New round of pricing war in Germany

Since 14 January Praktiker has again been running one of its famous “20 per cent off” rounds. Once again the Metro subsidiary is offering customers 20 per cent off all store products apart from pet food. The campaign is due to run till Saturday 22 January 2005. In the meanwhile, a great number of the Kirkel-based DIY retailer’s competitors have reacted to this price-cutting exercise, one of a series that the company has launched regularly over the last two years. Hornbach is using large-format advertisements to prove that they are the price leaders and that Praktiker is 14.8 per cent more expensive on average. Globus also offered customers a 20 per cent discount for a three-day period. Others such as Max Bahr massively reduced the prices of branded products. It has also apparently come to the first delistings (of Alpina at Obi, for instance).