Walmart Says It's Not Using Personal Info To Set Prices As It Expands Digital Shelf Labels (apnews.com) 80
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Walmart is aiming to assuage customers' fears about its new pricing technology as it rolls out digital price labels at its stores. In a statement posted on the company's website, Walmart's CEO John Furner vowed that the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer isn't using personal information like income, shopping history or a customer's willingness to pay to set prices, and it won't be doing so in the future either. "We don't set different prices based on who you are or the time of day, and we won't," Furner wrote Friday. "Whether you're buying groceries or electronics on a hot afternoon or in a sudden rush for an item, it's never a reason to charge you more."
The pledge from Walmart comes as concerns are mounting from some shoppers, consumer advocates and lawmakers skeptical about the rollout of digital price labels by the discounter and other stores. Digital price labels are rapidly replacing paper shelf tags at U.S. supermarkets and let stores change prices instantly from a central computer instead of having workers swap out paper labels by hand. [...] Walmart said in March that 2,300 Walmart U.S. locations already use digital shelves, and it expects this technology to be chain-wide within the next year.
The pledge from Walmart comes as concerns are mounting from some shoppers, consumer advocates and lawmakers skeptical about the rollout of digital price labels by the discounter and other stores. Digital price labels are rapidly replacing paper shelf tags at U.S. supermarkets and let stores change prices instantly from a central computer instead of having workers swap out paper labels by hand. [...] Walmart said in March that 2,300 Walmart U.S. locations already use digital shelves, and it expects this technology to be chain-wide within the next year.
I can believe both things (Score:5, Informative)
That leaves a lot of room still, for example they can raise prices on trending items or proactively raise prices on cold beverages ahead of a heat wave... But they could have done that before too, it only would have cost more to do.
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This is just corporate speak for "please dont regulate us", which we absolutely should.
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Recently changed to "don't get caught."
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> They already run a large web store and they could have done this anytime but it's clear they have not.
I mean, they have but whatever. The part you're not considering is the immediacy of buying at a physical location.
Browsing online has a different set of tools the merchant can use to FOMO you into buying it. If you see something online you can easily come back to it hours or days later and reconsider; if you're there in the store you're probably not very likely to come back tomorrow. If you're going to
Re:I can believe both things (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I can believe both things (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not worried about the idea of personalized pricing. It just doesn't seem feasible. Implementation hurdles are abundant, the likelihood of complaints in-store is very high, and for not that much benefit.
I’m with you, how do they know what price to charge once you are at the checkout line? If you shop with someone and they track by phone, which phone to use at checkout? Both? What if one person doesn’t go to the line? It’s not as easy as change digital tag.
Re:I can believe both things (Score:5, Interesting)
Changing prices during business hours is a landmine that found a place to happen. All it takes is for a Weights & Measures inspector to see a price on the shelf, and a different price at the register, and the fines will run five or six figures, the frequency of inspections will increase an order of magnitude, and the paperwork involved in verifying it never happens again will require hiring at least one additional employee.
And as others have said, there's nothing this allows them to do they couldn't do before. It just costs less, but that's the whole point: reducing labor for price changes that happen every single night anyway in a store with a million SKUs in stock. Instead of having an overnight crew to run around changing hundreds, if not thousands, of labels, an automated scheduler flips the switch after hours.
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Changing prices during business hours is a landmine that found a place to happen. All it takes is for a Weights & Measures inspector to see a price on the shelf, and a different price at the register, and the fines will run five or six figures
That is absolutely false. Firstly, prices are almost universally changed during business hours. You can probably walk down the isle of your local supermarket and find someone with a price / tag labelling machine adjusting one *right now* if you bothered to look.
The register issue is handled quite simply: you keep the lowest of the two prices at checkout and you have zero legal liability. There is no paperwork involved.
I can tell you've never worked retail before. I agree with the rest of your point: this is
Re:I can believe both things (Score:5, Informative)
I've worked in retail for 40 years, most of it at a corporate level, and have been directly involved in compliance with Weights & Measures. When prices go down, we change tags at our leisure. When they go up, there is . . . a process. California's laws are stricter than most states (if the register says $1 higher than the tag, it's a felony), but consumer protection laws are fundamentally the same everywhere. And Walmart isn't going to have different procedures for different states if they can avoid it, they'll go with the strictest rules everywhere.
Yeah, a lot of businesses do a piss poor job of handling it. Until they get caught, and there are regular inspections. Then, if they're still in business, they do better.
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That's how it's supposed to work. Investigative news suggests that's not what actually is happening: https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
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You consider a British tabloid a credible source of information? I don't trust them to tell what day of the week it is without independent verification.
I'm guessing you also believe whatever you hear on either Faux News or N(ational)P(ropaganda)R(adio), too.
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The Guardian is not a British tabloidâ¦
Everybody wants to be a comedian.
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You consider a British tabloid a credible source of information?
I'm sure you can find a more credible source on Infowars or whatever rubbish you think is more reputable than what everyone else considers reputable.
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When prices go down, we change tags at our leisure. When they go up, there is . . . a process.
That's exactly what I said. And the process is no more complicated than ensuring the lowest price is charged until customers are cycled through. That doesn't mean you need to do it overnight. That covers those "strictest" rules.
California's laws are stricter than most states (if the register says $1 higher than the tag, it's a felony),
And you're safe as long as you just quote the lowest price during the price adjustment. This isn't rocket science, and not complicated to remain in compliance with. And again, most companies most definitely do adjust prices during business hours.
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the frequency of inspections will increase an order of magnitude
How cute. You still think that the Rule of Law applies. I do not think you realize what is happening in the USA right now. All it takes is a little money in the right place and those inspections never happen.
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Go cuddle in the warm embrace of Barack Obama. He'd never fuck us over like with Obamacare... Oh wait.
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This could work in conjunction with a future "just walk out" checkout implementation. You see a price at the shelf, pick up the item, you're presented with a bill in your email. You can't claim the price changed on the way to the register, and they know what price they showed you.
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This could work in conjunction with a future "just walk out" checkout implementation. You see a price at the shelf, pick up the item, you're presented with a bill in your email. You can't claim the price changed on the way to the register, and they know what price they showed you.
They could do that with their shopping app that lets you scan an item and checkout in app; but as soon as people found out they were charged different prices for the same thing on say the same day it would be a PR nightmare. I can see it more as a way to adjust prices dynamically regionally based on demand, not much different than what is done anyway just faster.
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A much more feasible and shorter term option: prices that varied over the course of the day, that went up according to when Walmart's data showed people with more money were likely to be shopping. It could happen at predictable times and with a huge grace period, so that for an hour after shelf prices went up the old price was still being charged at the register ("you got a discount!"). But if you went shopping when it was convenient, there'd most likely be a price premium.
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It's already happened. Stores which implemented reward programs raised prices on everything then gave discounts to people in their programs. That's personalized pricing and if you're not a party to that then you've been paying more. This is very old news from when those programs were new.
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Personalized pricing in store will be a nightmare for Walmart. Think of several situations that are extremely common. Like what if two people are looking at an item? When I shop at Walmart, there are inevitably other people around and they're looking at the same stuff I'm looking at. The price tag can onl
Re: I can believe both things (Score:2)
Personalized pricing already exists. They are the coupons that print out for you at the register.
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Agreed. Also, it seems to take a while for the tags to get the update and re-flash. Are the skeptics suggesting once you leave the aisle, it changes back for everyone else?
No pun intended, but I don't buy it
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Then you must believe you will pay less. If you will pay more than other people, are you still okay with it?
take off the foil hat (Score:1)
These e-ink price tags have been used for decades and they are used because swapping out each and every paper tag in a store the size of a Wal-Mart takes a crapton of labor. It's especially difficult because the items move around on the shelves; it's not as easy as "replace the old 64 oz Tide tag with the new Tide tag." Even if prices don't change from month to month they have to swap the tags because otherwise there would not be any assurance that the price is correct.
As far as changing prices "before a h
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came here to say this (I would have just modded up if it wasn't AC)
I love a good conspiracy theory, but this really is just a good cost-saving measure by not having to pay people to walk around, change labels, get it wrong, have confused customers make claims at the enquiry desk, etc etc. I'm honestly surprised more stores don't already do this and it's a story in 2026.
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What sense does that make? You want to discount refrigerated beverages during a heatwave, so people will come in and buy other items while they're getting reprieve from the heat in the frozen-food section
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it only would have cost more to do.
Only in a general sense. Prices are constantly adjusted. Go to your local store you'll probably find someone *right now* with a price sticker machine. It would take an employee all of 10 minutes to do the entire drinks section, and you can predict a heatwave days in advance. The reality is price adjustments (e.g. during sales) are a constant event for a retail business and the whole digital price tag thing is just a general cost reduction scheme, not some nefarious idea to invent new capitalistic ways to fu
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"Whether you're buying groceries or electronics on a hot afternoon or in a sudden rush for an item, it's never a reason to charge you more."
Missing the important pledge (Score:2)
If they could just pledge not to change prices during standard business hours, or save it until overnight for 24 hour locations, their pledge would mean something.
I'm all for getting rid of the waste from paper tags that sometimes don't get updated. But the price on the item when it goes in my cart had better still be the price by the time it makes it to the register.
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Especially with the legal repercussions it would (and does) bring.
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Might be able to delay register impact for raises, if you tick up water bottles from $5 to $6 you can keep ringing $5 at the register for an hour or whatever, aging out whoever had seen five.
Still, they'll probably do midnight ticks for now. But it still means more price finessing, which they've already enjoyed "maximizing" (held back by the labor cost) and will now be able to pivot that much more. Consider the HFT model, any minor increase in agility means they can squeeze a bit more precisely.
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Now, I'm sure there are MBAs out there who think changing the prices throughout the day would be a brilliant idea, but I've worked retail. It
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NPR's Planet Money looked at a grocery store in Norway. They had a reporter sitting in the store's HQ, and they had received a secret shopper report that a particular product (can of mushrooms in water) was 0.20 Kroner less at a competitor. The reporter watched the price get updated in the chain's central database, then ran down to the store that was below the HQ and saw the shelf tag change about 9 minutes later.
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/06/1197958433/dynamic-pricing-grocery-supermarkets
That particular s
no need to (Score:2)
they are charging you more if you shop in store. they want you to shop online and have walmart+ and they will offer you the lowest price if you do
other stores like HEB are doing the exact opposite: they claim no curbside fees on their website, but they lie and they will increase the price of the item 5% if you choose pickup. try logging to an account to confirm what i am saying
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Walmart doesn't do tips (Score:2)
I don't know if HEB includes a tip, but I know that Walmart doesn't do tips. When I worked in the front end of a Walmart Supercenter six years ago, associates were trained to refuse tips, and if someone insists, to ring it up as a donation to whatever charity Walmart is collecting for at the time. Often that ends up being the nearest Children's Miracle Network hospital.
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no, there is no tip, and there is no mention of the price increase either. i emailed them about it, and they requested me to call and wouldn't reply in writing with their reason
I've literally seen it done (Score:1, Informative)
Our walmart installed these price-as-you-go tags a while ago and I have literally seen them change as I walk up to them, and then change again as I walk away. The trick to get them not to change is to be holding your phone at them - the store's AI won't change the tags if it thinks you're filming them.
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Uh, huh, sure.
Re:I've literally seen it done (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't believe you.
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It's mighty convenient for you that your claim makes it impossible for you to provide evidence of this outrageous claim.
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Our walmart installed these price-as-you-go tags a while ago and I have literally seen them change as I walk up to them, and then change again as I walk away. The trick to get them not to change is to be holding your phone at them - the store's AI won't change the tags if it thinks you're filming them.
My Walmart is worse than that. They didn't have any price tags at all. Just video screens with AI avatars of a guy in baggy pants sitting cross-legged on a rug.
When I walk by, he says "Look at my cotton swabs! I offer you the best cotton swabs in the land!"
I say: "Well, how much to they cost?"
He squints at me, looks me up and down for a long while, then says: "For you........ I give to you seven hundred and fifty swabs for two pieces of silver only. Believe me when I say you will search this entire kingdom
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He squints at me, looks me up and down for a long while, then says: "For you........ I give to you seven hundred and fifty swabs for two pieces of silver only.
And that's cutting me own throat.
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WalMart just needs to install electronic scales in the snack aisle floor. Fatso walks in and the prices go up.
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That's not fair to up charge someone for being fat and they'll get called out for doing this.
What they'll do is give DISCOUNTS for people who are not 400 pounds. No one complains about paying less.
Impossible Promise to Keep (Score:1)
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Want to [businessinsider.com] try again [medium.com]?
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Yeah.
But high earners look for good deals and will change their shopping habits if they think they are getting screwed.
The stores where these tactics may work are the downtown grocery and department stores that attract a lot of foot traffic from nearby residents. The rich can just jump in their Bentley and head down the street. Foot traffic is attracted to the nearest outlet and pretty sticky in the face of lugging groceries, squeezing onto public transit with them, or paying for a cab.
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I mean, it's one banana. What could it cost? 10 dollars?
save today with the homeless shopping network (Score:3)
Want the best prices when you are shopping? You need the homeless shopping network.
Our homeless shoppers get a printed list of what you need and carry no electronics at all. Our homeless shoppers never trigger price premiums and are available to shop when dynamic prices are lowest. Save today with the homless shopping network!
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Easily the next billion-dollar IPO in the making.
Ontil OGP poaches them all (Score:2)
These homeless shoppers are likely to get poached sooner rather than later. With the deep knowledge they build up of any given Walmart store's layout, they'd make good candidates to get hired into the store's online grocery pickup (OGP) department.
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Here in California, the homeless shopping network has a pool of a couple hundred thousand employees. Walmart can't absorb them all.
the point (Score:2)
Walmart Says... not yet (Score:2)
Unless they're making a commitment *never* to do this, what they're doing is setting up the infrastructure they'll eventually claim to be *forced* to use for dynamic pricing by the market. They're big enough to claim they're not doing it right now, but their much smaller competitors need any edge they can get over Walmart and so will be less scrupulous. And eventually it will become the industry norm, and Walmart will "give in" and do what they intended to all along. "Our hands are tied!"
It kind off happened already (Score:2)
What were the repercussions? Almost nothing. They paid a fine unrelated to how much money they stole and promised not to do it again. No individual received any direct compensation.
Just like a class action suit. Normal business practice. Nothing to see here, mov
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Blockbuster? Bust Buy did that. Did both of them do it? I thought Blockbuster was mostly dead by the time everyone had smart phones.
Outsourcing 101. (Score:2)
(WalMart) "$37 million dollar check from Cambridge Analytica? Well..yeah. Uh, sure. We can uh..kinda explain it. I mean..just because we sold your data to someone else to use and abuse..well that still means WE DIDN'T USE IT, right? Right? Ha! See, told you we were telling the truth!"
Can't believe people are still falling for some 'privacy' story when this is how this shit works every fucking time..
Personalized Price Changes Are Impractical (Score:5, Informative)
The Walmart where I regularly shop switched to digital shelf tags a while ago.
There really is no practical opportunity to personalize pricing using these. Suppose Walmart were tracking a customer through the store and figured out that the customer met some demographic that would pay more. If it updated the shelf tag as that customer walked by, no other customer would see that price (as it would revert immediately after the targeted customer left the area). Furthermore, the record of that higher price would have to persist all the way through staffed registers and self-checkouts. If the customer returned to pick up a second jar of the item, and this time there was another cheap customer also in the area, would the system raise the price on the shelf tag again? If not, would it figure out that the first jar was $10 and the second jar was $8? What if the customer put the first jar back on the shelf and then picked it up again immediately -- would they then pay $8 or $10 at checkout?
Frequent price changes are simply not practical in general during operating hours. At least in my state, the rule is that the price you pay must be the price on the shelf (although I think the retailer is free to charge a lower price at the register), so changes would have to take into account the lag between a customer picking up the item and going through checkout. They could probably post a prominent sign saying, "Shelf tag prices are good for a maximum of two hours." Then, for price increases, they could update the tags and wait two hours before updating the POS system. For price decreases, they could lower the price in the POS system and update the shelf tags two hours later.
Since the digital shelf tags were rolled out at my Walmart, I have a subjective feeling that the prices do change more frequently, but I lack objective data on this. I have no problem with this.
One cool feature of the shelf tags at my Walmart is that, with the app, you can look up a product and the tag will, on request, flash a blue LED so you can find its shelf location quickly. Of course, this being Walmart, there's a pretty good chance that the item is out of stock or that the item in that location isn't the item that's supposed to be there!
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They are impractical for a brick-and-mortar store indeed. But Amazon and other online sellers have been actually using personalized price changes for years.
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Agreed - I was responding only to "Digital Shelf Labels" which is a term which I think is understood to only be used in brick-and-mortar stores.
on who you are or the time of day (Score:1)
Here's what a reporter should do! (Score:1)
Grocery have used digital tags for decades (Score:2)
This is mostly fearmongering and rage-baiting. Probably not 100%, I'd concede that yes, there's almost certainly some asshole with that plan.
But the fact is that repricing is a MAJOR way for a low margin business to squeeze out some tenths of a percent, but not if they have to do it manually.
Large grocery stores (one of the consistently lowest-margin businesses) in the 1990s would - I am not kidding - have a dozen or more laser printers in the back running full-out printing new price tags for everything.
Tax inclusion (Score:1)
With digital screens will you guys now get labels with the actual price including the local sales tax?
, Yet. (Score:2)
and if they do... what are the consequences? (Score:1)