Water prices at ETC raise concerns of illegal price gouging

Ahead of a potentially devastating winter storm, EveryThingConvenience (ETC) at the University of Richmond began selling cases of Aquafina water for nearly $20, raising questions about price gouging after Gov. Abigail Spanberger declared a state of emergency. 

The price generated criticism from some students, like first-year George Carlton-Ridenour, who said that charging high prices for water impacts students who can’t leave campus. 

“We can’t really go anywhere, we don’t have cars,” Carlton-Ridenour said. “Freshmen like us, you either pay $20 for water or maybe not have anything to drink.”

This weekend’s storm is expected to dump a mix of snow and ice on Richmond, causing customers to rush to grocery stores buying out aisles of water and emergency supplies. Ahead of the winter weather, Spanberger declared a state of emergency on Thursday, triggering Virginia’s anti-price gouging law, which protects items like water, ice, emergency supplies and food from being sold at “unconscionable” prices. 

The law is intended to protect consumers from predatory price increases that sometimes occur during natural disasters. 

According to the Virginia Attorney General’s office, the basic test to determine price gouging is whether the post-disaster price of a product grossly exceeds the cost of the same or similar goods by the same supplier or those in the same trade area. 

In January 2025, a Henrico County convenience store faced allegations of price gouging 24-packs of bottled water after selling them for $20, hiking up the water’s previous price in response to a state of emergency and city-wide water crisis.

While they were not sold in cases prior, ETC began selling packs of 24 Aquafina water bottles for $19.99 on Friday, just a day after Spanberger declared a state of emergency in Virginia. 

Nearby national stores like Target, Walgreens and Walmart sell similarly-sized cases of Aquafina ranging from around $5 to $7. 

According to UR Senior Director of Media Relations and Strategic Communications Sunni Brown, the 24-pack Aquafina is not usually sold at ETC. Dining Services opted to sell full cases after seeing students purchasing large numbers of individual water bottles, Brown wrote in an email to the Collegian.

UR does not have the same “buying power” as national and global corporations, according to Brown, and is therefore unable to match the prices of national stores. 

ETC’s water price was still far higher than those at nearby, non-national stores. Libbie Market, a locally-owned grocery store 1.5 miles away from campus, sells a 24-pack of Deer Park water for $6.29. 

According to Brown, ETC sells individual Aquafina bottles for $2.09 and the $19.99 cases are “significantly lower than the standard retail margins and is a competitive price for this product.”

Carlton-Ridenour said that he believes that ETC could be price gouging. 

“I’m not a lawyer,” Carlton-Ridenour said. “But I don’t think you could see it any other way.”

Senior and ETC employee Sabrina Ferrer said she didn’t think ETC’s prices constituted price gouging. Ferrer said that if the 24 waters were rung up individually, it would cost nearly $45 for the pack. 

Ferrer said that many students are using dining dollars to pay for water. 

“That's the only way that the university gets away with, like, the pricing,” she said, adding that students view dining dollars like paying with “monopoly money.”

While many students do use dining dollars to make purchases, ETC also accepts cash, debit and credit cards. Before tax, prices don’t change depending on the payment method. 

By Friday night, ETC’s display of $19.99 cases of water was sold out. By Saturday afternoon, the pallet previously holding 24-packs of Aquafina water was no longer there. 

According to the Virginia Attorney General’s Office, consumers who suspect that they are victims of price gouging can call the Consumer Protection Hotline at (800)-552-9963 or submit an online complaint form. 

It is not clear if anyone made a complaint to the attorney general’s office about ETC’s water prices. 

Contact writer Nick Mossman at nick.mossman@richmond.edu

Writer Andrea Padilla at andrea.padilla@richmond.edu contributed to reporting.