Was just reading an article about how supermarkets etc can possibly sell dvd players for £9 and other goods both food, clothing and electronics below cost.

These items are called loss leaders and are used to pull people into shops so that they'll spend more once they are in there.

Items that are commonly used as loss leaders are:
 - Milk
 - Bread
 - Electronics such as Small Domestic Appliances (SDAs) which look heavily discounted.
 - Some entry level food products (Value, SmartPrice etc)
 - £3 jeans
 - Petrol

A few years ago Wal-Mart in Germany (now closed) got themselves into a lot of trouble for selling items below their cost price because there loss leaders are illegal.

Good, I'm glad! They are highly anti-competetive and unethical in a market where the big 3 already weild too much power.

I used to work for one of them so know exactly where to find most of these loss leaders, won't take long for you either, just lok at items where other retailers can't even come close to matching the price.

"But by having the items at this price means that I save a lot of money on my shop." said one person to me a few weeks ago.

No it won't, there are one of two places that they will get this money back, either raising the margin on other popular items to sub it, and/or screw the suppliers even further.

There is a reason that loss leaders are illegal in Germany, why are they staying one step ahead? And, more importantly, why are we allowing our industry and small business be driven into the ground by this most anti-competetive of practices?