Grocery store prices are changing faster than ever before — literally. This month, Walmart became the latest retailer to announce it’s replacing the price stickers in its aisles with electronic shelf labels. The new labels allow employees to change prices as often as every ten seconds.
“If it’s hot outside, we can raise the price of water and ice cream. If there’s something that’s close to the expiration date, we can lower the price — that’s the good news,” said Phil Lempert, a grocery industry analyst.
If it’s hot outside, we can raise the price of water and ice cream.
Exploiting human suffering for profit. We will all burn with a smile on our faces and a semi-cold water for the price of a small car in our hands.
Semi-cold? That’s extra, you’ll be lucky to afford it. The affordable water been sitting out on the pavement for a few weeks.
All companies that plan to have dynamic pricing, please let me know.
I’ve already stopped going to Wendy’s; I’d love to add you to the list of places never to patron again.
if you hsve a list I would love it if you cpuld share it with me
I have no actual list outside my head.
atm, Wendy’s because of their plan for dynamic pricing based on how busy they are, and ‘my local KFC’, because in 2017 I had to wait 50 minutes for my order (for 2), and they gave away the last of something I ordered to someone who came in like half an hour later, and they weren’t going to be making more. (that and KFC is way over priced for their standard menu if you aren’t getting some kind of ‘deal’)
This is news? I have seen those labels here in Sweden a lot already. Just no idea if they do those scummy on the fly price changes.
Best Buy has them too, here in the US. Its nothing new. This analyst making these comments about the price increases is just full of shit and trying to get his name out there or something.
Checks out with being an analyst I guess.
I’m quite sure such on the fly price changes are illegal. At least here in Denmark.
Same here in New Zealand. Had them around for a while but never heard about flexible prices like this (other than items on sale of course)
Loblaws has had this for a while, we no longer shop thete, but it was frustrating because an item would fluctuate in price depending in what day you went. No way to budget for random pricing
To be fair to Loblaws, I’ve never seen them change prices with these mid-day, so they’re not emerged in “surge pricing” that I’ve heard of. (I haven’t been to Loblaws since the start of the boycott, but I don’t expect it’s changed.)
But I do wonder about the legality of that; right now, if the price at the till doesn’t match the item price, you get the first one free and the rest at the marked price (up to $10 items; above that it’s $10 off the marked price for the first item). But my impression is that policy is from Loblaws signing some sort of grocery code ages ago when scanners came in, essentially to assure consumers that they wouldn’t be scammed by scanners ringing up items at higher prices than advertised. I don’t think that is legally mandated.
So, then, what happens if the price changes between when you put it in your cart and when you arrive at the till? Anyone engaging in surge pricing where the timing isn’t clearly marked in advance is going to get into a lot of trouble with consumer backlash, at the very least, but I hope it’s illegal, too.
Isn’t the real use case just so they don’t have to waste staff time changing labels manually when stock changes or moves?
It seems like they want people to shoplift.
They’re already widely adopted in supermarkets here (Germany).
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This month, Walmart became the latest retailer to announce it’s replacing the price stickers in its aisles with electronic shelf labels.
If there’s something that’s close to the expiration date, we can lower the price — that’s the good news,” said Phil Lempert, a grocery industry analyst.
Companies across industries have caused controversy with talk of implementing surge pricing, with fast-food restaurant Wendy’s making headlines most recently.
The ability to easily change prices wasn’t mentioned in Walmart’s announcement that 2,300 stores will have the digitized shelf labels by 2026.
Walmart’s not the first major grocer to make the change, as you can already find electronic shelf labels at Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh stores, and the Midwestern chain Schnucks.
While the labels give retailers the ability to increase prices suddenly, Gallino doubts companies like Walmart will take advantage of the technology in that way.
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