a transitional period until May the 15th to adjust the system.
The obligation to publish updated price lists has been designed so that the data is published in machine-readable files (e.g. CSV or JSON), so that it can be automatically loaded, analysed and compared. This opens up the possibility for development teams, startups, media, consumer associations and other actors to create digital tools that will allow people to compare prices for the products they’re purchasing in real time.
Minister Šušnjar emphasised that this reduces the scope for price manipulation and unverifiable claims about price increases: “This will reduce the possibility of retailers lamenting about how they’ve increased their prices or haven’t increased their prices. In the future, it will be possible to see very clearly what is happening with prices.”
In support of this measure, Šušnjar presented data from the State Inspectorate, according to which, out of 2,222 inspections, in 1,621 cases, or 73 percent of cases, it was determined that traders were complying with price-limiting regulations. Violations were recorded in 27 percent of inspections.
Šušnjar believes that such decisions produce results, contribute to controlling inflation and could help in further reducing it. Although the tourist season usually brings strong pressure on the market, the government is trying to mitigate possible negative effects through this type of regulation: “The market remains as it is as the market, but the state intervenes as much as it can. By making this decision, we’re trying to correct the anomalies that were previously observed, so that they don’t happen again.”
The digital price monitoring that the government is now introducing combines regulation, technical infrastructure and cooperation with the civil sector, creating a framework for systematic, digitally assisted price control.
