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If all your costs are inflating, why wouldn't you also be inflating your prices in line?

This seems to be what happens in restaurants or groceries or other things where we go "wow, you used to get a coke for fifty cents!"

A business that can't pass that cost on seems to have more fundamental "loss of relative demand compared to the past" issues that would squeeze it dry even without inflation. In that world, your costs would be static but customers would be willing to pay less over time, so you'd die.




Market dynamics.

The cost to produce goods rises much more rapidly than what you can actually sell your product for. People would simply stop buying if you increased prices 12-13% every year (which is what is typical for me in the restaurant industry in Mexico)

New entries usually start with a lower quality product by default, so you usually have to keep prices and drop quality if you don't want to be priced out (or move into a far more upscale and finicky market).


My company (not an owner) is a services based company with yearly agreements. We bake in price increases annually with inflation.

If you are not a business running on fixed agreements, you have the right to increase your prices whenever to accommodate your costs. If your idea is that consumers will just go somewhere cheaper, then it works upstream too - you have the option to source your products / goods from somewhere cheaper as well.

If there is no cheaper alternative for you, then there must be no cheaper alternative for your consumers, unless you aren't operating your business in an efficient manner. In which case the market will either force you to, or you will lose your business.




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