Like anyone else, I am finding the cost of living going up on a weekly basis it seems, yet even so, the price gouging chorus is a bit much.

Many businesses struggle to make ends meet these days and intentionally "gouging" their clients serves no useful purpose, other than hastening their demise.

Suggesting the price of a watermelon is too high (or whatever the item) without the knowledge of the cost price, shipping costs, taxes, percentage of spoilage and much more, is not useful. And calling on price control will only make matters worse.

Price control on one item forces a higher mark up on uncontrolled goods to help keep the business profitable. It's a useless public policy.

Banks have margin statistics for most business types for reference (profit as a percentage of sales etc), at least CIBC had something when I worked there, and businesses here had similar stats, which would not indicate price gouging to me.

If you are inclined to comment, would you indicate what percentage of profit on total sales you think is reasonable for a business to make. i.e. 3%. 5%. 10% or 25%.

Intentionally pricing a good to put it out of reach of the consumer is counterproductive for any business. It forces the client to buy elsewhere. Then what?

As the photo suggests, there is tremendous risk associated with business and sometimes you make a profit and other times you don't. Intentionally ripping clients off is simply dumb business.