Central Europe shoppers still shell-shocked

Bargain hunting: A worker attending to a customer inside a furniture store in Prague. The Czech goverment has already cut its growth forecast for 2024. — Reuters

WHEN a US$500 Electrolux oven briefly went on sale for 1% of its list price in Hungary last week, within hours shoppers flooded the online store with thousands of orders.

But what looked like the bargain of the century turned out to be a technical glitch. The customers had no realistic chance to score such an improbable bargain and neither could the Swedish home appliance group count on such exuberant demand.