... an average it came down by 0.78% in the past four years (19999-2002) and again showed and upward trend in the year 2003. If we look at the figures of Sainsbury for the same years we notice a wide difference in the GPM figures. It falls down by around 16% in the year 2000 reaching 6.58% from the earlier figure of 8.01%. It showed an upward trend in the next year and has been increasing since then. This variation in the ratio may reveal under pricing of sales, poor buying decisions or the general effect of increasing competition in the companies trade. As we have seen that there is not much variation visible in the GNP of Tesco it can be assumed that Tesco is steadily passing on the cost increase to its customers while Sainsbury has to some extent failed to react rapidly to this increase. One can argue ...

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