Facebook post about roofing prices construed as price fixing according to ACCC

An article shared by Tricks of Your Trades, Michelle Cirson, has highlighted what not to do when discussing work and pricing. In a post on linked in, Michelle explains the complications if you do.

"Subbies participating in the race to the bottom price wars, you’re creating a problem for your trade that is going to be impossible to reverse without a good number of you going out of business or leaving the market.

Here you can see the complications of engaging in a conversation about minimum price points, construed by the ACCC as anti competitive behaviour.

When you all are subject to paying your workers minimum wages, and your costs are your costs, how can your business sustain the job buying and undercutting tactics happening today?

Subbies as a collective won’t be able to band together to reverse this problem, any coordinated/collaborative efforts to agree to a bottom line will likely attract the attention of the ACCC.

I say the way to do it is to lead by example, have a well costed and substantiated pricing policy & practice and a business model that is profitable on its merits. If your competition is pricing at or below cost, let them have it and stick to your values. They’ll eventually go broke, or get into disputes with all his customers due to poor quality and lack of resources."

You can read the original article on news.com.au here