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Comment by MandieD | Hacker News Reader

Prices should be slightly higher in Austria, because the VAT (Mehrwertsteuer) is 20% for most consumer goods, and 10% for food, vs. Germany’s 19% and 7%, but not as outlandishly so as Mario’s data have shown.

For American readers: VAT is included in the shelf price, rather than tacked on at the register like sales taxes are in the US. Upside: fewer surprises at the register. Downside: it’s less visible.

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Prices should be higher for a variety of reasons and they have historically already been higher. It's not just the VAT but particularly super market density, lack of competition on the market, general cost of doing business in the country.

This is a home made problem for the most part, but there is very little appetite to do something about it. Austria in many ways is drowning in very expensive regulation, has high taxation even for grocery store workers.

Excuse me, but what expensive regulation and high grocery store workers' taxation are you talking about that's responsible for making prices so much higher than in Germany?

In Germany while the taxes for a typical full time grocery store worker would be higher, Germany has an extraordinary amount of "mini jobber" working in grocery stores which drives down the cost. Expensive regulation is for instance the Ladenzeitgesetz which restricts a retailer to a regulated number of hours a week with very little freedom to operate the business. Stores need to close before 9, are only allowed to open Saturdays until 18:00 and are restricted to 72 hours total a week and no Sunday trading. Additionally they are subject to very stringent rules and requirements that are untypical to grocery stores in the rest of the European Union from before they can even open a store (Betriebsanlagengenehmigung).

The end result is an incredible expensive market with very little competition compared to Germany.

You’re saying there is no equivalent to Ladenzeitgesetz in Germany?

There is, but not nearly as restrictive. Stores can be open from at least 6 to 20 any day of the week other than Sunday and in most states in Germany, Sunday trading has been at least partially permitted.

In Austria you cannot even operate a fully automated grocery store (either by vending machines or something like Amazon Go) without being afoul of the regulation.

> There is, but not nearly as restrictive. Stores can be open from at least 6 to 20 any day of the week other than Sunday

I just looked up the corresponding law for Austria, and they are allowed to open from 6 to 21 on weekdays, and 6 to 18 on Saturdays. Doesn't really seem more restrictive?

> and in most states in Germany, Sunday trading has been at least partially permitted.

Not really. For each Bundesland there are a couple of cities where a few stores can open, but they are a very rare exception. Example for tomorrow: https://www.kaufsonntag.de/datum-termine/september/17-09-202...

And keep in mind that even for those cities it's not all stores. I checked Cologne as an example, and there it's for example only stores in the district Köln-Lindenthal.

> Doesn't really seem more restrictive?

You misread the law. Only for a total of 72 hours. So if you were to open from 6 to 21 you couldn’t open Saturday at all and would have to close early ok Friday.

In practical terms most supermarkets in Austria close at around 7pm.

Ah, that is indeed a big difference. Thank you for clarifying!

I don't see how restricting opening hours is an "expensive" regulation? What about it makes things more expensive?

It helps incumbents. Incumbents have in part exemptions to the rules since they own stores which through other permits can have extended opening times. For instance stores in some train stations can open on Sundays and longer.

It puts new and smaller players at a massive disadvantage.

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