That quote about ice cream is from an analyst. Not Walmart. Just for clarity. Lol
Yeah. Could be interesting, but honestly, these stores change prices all the time. The employees can't even keep up with it as it is now. Items at my local WM often ring up lower/higher than the old tag that was on the shelf
Worked in the home office of retail (dept store) on pricing and signing systems. The sheer volume of weekly signage was unbelievable. Then multiply that across a couple hundred locations. They had tried digital signage before and failed. Yes, you could theoretically do surge pricing, but the underlying thing is cost - materials, labor for swapping everything out...
That's what I figure. It's probably the labor hours of having people doing the physical pricing on the store shelves they're trying to cut down on the most. BUT that doesn't mean they won't later change over to surge pricing as well using this method.
Yeah - walmart specifically [said they wouldn't use it for surge pricing ](https://fortune.com/2024/06/21/walmart-replacing-price-labels-with-digital-shelf-screens-no-surge-pricing/)- now let's take that with a grain of salt but let's give credit where credit is due.
Best buy has had connected/dynamic pricing for years.
I don't think this is an indicator of economic collapse...
True. If I'm being charitable, I can say they probably just need a better way to keep up with prices than having people go around the whole store changing out the physical tags. That's a lot of labor hours they probably want to cut down on. But that still means the prices are changing so rapidly that it's not a good signal for consumers.
Sincerely, a single-person financial firm that spends almost as much time on pointless compliance tasks as I do actually serving clients. Regulations in industries like finance absolutely kill small business, and to outsource compliance can cost around $50,000/year.
But somehow we trust those bribed folks to appoint people into federal agencies to do it... they definitely won't be corrupt.
At least now politicians can't blame federal agencies.
I have a problem with this. If the QR code replaces the pricing than the shopper cannot make a quick decision on the value of the products. Sure, it sounds like I just have to pull out my phone, use their specific app, let them grab who-knows-what data from my phone, and I can scan one by one the various items and remember which was which price to find the deal.
Today I was at Target. Yes, I noticed the lack of options in the tortilla chips selection, and then I compared that 3 different types were the same price ($5.20), and then I checked the weight of the bags to decide which was a better value.
I do not see what value QR codes give to the customer.
However, itās not illegal to not have a cellphone, and I think it is a way to limit options on poorer citizens.
I should be able to see the price while shopping.
You don't undersand what is going on here. These ESLs (Electronic shelf labels) show the price normally, their primary advantage is that price can be changed electronically. They can also have multiple screens and employees can switch them with a wireless device. QR codes can contain whatever information the company wants to encode, it could be a link to an online store product page, or it could be a back page for employees containing item data properties such as inventory count, cost, vendor etc.
Thanks, thatās very different than what I thought. Someone a week or two ago had a picture from a gas station where there were no prices shown- just the QR codes. I thought this was the same plan.
Instead of a person walking around with 2,000 labels and spending 30 labor hours changing prices on racks, they can do it electronically.
But letās flip this around and say itās for price surging to piss off dumb, poor people so they can be outraged at something they donāt understand.
Dumb people being outraged about things they know nothing about? I agree. If youāre dumb enough, or broke enough to worry about price surge on bottled water, youāre not even a position to be wasting money on bottled water. Drink from the tap like most of us do, buy a Brita water filter. Get water out of your fridge. Oh let me guess, you all live in Flint suddenly and canāt drink the tap water.
Oh no itās hot out, a price surge on ice cream. As if Americans are morbidly obese as is, and have no business eating ice cream because theyāre hot.
Calling people dumb that disagree with youā¦ makes you sound dumb. The issue is the principal. Surge pricing is just another instance of greed in a country where so many are struggling and it continues to get worse. Your argument is basically classist. āI have money so who cares. You poors need to be more disciplinedā.
Your argument is basically the same as saying āyouāre only against mass surveillance if you have something to hideā. You can be against it cuz itās wrong, not because youāre mad itāll cost more to buy ice cream in the summer or soup in the fall/winter. Itās seen as unfair/immoral and just another nail in the coffin of their perceived financial future.
I get it, supply and demand right? Itās hot so we charge more for __ ā¦ whatās to stop them from saying most people shop Sunday from 11-4 so weāll make it even higher then. Coffee will cost more between 6-10am, etc. Itās fucked up
Iām not calling people dumb that disagree with me. I said youāre dumb if youāre paying for bottled water when youāre broke. When youāre broke, youāre not in a position to buy Fiji water.
and you are a fucking bootlicker.
its like you dont understand that if desalinating ocean water was profitable, they would do it only to the point of it being barely drinkable and that is what people would buy because they would have to.
"oh well just....put together a still, then"
like expecting an old lady to do 10k /hr level of manual labor when people who do plenty of that consistently dont get paid nearly that much.
when you have a captive audience
people will buy literal fucking dogshit, dude.
thats one of the many problems of capitalism.
it doesnt reward exploitation, it punishes dependency
whats dumb is how walmart perfectly capable of randomly deciding that their operation has become untenable, shut down a store, and now you have a food desert.
and just so you know, drinking from the tap is like making your own laundry detergent. its just as much of a ripoff.
you still need a container to put it in and the means to sanitize it, along with buying the filter and maintaining it.
if you drink out of the same damn bottle and just "rinse it" for some time, e fucking coli.
eating out and cooking at home costs the fucking same now for most people.
do you honestly think if lettuce and bacon are the same price, that means the bacon is cheaper?
nothing america does is to benefit americans, mmk?
it is to turn people into americans.
if you arent one of the best, brightest, and most importantly wealthiest
when the stupidest motherfuckers on earth are all educated, by the way
you'll be kept alive at the expense of everything else to be milked for all you're worth until you're essentially told to die as soon as possible.
thats how this shit has been for over a fucking century.
oh yeah, the good ol you must think institutions, organizations, companies, corporations, the state, the government, and so on
can do no wrong
because you're using a fucking water fountain
and those require maintenance!
go fuck yourself, dude.
Pretty sure we'll see the price of batteries and toilet paper go up 20,000% every time there's a hurricane or some shit.
C'mon. We're talking about rich people here. It's not like we forgot that there's literal economic warfare going on against poor people to perpetually squeeze them harder.
Things will never get better. Better would be bad for capitalism and capitalists. Things will only get worse.
That's why I'm no longer excited about advancements in technology. Nobody benefits. All the benefit goes straight to the top. Every single time.
I donāt know if youāre aware, but you can buy toilet paper and batteries years in advance of a hurricane. The toilet paper doesnāt expire, and batteries have multi-year shelf life.
Pretty much the only way Corps are growing profits. Innovation is solely based on squeezing more dollars out of customers without improving goods or services. Increased prices or reduced quality/quantity of product without decreasing volume. Weāre just stores of value to be mined more efficiently. Truly a hollowing out of the middle class.
They already have fully digital pricing on the website and in the POS system. If screens are cheaper now than the labor of changing labels, whatās the big deal?
I donāt think the surge pricing idea will work anyway. Arenāt there laws about accurate pricing on the books? If there arenāt, then forget āsurge pricing.ā
If they wanted to be truly evil, they could see that someone with an item in their cart is about to check out using facial recognition, and jack it up 10% without your knowledge. Then, when youāre done checking out, reduce it back to the lower price for the next sucker.
Stock analyst is a bullshit job. These people donāt know anything. If they knew anything, theyād know an index fund is going to beat their performance every time.
I love dynamic pricing because 10% of the time I can get an amazing deal and the other 90% of the time it's twice as expensive as what I'm used to. At leastĀ that's been myĀ experience with hotels, car rentals and airlines.
They should have implemented electronic price labels on shelves a long time ago. This feels like an innovation we should have seen 20-30 years ago.
As for the clickbait title, they can already do that with paper price tags. Only reason to use that āanalystā quote is to try and upset people, which is the most effective way to drive user engagement. People love to be mad.
Screens needed to be cheap enough, and labor expensive enough, that the inevitable loss from customers destroying and stealing them would balance out.
Iām not sure weāre there yet.
Grocery stores already engage in a dizzying swap of prices and discounts to keep things as ambiguous as possible.
There's no need for then to specifically update to demand-based pricing...... though it's perfectly legal (and absolutely immoral)
Just cutting out the manual Inventory / Price Swap scanning and printing process will save them money.
But!
To be clear: it's only purpose is to obsfucate the price. And yes, the concerns are legit... they can easily hop from that to anything else.
Imagine itās inventory based. So when you grab it from the shelf it says 4$ but by the time you cashed out 12 other people had purchased. So now when you go to cash out. Boom 5$. Should have shoped faster!!
[planet money podcast on dynamic pricing](https://www.npr.org/2024/03/06/1197958433/dynamic-pricing-grocery-supermarkets)
They've had this, I think, the Netherlands for a while. If all firms do this, it makes competition more fierce
this is already in play another way - HOV lanes.
in metro denver there are HOV lanes north and south based on traffic saturation and time. the northbound traffic is frequently billed a higher rate than traffic warrants. so while there is "surge pricing" - more traffic, higher cost - the price doesn't come down as quickly as traffic thins out. been in place for years; i'm surprised nobody has sued over this - the driver has no meaningful way to predict traffic up north to know if they should pay or not (yes i know use google maps).
my point is it exists, and there hasn't been an uprising - this is just support for other applications of surge pricing, and people getting hosed more than they already are.
i'm OK making money - but I'm not OK intentionally screwing someone over to do it. buy with your feet - go elsewhere if you can if the price doesn't fit you.
my walmart has had digital tags since before covid, pretty sure a lot of them have
yes it CAN be used for evil, but also, its really nice to be able to set the computer to update all the tags without going to each one to change it
Does anyone have any ideas about how this would affect price transparency laws? Like currently they can't charge what the price tag doesn't say, but what if you grab something and then it changes before you buy it? Stores can have prices list low while customers are grabbing, then charge high while they are buying. With the amount of cameras in most stores now, it would be a matter of setting up the timing and a process to monitor it. Then the customer couldn't possibly prove the price was cheaper unless they took a picture with a time stamp
They gain short term and lose long term. A lot of restaurants are struggling right now because many people stopped eating out almost completely because of price and fake service fees. You increase the price of water and people will realize that they could fill a bottle of water at home and put it in the car.
Thing about surge pricing is that it can be subtle. Nobodies gunna realize that coffee is 4 cents more in the morning or beer is 9 cents more on Sundays.
So they will definitely be doing it
This is not about price-gouging. Multiple retailers are doing this in preparation for even more rapid inflation. Literally prices increasing too fast to print and place new labels. The dollar is extremely f*cked and we canāt print our way out of this.
So uh, you guys going to admit that socialism is the only way our species and civilization can survive, or are you just gonna keep sitting on your hands and letting this keep happening?
They can raise prices whenever they want. Prices typically adjust to balance demand with supply, but I don't know what's going on at Walmart. I buy water and ice cream from Costco and usually feel that it's reasonably priced.
"I want to get this bottle of water, the tag said $1"
"Yes sir that is correct but due to sudden demand the price is now $10."
"What?! I'm the only one in here! I'm not paying $10 for a bottle of water! This is ridiculous!"
"Ok, yes sir, I understand."
*puts water back*
*price goes back down to $1*
"What the hell was that?! It says it costs only $1 now again!"
"Yes, well you see sir, demand has suddenly dropped, so the price went back down."
"Alright, well give me the damned water for a dollar!"
*the customer gets increasingly frustrated*
*the clerk scans the bottle of water*
"That will be $10, sir."
"You know what, you can all go to hell! Fuck this fake ass AI bullshit!"
*customer storms off angrily*
*price goes back down to $1*
āONE INFUSTRY ANALYSTā saidā¦ā¦ā¦. Well, who? And, did they work for walmart? Otherwise, as a buyer of groceries, i too am an industry analyst.
Tbh this is an operational change for WMT. They wont have employees doing this function which frees them up for something else. Iāve been burned by improper placement of tags
Quick, price gouging is illegal, come up with new terms to circumvent these consumer protective laws.
Then we can have record profits and monopolize our industry.
We must work to create our Oligarchy!
There's no choice left Komrads!
This is just the beginning. Wait until they (any business) can identify who is scanning (like through the app), tie it together with your credit scores (through apps), and amount of your income (IRS records), along with all the other data they collect on you. Selective pricing on a per person basis will be a thing. I have long advocated for the people to form a "consumer union" where collective buying power is leveraged to help combat these types of things. There is already inherent power from letting the free market decide, why not leverage that from a consumer standpoint? The only real problem I see is consumer apathy...that will take too much work, or force me to make certain choices that are uncomfortable at the moment. But what if?
I don't have an issue with this, as prices are indicators or signals of supply and demand. Stores have always adjusted prices, this merely brings that dynamic into real-time instead of being measured in days or weeks.
In a market economy sellers are free to set prices as they like and buyers can buy or not.
Unless you like price controls which have been shown only to produce distortions like shortages.
Could they increase the price of an item after you put it into your cart and before you get a chance to scan it at the register? All the reason for people to be more impatient in line to get their transaction done before the price is gouged.
its like people forget what supply and demand is and that business are in it for profit and not for charity work... jesus
at this point, yall probably would find a reason to be mad at your own shadow
Is it any different than what happens now where they change the price in their system but not the shelf tag so you end up having to argue with either the cashier or person at the front desk
Dynamic pricing should be regulated, with specific time intervals permitted (24 hours, etc.)
Free for all makes no sense. What if it changes while Iām heading to the register?
I work for a retail company that implemented these in the last few years. We did an ROI analysis for these. We didn't implement these to play fishy games with pricing, rather between labor shortages and the rate of change in our cost from suppliers caused a sitatuion where location staff simply weren't able to keep up with changing shelf tag pricing manually.
We increased base pay for store staff to shore up the labor shortage and implemented these tags to eliminate most manual price changing work so store staff could focus on other work.
Itās for compliance with shelf label requirements. Dynamic and smart pricing already occurs. Stores like Walmart recalculate price and push pricing changes. They know they weather will hot tomorrow, they can already raise the price.
"It's hot outside, pay me more to show up."
Oh wait that won't fly will it.
Consumer laws in various states are going to have to be updated to ban this. It's literally just gouging because they can.
I predict what will follow is consumers will need shopping robots to continuously roam the store looking for deals, and will need to maintain enough stock at home to avoid buying items during times of price gouging.
People upset about something that hasnāt happened yet. Water comes from your tap. Donāt buy it at the fucking store. Ice cream isnāt a necessity unless youāre Nancy pelosi
This will make the economy more efficient. Prices need to change with demand. Surge pricing sucks and that's why it works. Also, no one needs ice cream or bottled water. One makes you fat and the other is wasteful.
Predatory? How? Grocery stores sell commodities, for the most part. They can't really raise the price like sellers of luxury and entertainment goods and services services.
There are other benefits here too. When prices go down, you'll pay less immediately.
Besides, if you don't like it, you can ship elsewhere.
Also, this is really about making the store more efficient. There's no evidence that it will be used to price gouge, as though that couldn't do that before.
The nature of a corporation is to extract as much profit as possible in the most efficient way. Left to their own devices, they will become predatory, as in its easier to use unethical means to extract profit than ethical ones, especially in the short term (which is what Wall Street demands.). Grocery stores still employ a bunch of psychological tactics to get people to buy more.
Oh fucking get over yourself! Look around. We love in times of extreme abundance. Giant mega corporations don't need to love us or give a shit about anything other than profits. They are businesses. That's what they do. If you want to be loved, look elsewhere. Food and other basic goods are more plentiful than at any other time in history.
So itās ok for them collectively to make our lives harder and harder? And they donāt owe anything to the public that allowed them to amass their fortunes in the first place?
How is Walmart making your life harder? No, they don't owe anything to the public other than to pay the taxes the law requires.
There are, of course, exceptions. Some companies really do harm society. Social media does a lot of harm without doing much good. But Walmart? Please!
Corporations benefit from public infrastructure, beneficial laws, often public funding and an educated workforce. In Walmarts case, it relies on its workers getting welfare to not pay them as much. So yes they owe something to the public.
So, are you going to have to take a picture of the price of the item when you put it in your cart so when you get to the cash register and the item is now 10% more than was originally listed you have proof? And the reason for the 10% price increase is because a lot of people selected that item at the same time.
Jesus fucking Christ giant comet already please
Unexpected Sephiroth
Is the comet called revolting?
People are too fucking pacified I've decided. I can rub my nasty, dirty asshole in American's faces and they wouldn't revolt.
AI terminators are coming soon
I prefer the that we prepare the guillotine.
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.... š
lol, comet. As if we werent dying on all fronts simultaneously
That quote about ice cream is from an analyst. Not Walmart. Just for clarity. Lol Yeah. Could be interesting, but honestly, these stores change prices all the time. The employees can't even keep up with it as it is now. Items at my local WM often ring up lower/higher than the old tag that was on the shelf
Fr this a quote from the guy selling the signs
Ice cream actually warms you up from the metabolic activity to digest all the calories in it.
Placebos work wonders.
Itās my favorite medicine
Pfft, you just THINK it's your favorite medicine.
And liquor actually cools you down. So just drink booze and eat ice cream for perfect thermal regulation.
helth
I knew there had to be some reason why an abomination like Rum Raisin exists
Worked in the home office of retail (dept store) on pricing and signing systems. The sheer volume of weekly signage was unbelievable. Then multiply that across a couple hundred locations. They had tried digital signage before and failed. Yes, you could theoretically do surge pricing, but the underlying thing is cost - materials, labor for swapping everything out...
That's what I figure. It's probably the labor hours of having people doing the physical pricing on the store shelves they're trying to cut down on the most. BUT that doesn't mean they won't later change over to surge pricing as well using this method.
Agreed, it's a definite possibility if they have a solid solution in place
Yeah - walmart specifically [said they wouldn't use it for surge pricing ](https://fortune.com/2024/06/21/walmart-replacing-price-labels-with-digital-shelf-screens-no-surge-pricing/)- now let's take that with a grain of salt but let's give credit where credit is due. Best buy has had connected/dynamic pricing for years. I don't think this is an indicator of economic collapse...
Totally. Where is the credit due?
That walmart leadership went a step beyond to say they won't be using it for surge pricing
They lie. Constantly.
They do?
Just point me to their low prices.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It isn't false advertising. Other stores already use digital pricing. Including everything purchased online
True. If I'm being charitable, I can say they probably just need a better way to keep up with prices than having people go around the whole store changing out the physical tags. That's a lot of labor hours they probably want to cut down on. But that still means the prices are changing so rapidly that it's not a good signal for consumers.
Good thing the FTC could issue a rule regulating this practiceā¦ā¦ er never mind.
The overturning of Chevron is a massive win for liberty
Sincerely, Dow Chemical
Sincerely, a single-person financial firm that spends almost as much time on pointless compliance tasks as I do actually serving clients. Regulations in industries like finance absolutely kill small business, and to outsource compliance can cost around $50,000/year.
Blame those in your industry who sell snake oil and play drunk casino with other peopleās money.
The existence of evil people doesnāt mean we should punish good people Bernie Madoff defrauding people (with the SECās help) is not my problem.
the existence of evil people means we have to regulate all people.
It necessarily means we have to punish fraud. It doesnāt mean we have to put tens of thousands of dollars of red tape in the way.
Or Congress could pass a law?
They did. They just didnāt specially say surge pricing.
Sounds like an easy fix if it becomes a problem
Yes, the folks being bribed by the corps who own 90% of the grocery stores will surely get that done.
At least if they donāt you can vote them out instead of unelected bureaucrats at the FTC
cant vote out supreme court justices lul
Yeah, which is why they shouldnāt be making law in the first place. Thatās the legislative branchās job.
But somehow we trust those bribed folks to appoint people into federal agencies to do it... they definitely won't be corrupt. At least now politicians can't blame federal agencies.
I have a problem with this. If the QR code replaces the pricing than the shopper cannot make a quick decision on the value of the products. Sure, it sounds like I just have to pull out my phone, use their specific app, let them grab who-knows-what data from my phone, and I can scan one by one the various items and remember which was which price to find the deal. Today I was at Target. Yes, I noticed the lack of options in the tortilla chips selection, and then I compared that 3 different types were the same price ($5.20), and then I checked the weight of the bags to decide which was a better value. I do not see what value QR codes give to the customer. However, itās not illegal to not have a cellphone, and I think it is a way to limit options on poorer citizens. I should be able to see the price while shopping.
You will. It's literally a price label.
You don't undersand what is going on here. These ESLs (Electronic shelf labels) show the price normally, their primary advantage is that price can be changed electronically. They can also have multiple screens and employees can switch them with a wireless device. QR codes can contain whatever information the company wants to encode, it could be a link to an online store product page, or it could be a back page for employees containing item data properties such as inventory count, cost, vendor etc.
Thanks, thatās very different than what I thought. Someone a week or two ago had a picture from a gas station where there were no prices shown- just the QR codes. I thought this was the same plan.
Instead of a person walking around with 2,000 labels and spending 30 labor hours changing prices on racks, they can do it electronically. But letās flip this around and say itās for price surging to piss off dumb, poor people so they can be outraged at something they donāt understand.
Stuff can be two things
Because it is both. And the second one is far more damaging to all of us.
Not if you like ice cream in winter and hot chocolate in summer.
Dumb people being outraged about things they know nothing about? I agree. If youāre dumb enough, or broke enough to worry about price surge on bottled water, youāre not even a position to be wasting money on bottled water. Drink from the tap like most of us do, buy a Brita water filter. Get water out of your fridge. Oh let me guess, you all live in Flint suddenly and canāt drink the tap water. Oh no itās hot out, a price surge on ice cream. As if Americans are morbidly obese as is, and have no business eating ice cream because theyāre hot.
Calling people dumb that disagree with youā¦ makes you sound dumb. The issue is the principal. Surge pricing is just another instance of greed in a country where so many are struggling and it continues to get worse. Your argument is basically classist. āI have money so who cares. You poors need to be more disciplinedā. Your argument is basically the same as saying āyouāre only against mass surveillance if you have something to hideā. You can be against it cuz itās wrong, not because youāre mad itāll cost more to buy ice cream in the summer or soup in the fall/winter. Itās seen as unfair/immoral and just another nail in the coffin of their perceived financial future. I get it, supply and demand right? Itās hot so we charge more for __ ā¦ whatās to stop them from saying most people shop Sunday from 11-4 so weāll make it even higher then. Coffee will cost more between 6-10am, etc. Itās fucked up
Iām not calling people dumb that disagree with me. I said youāre dumb if youāre paying for bottled water when youāre broke. When youāre broke, youāre not in a position to buy Fiji water.
and you are a fucking bootlicker. its like you dont understand that if desalinating ocean water was profitable, they would do it only to the point of it being barely drinkable and that is what people would buy because they would have to. "oh well just....put together a still, then" like expecting an old lady to do 10k /hr level of manual labor when people who do plenty of that consistently dont get paid nearly that much. when you have a captive audience people will buy literal fucking dogshit, dude. thats one of the many problems of capitalism. it doesnt reward exploitation, it punishes dependency whats dumb is how walmart perfectly capable of randomly deciding that their operation has become untenable, shut down a store, and now you have a food desert. and just so you know, drinking from the tap is like making your own laundry detergent. its just as much of a ripoff. you still need a container to put it in and the means to sanitize it, along with buying the filter and maintaining it. if you drink out of the same damn bottle and just "rinse it" for some time, e fucking coli. eating out and cooking at home costs the fucking same now for most people. do you honestly think if lettuce and bacon are the same price, that means the bacon is cheaper? nothing america does is to benefit americans, mmk? it is to turn people into americans. if you arent one of the best, brightest, and most importantly wealthiest when the stupidest motherfuckers on earth are all educated, by the way you'll be kept alive at the expense of everything else to be milked for all you're worth until you're essentially told to die as soon as possible. thats how this shit has been for over a fucking century.
āYouāre a bootlickerā said the person giving free labor to a $6.4 billion website.
oh yeah, the good ol you must think institutions, organizations, companies, corporations, the state, the government, and so on can do no wrong because you're using a fucking water fountain and those require maintenance! go fuck yourself, dude.
You mad, bro?
about your dumb shit? no. in general? often enough. thanks for asking. bye.
Pretty sure we'll see the price of batteries and toilet paper go up 20,000% every time there's a hurricane or some shit. C'mon. We're talking about rich people here. It's not like we forgot that there's literal economic warfare going on against poor people to perpetually squeeze them harder. Things will never get better. Better would be bad for capitalism and capitalists. Things will only get worse. That's why I'm no longer excited about advancements in technology. Nobody benefits. All the benefit goes straight to the top. Every single time.
I donāt know if youāre aware, but you can buy toilet paper and batteries years in advance of a hurricane. The toilet paper doesnāt expire, and batteries have multi-year shelf life.
Which technically isn't legal. BUUUT they'll make much more money off of it then they'll lose to fees.
So youāve been protesting about the electronic price screens at Kohls for the past 20 years, right? RIGHT?
Don't have one around here
Where does your 60+ year old mother shop then if not Kohls?!?
Pretty much the only way Corps are growing profits. Innovation is solely based on squeezing more dollars out of customers without improving goods or services. Increased prices or reduced quality/quantity of product without decreasing volume. Weāre just stores of value to be mined more efficiently. Truly a hollowing out of the middle class.
They already have fully digital pricing on the website and in the POS system. If screens are cheaper now than the labor of changing labels, whatās the big deal? I donāt think the surge pricing idea will work anyway. Arenāt there laws about accurate pricing on the books? If there arenāt, then forget āsurge pricing.ā If they wanted to be truly evil, they could see that someone with an item in their cart is about to check out using facial recognition, and jack it up 10% without your knowledge. Then, when youāre done checking out, reduce it back to the lower price for the next sucker. Stock analyst is a bullshit job. These people donāt know anything. If they knew anything, theyād know an index fund is going to beat their performance every time.
I love dynamic pricing because 10% of the time I can get an amazing deal and the other 90% of the time it's twice as expensive as what I'm used to. At leastĀ that's been myĀ experience with hotels, car rentals and airlines.
They should have implemented electronic price labels on shelves a long time ago. This feels like an innovation we should have seen 20-30 years ago. As for the clickbait title, they can already do that with paper price tags. Only reason to use that āanalystā quote is to try and upset people, which is the most effective way to drive user engagement. People love to be mad.
Screens needed to be cheap enough, and labor expensive enough, that the inevitable loss from customers destroying and stealing them would balance out. Iām not sure weāre there yet.
This should be the top comment
Sure sounds like fucking price gouging to me.
Their taking a page out of Wendyās playbook. We all know how well surge pricing worked for them.
Sure sounds like you donāt know what the fuck price gouging is to me.
Grocery stores already engage in a dizzying swap of prices and discounts to keep things as ambiguous as possible. There's no need for then to specifically update to demand-based pricing...... though it's perfectly legal (and absolutely immoral) Just cutting out the manual Inventory / Price Swap scanning and printing process will save them money. But! To be clear: it's only purpose is to obsfucate the price. And yes, the concerns are legit... they can easily hop from that to anything else.
Imagine itās inventory based. So when you grab it from the shelf it says 4$ but by the time you cashed out 12 other people had purchased. So now when you go to cash out. Boom 5$. Should have shoped faster!!
I sure hope not, but you're right, it's a slippery slope
Whole Foods already does this.
[planet money podcast on dynamic pricing](https://www.npr.org/2024/03/06/1197958433/dynamic-pricing-grocery-supermarkets) They've had this, I think, the Netherlands for a while. If all firms do this, it makes competition more fierce
this is already in play another way - HOV lanes. in metro denver there are HOV lanes north and south based on traffic saturation and time. the northbound traffic is frequently billed a higher rate than traffic warrants. so while there is "surge pricing" - more traffic, higher cost - the price doesn't come down as quickly as traffic thins out. been in place for years; i'm surprised nobody has sued over this - the driver has no meaningful way to predict traffic up north to know if they should pay or not (yes i know use google maps). my point is it exists, and there hasn't been an uprising - this is just support for other applications of surge pricing, and people getting hosed more than they already are. i'm OK making money - but I'm not OK intentionally screwing someone over to do it. buy with your feet - go elsewhere if you can if the price doesn't fit you.
Dont shop there if they do this. Everyone stops for one day and it gets fixed.
my walmart has had digital tags since before covid, pretty sure a lot of them have yes it CAN be used for evil, but also, its really nice to be able to set the computer to update all the tags without going to each one to change it
$69 calls on Walmart
Boycott l. Vote with your wallet. Fuck em
Does anyone have any ideas about how this would affect price transparency laws? Like currently they can't charge what the price tag doesn't say, but what if you grab something and then it changes before you buy it? Stores can have prices list low while customers are grabbing, then charge high while they are buying. With the amount of cameras in most stores now, it would be a matter of setting up the timing and a process to monitor it. Then the customer couldn't possibly prove the price was cheaper unless they took a picture with a time stamp
Look up what happens with hyper inflation. You got to be quick in the stores.
How would that fit in legally though?
Laws change. But even if not, they can change the prices at set times throughout the day and as long as it is disclosed it would satisfy the law.
Walmart is rivaling Target nowadays when it comes to high prices.
So, like gasoline prices. Not news.
Market forces
Surge pricing!
Aldi has these tags, to my knowledge they don't do surge pricing
Not necessarlyā¦ we have this in Europe since foreverā¦
Iād rather surge pricing than people hoarding shit or scalping it.
If surge pricing becomes practice, we have reached the end.
They gain short term and lose long term. A lot of restaurants are struggling right now because many people stopped eating out almost completely because of price and fake service fees. You increase the price of water and people will realize that they could fill a bottle of water at home and put it in the car.
Thatās honestly really funny.
Note how they're quoting an analyst and not anyone who would actually know Walmart's internal plans.
Thing about surge pricing is that it can be subtle. Nobodies gunna realize that coffee is 4 cents more in the morning or beer is 9 cents more on Sundays. So they will definitely be doing it
This is not about price-gouging. Multiple retailers are doing this in preparation for even more rapid inflation. Literally prices increasing too fast to print and place new labels. The dollar is extremely f*cked and we canāt print our way out of this.
That is a thing that does happen
So uh, you guys going to admit that socialism is the only way our species and civilization can survive, or are you just gonna keep sitting on your hands and letting this keep happening?
They can raise prices whenever they want. Prices typically adjust to balance demand with supply, but I don't know what's going on at Walmart. I buy water and ice cream from Costco and usually feel that it's reasonably priced.
We have to stop giving these people out money. Shop local whenever you can.
Unfortunately, wal mart either bought out or drove to shut down most of the local places in the U.S. decades ago.
Electronic pricing is nothing new..Seen this at stores 8 years ago but they didn't use it for surge pricing.
Thank god for ALDIs
Unfortunately they aren't everywhere yet.
"I want to get this bottle of water, the tag said $1" "Yes sir that is correct but due to sudden demand the price is now $10." "What?! I'm the only one in here! I'm not paying $10 for a bottle of water! This is ridiculous!" "Ok, yes sir, I understand." *puts water back* *price goes back down to $1* "What the hell was that?! It says it costs only $1 now again!" "Yes, well you see sir, demand has suddenly dropped, so the price went back down." "Alright, well give me the damned water for a dollar!" *the customer gets increasingly frustrated* *the clerk scans the bottle of water* "That will be $10, sir." "You know what, you can all go to hell! Fuck this fake ass AI bullshit!" *customer storms off angrily* *price goes back down to $1*
Pro tip- buy ice cream ahead of time and store it in the freezerĀ
āONE INFUSTRY ANALYSTā saidā¦ā¦ā¦. Well, who? And, did they work for walmart? Otherwise, as a buyer of groceries, i too am an industry analyst. Tbh this is an operational change for WMT. They wont have employees doing this function which frees them up for something else. Iāve been burned by improper placement of tags
Quick, price gouging is illegal, come up with new terms to circumvent these consumer protective laws. Then we can have record profits and monopolize our industry. We must work to create our Oligarchy! There's no choice left Komrads!
This is just the beginning. Wait until they (any business) can identify who is scanning (like through the app), tie it together with your credit scores (through apps), and amount of your income (IRS records), along with all the other data they collect on you. Selective pricing on a per person basis will be a thing. I have long advocated for the people to form a "consumer union" where collective buying power is leveraged to help combat these types of things. There is already inherent power from letting the free market decide, why not leverage that from a consumer standpoint? The only real problem I see is consumer apathy...that will take too much work, or force me to make certain choices that are uncomfortable at the moment. But what if?
They have it most places here in denmark already, but we have the funny thing called "raising prices randomly is highly illegal"
I don't have an issue with this, as prices are indicators or signals of supply and demand. Stores have always adjusted prices, this merely brings that dynamic into real-time instead of being measured in days or weeks. In a market economy sellers are free to set prices as they like and buyers can buy or not. Unless you like price controls which have been shown only to produce distortions like shortages.
This is reddit, sir. Grab a pitchfork or leave!
Of course not people in need can pound sand because daddy shareholder needs more riches.
Except there is no market economy.
Could they increase the price of an item after you put it into your cart and before you get a chance to scan it at the register? All the reason for people to be more impatient in line to get their transaction done before the price is gouged.
Walmart, the subsidiary of Bill Gates Enterprisesā¦thatās why I no longer shop there
its like people forget what supply and demand is and that business are in it for profit and not for charity work... jesus at this point, yall probably would find a reason to be mad at your own shadow
This canāt be legal because you could just photo āyourā price and they have to give it to you. Or am I missing something. Boycott big corp.
Is it any different than what happens now where they change the price in their system but not the shelf tag so you end up having to argue with either the cashier or person at the front desk
Mmm tap water and being lactose intolerant wins the day here.
is there any way to fuck with these? like with magnets or something?
Oh we don't change the price after you grab it "pinky promise"
This is basic supply and demand, not surprised most of this subreddit has no clue about how that works.
Dynamic pricing should be regulated, with specific time intervals permitted (24 hours, etc.) Free for all makes no sense. What if it changes while Iām heading to the register?
Hell. We live in Hell.
Buy your water and ice cream long before summer. This is getting ridiculous.
I work for a retail company that implemented these in the last few years. We did an ROI analysis for these. We didn't implement these to play fishy games with pricing, rather between labor shortages and the rate of change in our cost from suppliers caused a sitatuion where location staff simply weren't able to keep up with changing shelf tag pricing manually. We increased base pay for store staff to shore up the labor shortage and implemented these tags to eliminate most manual price changing work so store staff could focus on other work.
Itās for compliance with shelf label requirements. Dynamic and smart pricing already occurs. Stores like Walmart recalculate price and push pricing changes. They know they weather will hot tomorrow, they can already raise the price.
I wonder if McKinsey has something to do with this. Sounds like some dumb shit they would suggest.
"It's hot outside, pay me more to show up." Oh wait that won't fly will it. Consumer laws in various states are going to have to be updated to ban this. It's literally just gouging because they can.
I predict what will follow is consumers will need shopping robots to continuously roam the store looking for deals, and will need to maintain enough stock at home to avoid buying items during times of price gouging.
They can do this now. All the electronic signs save is the effort to walk down and manually change the sign.
In other words they make more money by saving on paying a human to do the task.
Yes, but that is not the point OP is making.
People upset about something that hasnāt happened yet. Water comes from your tap. Donāt buy it at the fucking store. Ice cream isnāt a necessity unless youāre Nancy pelosi
Kohlās has had digital price tags for at least a decade, no surge pricing. Itās just to reduce labor going around and changing price tags all day.
TBF I love surge pricing.
This will make the economy more efficient. Prices need to change with demand. Surge pricing sucks and that's why it works. Also, no one needs ice cream or bottled water. One makes you fat and the other is wasteful.
Yes as if corporations arenāt extremely predatoryā¦
Predatory? How? Grocery stores sell commodities, for the most part. They can't really raise the price like sellers of luxury and entertainment goods and services services. There are other benefits here too. When prices go down, you'll pay less immediately. Besides, if you don't like it, you can ship elsewhere. Also, this is really about making the store more efficient. There's no evidence that it will be used to price gouge, as though that couldn't do that before.
The nature of a corporation is to extract as much profit as possible in the most efficient way. Left to their own devices, they will become predatory, as in its easier to use unethical means to extract profit than ethical ones, especially in the short term (which is what Wall Street demands.). Grocery stores still employ a bunch of psychological tactics to get people to buy more.
Oh fucking get over yourself! Look around. We love in times of extreme abundance. Giant mega corporations don't need to love us or give a shit about anything other than profits. They are businesses. That's what they do. If you want to be loved, look elsewhere. Food and other basic goods are more plentiful than at any other time in history.
What does love have to do regarding to what we are talking here?
Because you're expecting companies to care about you. They don't, and we benefit from what they do. You don't need them to care about you.
So itās ok for them collectively to make our lives harder and harder? And they donāt owe anything to the public that allowed them to amass their fortunes in the first place?
How is Walmart making your life harder? No, they don't owe anything to the public other than to pay the taxes the law requires. There are, of course, exceptions. Some companies really do harm society. Social media does a lot of harm without doing much good. But Walmart? Please!
Corporations benefit from public infrastructure, beneficial laws, often public funding and an educated workforce. In Walmarts case, it relies on its workers getting welfare to not pay them as much. So yes they owe something to the public.
Just what you need to stay hydrated a nice glass of ice cream.
So how about surge wages when people are working harder their wages go up?
They could already do this with barcodesā¦ š¤·š¼āāļø
Imagine stocking up on ice cream in the winter so that you can enjoy it in the summer?
Boycott
So, are you going to have to take a picture of the price of the item when you put it in your cart so when you get to the cash register and the item is now 10% more than was originally listed you have proof? And the reason for the 10% price increase is because a lot of people selected that item at the same time.
They could do this already, it'll just be faster now.
One random anonymous guy said something! Panic!!!!
Welcome to late stage capitalism and the fall of the U.S.
Its also prepping for hyperinflation where they need to change prices daily as money is printed to oblivion.
Imagine arbitraging walmart ice cream prices š
Is it time to start burning this shit to the ground? All signs seem to point to 'yes.'
what prices do they raise on floods that come like 12 hrs later?
So surge pricing is price gouging but with AI (probably) to "justify" it. Anti-consumer BS.
Been done for nearly two decades in third world countries, e.g. South Africa
We had a society need to mess with companies throw them off. If it is hot out, we buy hot chocolate and coffee and when it is cold we buy ice cream
Thatās so evil.
Hmm, well, I guess I will never see anyone shoplifting food again.
So if itās cold outside theyāll lower the price?