Walmart switching to electronic price tags that can change every 10 seconds

The dystopian future this is leading to is clear: personalized pricing. So, you're upper middle class (*)? Well, surely, you don't mind paying a little more for your groceries.

(*) Thanks for bringing your smart phone with you, and thanks to FAANG to provide us with the necessary information about you.

The big chains that do this in Europe are very clear that prices never go up during the day, and generally everything bulk updates at night. Baked goods get cheaper towards the end of the day, for example. The linked Planet Money episode in the article covers it nicely.

But sure, once you enable the capability, it won't be long before we are living in the inevitable grim meathook future.

Is the price frozen once you put it in your cart? Or can you end up with a completely different priced cart by the time you make it to the register?

>“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,”

Making price changes easier for workers is cool, but can we not have surge pricing for some things? This is getting ridiculous.

What’s the reason this hasn’t happened everywhere yet in the US when it’s common in (the usual parts of) Europe? Less volatile prices? Cheaper labor that can run around changing the shelf labels? Or something else (inertia)?

I really really don't see prices changing more than before the store opens. Anything beyond that just opens up a lot of trouble with the price changing between when you pickup the item and when you checkout.

It just feels like a lawsuit waiting to happen for minor at best gains.

Outside of that, I am surprised we have not seen this more places yet. It feels like this has been showing up at random stores for years and make a lot of sense.

Second hand electronic shelf labels are a lot of fun to tinker with as well.

Check out OpenEPaperLink if it’s something you’re curious about: https://github.com/OpenEPaperLink/OpenEPaperLink

States will need to update their consumer protection laws to account for the electronic tags if they're used for prices changes while the store is open. When I worked in the industry, price changes were done overnight when the store was closed. Tags were organized into tear apart sheets by area and aisle. Price increase tags were first on the sheet and decreases last. The pricing managers were instructed to always post the increases first and if they weren't going to be able to get all the changes done before the store opened, to do all the increases for all areas and aisles before doubling back to the do the decreases. The reason was to avoid customers ever getting a higher price at the register than what was marked on the shelf.

The biggest problem wasn't shelf tags, it was sales items on end caps and special displays. Sometimes those signs would get missed and the wrong price would linger until someone complained. Since those displays often were built and stocked by third party vendors, the pricing manager wasn't always aware of their locations or required changes in signage.

I'm a bit astonished by my current state Michigan having such poor enforcement on pricing. I've lived in states in the deep south and on the west coast and they all had pricing laws that were enforced. I've seen entire convenience stores here with no price tags at all and even national retail chains like Kroger are sloppy with their pricing and signage. To me that's a sign that the state government isn't enforcing the rules or the rules are weak. At the very least there should be abundant price check scanners scattered throughout the stores that customers can use.

Way too much moral panic.

Having prices adjust regularly is a good thing. The status quo is that stores err on the side of setting prices too high.

> They can actually be used where you take your mobile device and you scan it and it can give you more information about the product — whether it’s the sourcing of the product, whether it’s gluten free, whether it’s keto friendly.

This is the more important part to me. I've long been proponent of far stricter and more comprehensive labelling rules, especially for foods. This won't make those weak laws any better, and the corporations that sell us food will continue to fight tooth and nail to deny us more information about what they'd have us put in our body. But having a common interface to get more info to consumers is better than the constraints of physical labelling and might at least expand that conversation and get consumers wanting more.

> They can actually be used where you take your mobile device and you scan it and it can give you more information about the product

Another avenue to track/identify your customers, if you scan and load a QR code they can loop you into the existing web tracking/advertising systems

If a very wealthy person passes by our products, the price will instantly double…

Neah, I am only daydreaming.

If I know that the guy who came to the same supermarket as me got his water cheaper just because he got there ten minutes earlier, how much do you think I feel like shopping at that place?

“If it’s hot outside, we can raise the price of water”

I’m not an expert but it’s this price gouging? I guess it depends on your definition of reasonable. I don’t find it reasonable to raise the price on a lifesaving necessity right when it’s needed. Let’s all file FTC complaints and see what their investigation finds.

I'm not surprised this is still new in the USA, considering Americans are still apparently cutting out paper coupons?? But these labels have been in shops here in New Zealand for years now.

Is there not a law or regulation that prevents a retailer, such as a grocer, from changing their prices so rapidly? It seems.. very dystopian, and unfriendly.

WTF? Electric shelf labels have been a thing in Europe for at least ten years. Prices don't change, though.

Let’s say they do alter the price based upon demand (which it sounds like they won’t do at a granular scale like the other commentators are suggesting). It will punish customers who come later, but reward early customers who buy in bulk. Imagine scalping ice cream in a parking lot on a hot day! But seriously, i would like to see non linear scaling of prices for people who buy a lot at once, for scarce items. Everybody gets a little seems like a more moral way to handle scarcity, but Walmarts new pricing system won’t handle this. Oh well. Overall though still a fun development.

Most Walmarts that I've come across at least have other stores nearby. I can't help but wonder how these will impact poorer, rural areas where Dollar General is king.

DG already has already faced lawsuits related to their advertised pricing vs price at the register. Surge pricing in a food desert sounds like a Late Stage Capitalism wet dream.

Nothing really wrong with this. Constantly changing prices means a great deal of busywork and stores constantly have the wrong prices posted the way things are now.

I'm not going to argue for the virtue of updating prices for products by hand out of FUD over surge pricing or the like. If people are really upset about it we can legislate that prices can't be changed more frequently than weekly.

Now we're going to get the horrible "surge pricing" in the grocery store? At least it's just walmart for now. I don't shop there so I can escape this for the time being.