Should rebates be banned?

I’ll start with a fact – the vast majority of UK consumers do their grocery shopping at the big supermarkets. According to Wikipedia, the “Big Four” (Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons) had a combined share of 75.6% of the UK grocery market in the 12 weeks ending 1 November 2009. There are a number of reasons for this popularity, including the wide choice and availability of stock, convenient opening hours and locations and, of course, great value for money. The sheer size of the big supermarkets gives them buying power that in turn allows them to provide real value for money and ...