In 2025, the Confederation and the cantons will check whether prices are correctly displayed. (Symbolic image)Image: EPA/Keystone
In 2025, the Confederation and the cantons will closely examine the prices charged in the Swiss hairdressing and beauty sector. According to experts, joint controls, as Berne does, would be more effective.
Henry Habegger / ch media
Concretely, this involves checking whether stores, which also include questionable barbershops and beauty salons, communicate or display their prices correctly. That is to say in accordance with the Federal Ordinance on Price Indication (OIP). This was announced on Monday by the State Secretariat for the Economy (Seco) in the department of UDC federal councilor Guy Parmelin.
“As the authority supervising the cantonal execution of the OIP, Seco will again carry out a control campaign in 2025, in collaboration with the cantons. Next year, price indication will be controlled in barbershops, hairdressing salons and beauty salons,” we can read.
The Price Indication Ordinance states, for example, that “quotations, price lists, catalogs, etc. must be easily accessible and readable. And:
“The indication must indicate to what type and unit of service or to what billing rates the price relates”
The price indication ordinance
In barbershops, price indication should be the least of your worries. Low prices, often 25 francs for a haircut or 15 francs for a beard shave, are generally displayed large outside the store.
Question to Seco: Are prices that clearly do not cover costs also contested or questioned in the context of undeclared work or other crimes? Are checks carried out in collaboration with other authorities, for example with customs for counterfeits or with the competent authorities for migration? For example, do we check whether staff have the necessary training – which sometimes poses a problem in the cosmetics sector?
Seco spokesperson Fabian Maienfisch responds: “This campaign is exclusively about prices.” The issues raised by the investigation will be “examined in another context and on the basis of other laws”.
One of them, who has been relying successfully and exemplarily on network checks, i.e. simultaneous checks with all relevant authorities, for years, is the head of the foreigners police. Bernese Alexander Ott. He describes these controls as “pariter”. Named after the Latin adverb, because they are carried out simultaneously and in the same way by different authorities. Asked whether the Confederation’s approach, which only wants to control the indication of prices, brings anything, he answers:
“This is a typical response from the federal administration”
Sensitivity increases throughout Switzerland
But at least the Confederacy’s Barbershop Offensive shows things are moving. And Alexander Ott sees progress overall. The important thing is that the Confederation is active. And:
“More and more authorities are interested in our controls of the Pariter network. I consider this a great success. In addition, AOST and ASM will launch an awareness campaign on this theme next year.”
The AOST is the Association of Swiss Labor Offices, while the ASM is the specialized association of cantonal and municipal migration authorities.
This involves, among other things, raising awareness among labor market inspectors. So that they can even better identify the indicators which reveal situations of exploitation.
This year, Seco’s annual inspection campaign was dedicated to food stores. According to Seco, the vast majority of the 2,505 establishments inspected indicated the prices correctly.
The cantonal enforcement bodies are said to have imposed a total of 18 administrative fines and filed 12 criminal complaints against companies which had not indicated prices correctly despite the discovery of deficiencies.
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Translated and adapted by Chiara Lecca
