International Progress on UNIT PRICING: Consumers want clear comparative pricing when choosing between products

05 April 2016

Ian Jarratt from the Consumers Federation of Australia, is Consumers International's expert voice on the ISO Project Committee which is developing a standard on Unit Pricing. Ian, who also sits on the Australian national committee explains why its important for consumers to be able to compare the price of products, as easily and as quickly as you can buy them.

The unit price is the price of a product per unit of measure, for example $5.52 per kg for a pre-packaged 725g carton of breakfast cereal costing $4.

It allows consumers to easily and quickly compare the price and value for money of pre-packaged and other products. For pre-packaged products it is provided in addition to the selling price.

Unit prices often vary greatly, so by comparing unit prices consumers can substantially reduce how much they spend on products, or get more for the same amount of money.

However, far too often unit pricing for pre-packaged products is either not provided at all, or is not easy to notice, read, understand and use, and therefore underused by consumers.

An effective, consumer-focused international standard for pre-packaged products will benefit consumers in many ways including:

  • facilitating improvements in the quality of the unit pricing of pre-packaged products currently provided by retailers compulsorily or voluntarily; 
  • encouraging the provision of effective unit pricing of pre-packaged products by more retailers; 
  • increasing and strengthening links with the unit pricing of products sold loose from bulk; 
  • increasing competition between retailers and between manufacturers;
  • facilitating international consistency in the provision of unit pricing,


Consumers International (CI) is a liaison member of the ISO Project Committee 294 which is developing a guidance standard for the unit pricing of pre-packaged products.

The Committee will hold its second meeting from 19-21 April 2016 in Singapore to discuss the standard’s draft scope and principles.