Quote:
Originally Posted by arcanuck
How can anyone raise the price of an item they already have in stock paid for?
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Sometimes businesses will charge prices to cover profitable replacement of inventory. IRC gasoline is priced according to replacement price rather than original purchase price. This is usually done to collect sufficient funds to assure ongoing business. If a filling station had a huge amount of gas under it's pumps (and many do) a jump in costs could have them unable to make future inventory purchases if they charged prices based on origin cost. However, if fuel costs dropped, they could afford to drop prices despite a higher original cost because they could cover the costs of replenishment.
You might say that this never happens, but in a competitive market this kind of pricing exists when you're fighting over customers in a long term business setting.