Key Points
Walmart is rolling out digital shelf labels and expects the technology to be in all U.S. stores by year’s end. Kroger also has begun experimenting with the technology.
The nation’s largest retailer says the digital price tags help associates do their jobs better and stresses that prices on items will be exactly the same for every consumer in every store.
Some legislators are wary of the technology’s potential to be used in dynamic pricing models that disadvantage consumers, with Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) introducing a bill to ban it.
It makes good business sense to do this, especially in a huge store like Walmart, with thousands of SKUs. It will be faster and more accurate, and you might even get to fire a few people. That’s always fun.
The problem is that Walmart does everything in bad faith, so you just know they are going to use it for surge pricing. Get ready to see things like beer prices going up on the weekends.
Yup, next to no chance this doesn’t get used to set flux pricing unless we make laws to counteract it. Businesses have shown us repeatedly they only have the ethics we force on them.
Our food prices will be like the stock market.