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Shoppers face a 50:50 chance of a sudden bump in prices tomorrow as retailers walk a tightrope between driving away customers and bearing heavier GST costs.
Some shoppers have rushed to buy big-ticket items, such as kitchen sets, before they become hundreds of dollars dearer tomorrow.
The retailers, wary of price-sensitive consumers in a tight economy, yesterday showed a mix of stress, fatigue and secrecy as they prepared for GST to rise to 15 per cent.
The increase will add 2.2 per cent to the cost of goods, some of which will be immediately passed on to consumers and some absorbed in profit margins.
"It's the devil or the deep blue sea. You're utterly afraid of upsetting your customers, but it cuts your margins to not do it," said Briscoe Group managing director Rod Duke.
"Times are a bit tough all around at the moment."
But Briscoes, whose average sale is only about $50, will be less affected than shops that sell expensive goods.
The GST rise will add just over $1 to a $50 item, but it will add almost $100 to a 150cm plasma television.
"It's a 50:50 chance you might pay more," said Noel Leeming chief executive John Journee.
The home electronics store had negotiated with suppliers to avoid increasing prices despite the GST rise, and had succeeded with more than half its product line, he said.
Maintaining price points was vital in the current economic climate, where consumers took longer to carefully consider price differences.
At Mitre 10 Mega's Tauranga store, which has spent two busy weeks updating 33,000 price stickers to include the GST rise, sales of full kitchen sets have soared by 50 per cent.
A $12,000 flat-pack kitchen will cost more than $270 more from tomorrow.
The city's Kitchen Studio store also reported a 25 per cent sales boom in kitchen sets, driven primarily by people who are building houses and know they will soon need one.
A Hamilton vehicle dealer said new cars, averaging $90,000, were selling more than usual ahead of the price rise, which it had not announced yet.
The GST increase will add $2000 to a $90,000 car.
But the pressure is just as heavy on shopowners at the other end of the price spectrum.
"It's really hard to work out what to do," said Tauranga City Lotto owner Balbir Singh.
Mr Singh already sells drinks well below the recommended retail prices, and he said it would be a struggle to raise them.
"The prices are already very high for people. Cigarettes have already gone up, we can't put icecreams up ... maybe lollies," Mr Singh said.
"It'll affect profits, but it's everybody, not just me."
King's Dairy manager Mirza Ghauri said he would wait until new invoices came in before deciding what to do. "Things are hard across the board. We're a bit concerned, but worrying won't help."
Foodtown is preparing to pull an all-nighter tonight to update prices on thousands of products.
Corners of updated price stickers can be seen behind the current ones, and the changes will be revealed tomorrow morning after up to 12 hours of work pulling the old ones off.
Where prices do not rise immediately, increases are expected to filter through over the next six months, often as new products are introduced.
