Bringing the official statistics closer to consumer research Breda Kutin MIPOR director, ZPS president. Contact Luxembourg, October 2009

MIPOR- International Consumer Research Institute MIPOR (established in 1993) is the research arm of Slovene Consumers’ Association - ZPS, a non-governmental, non-profit member-organization active in consumer advice, information, lobbying, advocacy and representation since MIPOR conducts research and projects in the field of consumer policy, prices, independent comparative testing of products and services, health care, patients' rights on national and EU level and is the publisher of the independent consumer magazine VIP.

ZPS and MIPOR’s main activities in the price monitoring area - euro MIPOR started with the consumer prices monitoring activity at the end of 2005 as a professional back up for ZPS’s price campaign during the introduction of Euro. Extensive media coverage of the price watch campaign, based on a broad set of data, significantly contributed to curb the price hikes (Slovenia registered a deflation in the first two months of 2007). ZPS and MIPOR specialized web page prepared for the euro adoption Part of reports on price increases, sent by consumers. Total number was

Standardized web forms that MIPOR prepared and consumers used for informing us about price increases during the euro adoption campaign

ZPS, Euro and the media From October 2006 untill April 2007 ( during the most intensive leg of euro-campaign ) the representatives of ZPS were featured 761-times in Slovene media and more than 600-times in foreign media.

MIPOR’s main activities in the price monitoring area – Web price portal The price-watch continues in the form of a specialized web portal, offering comparisons of prices of food, general consumer goods and selected groups of services. The Web price portal on the ZPS web site ( gives consumers online access to price data, in depth information on price differentiation for the same and similar groups of products, and encourages competition in the electricity supply by comparing prices and business practices of different providers, such as misleading advertising, unfair promotion activities and unfair contract terms. Comparative testing of food has been expanded in order to focus consumers’ attention on price differentiation based on quality of products and not marketing and brands.

MIPOR’s main activities in the price monitoring area - Web price portal In the project we are combining information on prices of different basic consumer items (food, cleaning agents for household … ) with results of independent comparative test. Both activities are conducted by MIPOR. Example of how MIPOR’s activities benefit consumers: MIPOR disclosed prices of the minced meat, exposing high differences in prices in this group; after the publication of the independent comparative test of minced meat the prices decreased and were kept on the lower level independent comparative test were kept on the lower level

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MIPOR’s main activities in the price monitoring area – banking sector MIPOR had argued in the past the tariffs, as published by the banks, were difficult to understand and compare by consumers themselves; therefore MIPOR experts prepared a methodology for modeling payment services for of the yearly cost a consumer has with his bank account. Slovene central bank started publishing these statistics on MIPOR’s suggestion and MIPOR has been successfully using the these statistics The modeled yearly costs are more informative than single bank charges and make a comparison of banks easier for consumers. The prices are published several times per year. An inter-active web portal is planned to enable each consumer to model his own costs and compare banks in real time.

MIPOR’s main activities in the price monitoring area – banking sector Example of MIPOR’s comparative table on yearly bank charges

The broader implications of consumer price monitoring ZPS and MIPOR are using the data from different price monitoring activities to lobby and campaign for increased transparency and competition in various fields (banks, electricity, general retail sector etc.) that are important for consumers, consequently increasing the level of consumer protection.

Discussion points (1/3) The need to strengthen connections between statistical offices/other state institutions that gather price-related information on one hand and the NGO/organizations that engage in price-watch/price-monitoring projects on the other. It is of vital importance to provide financial means for (consumer) NGOs for these activities. The methodology for certain services where consumers pay full price, but the official data only monitors the price of a subcategory of the service (e.g. electricity, water etc.), needs to be adjusted; it means a discrepancy with other similar situations where the price of the service is compared on the gross level (eg petrol prices).

Discussion points (2/3) Regional aspects of the statistical data should be explored – additionally agregating data on regional level can open up new possibilities for consumer research.

Better use should be made of the already existant ECC-Net data on cross-border consumer complaints. The ECC-Net Centres clasify received cross-border complaints (based on the COICOP classification), but due to the shortcomings of the current information system (IT-tool) it is almost impossible to perform an in-depth analysis of complaints on the EU-level.

Discussion points (3/3) The IT-tool should be upgraded to better serve the ECC-Net and European Commission – to provide instant and automatic feedback on the nature cross-border complaints (e.g. e- shopping, passengers’ rights …). For complaints handling and redress at national level unified methodology should be developed to enable more reliable data comparisons at EU level

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