{
  "abstract": "BackgroundOnline supermarket price comparisons can change when products are assessed by displayed pack price rather than a common quantity denominator.MethodsThis cross-sectional digital food-environment audit examined seven anonymized supermarkets’ official e-commerce websites serving Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The category-level dataset comprised 241 rows representing 24,521 displayed items. A purposively constructed item-level subset preserved coverage across major food and beverage groups; 505 records were reviewed, 503 had a visible price, and 489 had complete and internally consistent price and package-size information for verified conversion to SAR/100 g or SAR/100 mL. The same 489 records were used to summarize pack price, package size, and standardized unit price by healthfulness. Secondary log-linear regressions used HC3 robust standard errors.ResultsNutrient-poor categories had a lower item-count-weighted mean displayed pack price than nutrient-dense categories (14.62 vs. 18.30 SAR), although category medians were similar. Within the same item-level sample, nutrient-poor solids had a lower median pack price (11.63 vs. 12.95 SAR), a smaller median package size (150 vs. 520 g), and a higher median standardized price (7.75 vs. 2.49 SAR/100 g) than nutrient-dense solids. Nutrient-poor liquids showed the same descriptive pattern (4.93 vs. 8.50 SAR/pack; 250 vs. 1,000 mL; 1.97 vs. 0.85 SAR/100 mL). In adjusted models, nutrient-poor categories did not show a clear difference in displayed pack price relative to nutrient-dense categories (−4.3%; 95% CI, −21.8 to 17.2%; p = 0.673), whereas nutrient-poor solid items had a higher standardized unit price (+157.3%; 95% CI, 76.5 to 274.9%; p < 0.001).ConclusionPack price and standardized unit price provide complementary views of digital retail prices. In this Riyadh snapshot, smaller typical package sizes among nutrient-poor items accompanied lower pack prices but higher prices per standardized quantity. These findings concern price measurement and monitoring and do not establish affordability, purchasing, or annual market effects.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": "Original Research",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 1,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Khalid A. Aldubayan"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/3bcz76etnbyhx.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.3389/fpubh.2026.1970439",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "3bcz76etnbyhx",
  "issns": [
    "2296-2565"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1970439",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "feed-journal",
      "medicine/epidemiology-public-health"
    ]
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  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": null,
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-11-02",
  "publisher": "Frontiers Media SA",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/3bcz76etnbyhx.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-02T12:20:49Z",
      "native_id": "10.3389/fpubh.2026.1970439",
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      "first_seen": "2026-11-02T12:24:15Z",
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  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "medicine",
      "origin": "feed-journal:medicine/epidemiology-public-health",
      "subfield": "epidemiology-public-health"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Displayed pack prices versus standardized unit prices in Riyadh online supermarkets: implications for public health price monitoring",
  "title_text": "Displayed pack prices versus standardized unit prices in Riyadh online supermarkets: implications for public health price monitoring",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-04T00:27:11Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/3bcz76etnbyhx",
  "venue": "Frontiers in Public Health",
  "versions": []
}