&quot;Overcharging&quot; compared to what? If you mean, compared to other stores selling the same product at the same time, consumers have access to the same information that this study did. If it&#x27;s worth it to them to seek out a better deal, they have the information to do so. If they decide it&#x27;s not worth it to them, how is that the store&#x27;s fault?<p>What you are calling &quot;overcharging&quot; is actually just the free market at work. Stores vary prices in order to find out what the best price for them to charge is--&quot;best&quot; meaning the price that maximizes their profit. Customers evaluate prices in order to find out what the best price for them to pay is--&quot;best&quot; meaning the price that maximizes their benefit from the purchase--the value of the item to them minus the cost. But &quot;cost&quot; includeds the time and effort spent price searching, and different people place different values on their time and effort relative to other things.<p>So in a free market, you should <i>expect</i> to see different prices for the same product at the same time at different stores, because they are selling to different customers with different relative priorities. It would be a lot <i>more</i> suspicious to see the same item sold for exactly the same price at every store--that would mean the market is not a free market any more.