Was in one today and they haven’t made it here yet
How would it work if the price changed between getting the item off the shelf and paying for it? Will I have to take a picture of every price tag in case the price goes up?
Ideally they should keep prices locked for 24 hours between changes
Should be a law that they can only set the price at the start of the business day with an exception for perishable goods marked down before they go bad, where the fresher ones are still regular price.
Hahahahaha
Great joke!
Theoretically these have a lot of benefits as well, like saving on paper and ink. One barker could last as long as thousands of prices over its lifetime, and mean staff don’t have to spend time changing them.
I mean, capitalism gonna capitalise and they’ll be used for evil, mostly, but.
I wonder if they’re all wired or run off batteries? If the former, then there’s a single point of failure, if the latter then ho boy do I have a plan for a zigbee/wifi/whatever device.
Tear up the floors and put in micro generators that harness our footsteps that feed into the shelving and power the price tags wirelessly
Its funny everyone shits the bed that prices might go up when low margin grocers raise prices, but the Fed is out there pumping out 8% more money supply a year, and they further increase that printing if that money simply bids up stocks or home values.
Then they think its grocery stores raising prices 30c that’s making billionaires trillionaires, not the annual 8% money supply growth actively debasing peoples wages. When you’re measuring things in a rapidly expanding commodity what did people expect would happen?
Clickbait title
I worked in a Walmart on the overnight shift (cleaning, separate company) when they rolled them out 3+ years ago here in Canada. They’ve honestly become the norm in grocery stores and other large stores here. If some company was going to be sleazy about them, it probably would’ve happened already (Loblaws, I’m looking at you).
I straight up asked why they were being installed, and it’s two-fold. One, they can save money cause now they don’t have to pay staff to go around and change the little paper tags, which takes an absurd amount of manpower and is easy to fuck up. And two, they can all be changed over to a barcode/QR code during inventory, which speeds up the whole process. I’ll be the last person to defend corpos, especially Walmart, but I don’t think this one was done with the intentions of directly fucking over the customer.
I feel like it’s one of those things that someone came up with the benign idea first, and then later some jackass was like “Hey, we could use these to change the prices every time a customer looks at it.”
The road to hell is paved with good intentions
Best buy and other stores have genuinely already been using these for ages.
I’ve worked retail and one of the things that baffled me was just how wasteful price tags were.
They change SO OFTEN and it’s so much paper and plastic just tossed it the trash every time. Never even thought about it until I worked at a store and had to change them.
God, right?! I could fill a bag full of the things nearly every day when I was cleaning before they switched over! I literally had a little bin I’d save them up in to take home to use as kindling for the fire pit cause they’d already been replaced. Though, I think the lack of waste is more a pleasant side effect than a reason why these companies did it. Either way, it’s still a positive!
I once worked retail and it was a pain to run around printing labels for hours. Granted, I got paid by the hour, so there were much worse things to do.
I also don’t believe this is a nefarious plot, but it does enable dynamic pricing. Stores are creepy these days, they have sensors and network hardware that can track you in the store. They also can do facial recognition.
So they know who you are, where you are / where you went, what you ultimately buy (just enter your rewards number!). So they could literally see someone coming and raise prices on certain items as they enter the store.
Not to say that is a strategy companies are actively employing, but all the pieces are there.
Reference to help you sleep at night: https://documentation.meraki.com/Wireless/Operate_and_Maintain/User_Guides/Monitoring_and_Reporting/Location_Analytics
They actually have some neat features, if implemented. There’s one where you can scan a QR code to go right to the product page where you can get, among other things, more verbose allergen info, reviews, or, if the product is out of stock where you scanned it, it can give you similar alternate products or stores that have stock.
It can also allow you to go on to the website, find your item, and ask the pricetag to flash.then you can look for the flashing pricetag if you can’t find the item on the shelf.
And they’re already dogshit in practice. Some of them are broken, we can’t tell where to put things because the stupid digital interface glitches. People misplace them. They aren’t properly installed or they’re a pain to install. They don’t even blink when you try to find something.
Oh yeah, what a wonderful investment…
I wish I could boycott them, but haven’t gone there in years
But seriously, they’re not talking about price segmentation, just a more efficient way to update their prices
“…not talking about price segmentation…”
Yet.
There are rules about having to honor advertised prices. The savvy and poor will notice.
- Hack e-ink price tag
- Take photo “proving” low price
- Get minimum wage checkout supervisor to honor displayed price
- Profit
Careful, thats how you’ll end up in neo-gitmo
legitimately, it is fraud. like, no question, naked, bald fraud.
There are rules about having to honor advertised prices.
Yes there are. And normally you’d go look at the price tag to prove the different advertised price vs register price. What do you do now that they can change that price instantly?
You tell them to take the item out of your order, and they can deal with restocking the item in their shelf.
They have these at the local Canadian tire, they take 2-3 minutes to change the displayed price, flickering a dozen times as they do. Real slow epaper screens
This ^ All the grocery stores in my area have them and it has yet to be an issue.
Also, not sure if you know this, but apparently if you have the Crappy Tire app, you can get the tags to flash/blink if you’re looking for a product. Not sure how exactly it works on the customer’s end, but my mum was telling me about it lol
Didn’t know that, I’ll have to check it out
Rules for who
That’s how they get ya
There’s no sense closing the barn door after all the horses got out.
Are the cameras going to detect when I have a fever and then triple the cost of Tylenol?
Actually, they’ll start with surprise specials and flash deals, like KMart used to do with their blue light specials. They will use it to discount over-stock as it gets near the sell-by date.
And then, once they’ve got you used to the prices changing at random times, maybe even getting people to come back in shop in the store more often but offering really great deals (like black Friday started out) . Then they will begin to have “peak pricing”, where you pay more on busy days and times.no, they detect autism
Shit, I’m fucked.
Technically, a price can change at 9 a.m., change again at 2 p.m., and change again before the dinner rush.
Technically in one sense, maybe. Technically in a practical sense, no. Because the price on the shelf is the agreed price to pay, and if it changes after you put it into your cart, that’s gonna break laws.
People are making hay over something that will not happen.
but let’s say it does. People will absolutely lose their SHIT. And while companies are stupid, they are not THAT stupid. And even let’s say they ARE that stupid: This is the type of the legislatures would love to pass laws about becauase it’s easy to do and extremely popular. Like cops running stings. It’s easy and shows they’re doing something.
So I am absolutely zero worried about this and all this hype is stupid.
Will they changes prices nightly? Sure. Will they change prices multiple times during the day or for individual shoppers? Nope.
And if they were going to pull this shit, they’d already be pulling it online where they can already do that. And yet, not a single fuckin peep about that from any of these people hyping up this thing.
If the price of an item was changed after I pull it off the shelf, I’m telling the cashier to take the item out of my order; and the company can deal with the logistics of restocking the item. For future shopping trips I’m using my smartphone to snap a picture of every price tag as I’m putting an item in my cart. Failure to honor the price on the tag when I pulled it off the shelf is met with me walking the fuck out of the store with nothing. Now you can cancel the entire order and restock a whole cart of groceries. Let’s see how many man hours of labor you save then.
You’re at Walmart doing grocery shopping, and you fill your cart with all kinds of foods. Are you going to realize the tomatoes are ringing up at $2.51/lbs when the label was $2.40 in?
I don’t think it would be illegal, the price tag is not a contract and it’s often mislabeled today. The question is, can you get people to accept that the price will go up or down before you checkout, and will they just pay when it goes up or create a new stock return inventory?
If the chicken you’ve been walking around the store with went up and you decided you didn’t want it anymore, that’s straight to the trash. What products will they target with this?
I think it’s more likely to go down during the day to compete with other stores than to go up on you, but who knows what these greedy fucks are going to do.
Are you going to realize the tomatoes are ringing up at $2.51/lbs when the label was $2.40 in?
You’re telling me in this day of grocery prices impacting us that nobody would notice this happening? All it takes is for a very few people noticing it for people to riot.
I would be MORE surprised if there are NOT cases of people claiming this is happening when it’s not.
Also, if there are rumours that it is happening, there will be people who take pics of prices on the shelves and compare that to the checkout price. If they find it happening, they WILL post and people WILL be up in arms about it.
Another person replying mentioned gas. People drive miles out of the way to save a nickel per gallon - average tank is like 10-20 gallons, give or take, meaning they will spend a couple of dollars to “save” 50¢-$1.00 or so. People are not rational about these things, and if they try it, someone will catch it, and when they catch it, all hell will break loose.
i remember numbers, so yes?
last time i paid gas was a week ago, 5.359 at sams club if you doubt (i just pulled that out of my ass but it’s correct, i checked my phone).
That’s cool. I don’t think you’re an average consumer.
nah. i worked with numbers for 25 years. i’m well below average. can’t even do arithmetic anymore unless it’s all variables.
so they are kinda already pulling it online. amazon does it. but like, they let me know when the price of something in my basket changes immediately. big notification.
very different from putting it in your cart and finding out at the checkout. now if you need to make a substitution… godsdammit we gotta go wait in line again? if they do that, they gotta put something on the carts to ding you when something changes or i’ll lead the riots myself.
or i’ll lead the riots myself.
This is why they won’t. Or if they do, it will not be for long. People will be up in arms. That’s why I’m not worried about it happening.
You have too much faith in your idea of what can and can’t happen.
Be sure to handle them appropriately, the screens are vulnerable to damage, and replacing them would be more expensive than printing out a new paper tag. It’d sure be a shame if the corps lost money there.
Shame if my trusty thumb tac accidentally pressed into the screen and ruined it
In a few months:
NEWS BULLETIN on TV: “bad thing” happened today. Prices of most things will go up…
Instantly the prices change before you make it to the cash register
I will continue to never shop there
They put em in most cities like a year ago or more honestly.
Cool. I never shop there, I dont know why people do.
“Food deserts” exist. For some, Walmart is their only grocery store within a reasonable distance.
I never really thought about walmart having groceries.
The USDA says a food desert is where a store is 1 (ONE!) mile away in urban settings.
The fuck? A mile? You mean a ten to 15 minute walk?
Edit: To be clear, I am complaining not about the distance or the time, be accessibility, it should be a 15 minute walk, but it American areas could be accross 10 lanes, or along busy roads. Accessibility to everything can be a pain in the ass and there should be walkable, bikeable, or transportation options. Nevermind just the groceries.
If you are too poor to afford a car, or have a medical reason as to why you can’t drive, accessing fresh and healthy food is a monumental challenge that can wipe out hours of your day.
My closest grocery store is 3 miles away. By bus, it’s a 30-60 minute trip one way because it involves a transfer; miss the connection and you’re waiting 30 mins. By bicycle it’s a 15 minute trip. If I am walking it, It’s taking me an hour. The best part is the closest store is much smaller than those further away, (in the suburbs,) and they leave molded fruits and vegetables out hoping people won’t notice. Quality of food is trash there. Don’t have a bike, can’t afford bus, spend 2+ hours of your day trying to obtain healthy food.
The next closest is 5 miles away, and also involves a bus transfer. It’s a 30 minute bike ride in heavier traffic, and I am walking one and a half hours to 2 hours one way. Quality of food there is also questionable, but better than the closest store. Don’t have a bike, can’t afford bus, spend 3+ hours of your day trying to obtain healthy food.
My preferred store to shop at is 10 miles away. It’s on a bus route that doesn’t involve a transfer and would take 30 minutes via bus, 1 hour via bike, and several hours if I attempted to walk to it. Don’t have a bike, can’t afford bus, spend nearly a work day trying to obtain healthy food.
There are corner stores a 15 minute walk from me, (Stewarts.) Most of the food there is processed, (Frozen pizza, frozen microwave meals, ice cream, chips, meat jerky, cookies, candy.) I think they have pasta and sauce in the jar. Fresh items I have access to there are eggs, cheese, sour cream, bacon, milk, and bread which is often stale. Sometimes they have a few bananas, potatos, tomatos, or lemon/lime, but most of the time when I go there, they happen not to be in stock. I can access flour and sugar there also, but the prices are way worse than the grocery store. Don’t have a bike, can’t afford bus, spend 30 minutes of your day obtaining shit food and pay a higher premium for it.
I love being blamed for being obese when poverty forces shitty food prices an choices upon me. Good news, I’m losing weight because I’m skipping meals. Thanks poverty.
Edited because I suck at spelling.
You, really, cannot fathom why people would shop at Walmart?
Really? You are incapable of critically thinking about it? Unable to understand the world around you to the minimum degree necessary to understand why Walmart exists and thrives?
I highly doubt that, because I doubt you are proud of being ignorant or proud of flaunting anti-Intellectualism.
Pretending we don’t know why something is, and being proud to be ignorant, is a form of self defeatism where we hand control to these companies. Who survive on data and knowledge, by denying ourselves the data and knowledge to do something about it and help others do something about it.
Fuck if I know why people would go there, I have been to a few and they never have anything I want, they obviously purchase the cheapest crap they can, and I am aware of the rush to the bottom of quality and price by killing small business.
Yes, I cannot understand why people would go there. To do so is not in their best interest. But frankly maybe it is because the people that do shop there for the most part look like they vote against their best interest and not really have much critical thought themselves.
Well, I’ll tell you why I do.
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Walmart corporate sucks. Yep. But you know who else sucks? Most other corporations. Walmart is not significantly more evil than the rest.
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I’m a wheelchair user. I am independent to the point of driving to dialysis, but not grocery shopping. So I use delivery. You know who the only store is that doesn’t charge me extra? Walmart.
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They’re not the lowest in price - Aldi and Lidl are - but Walmart is still cheaper than the other mainstream grocery brands, and I’m poor
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Quality is pretty decent all across the board. Not special or amazing, but pretty solid.
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They really have their shit together. We just moved and I have InHome now, meaning when I place an order, I get either 9a-12p window or 1p-5p window (my choice), and they bring stuff into the apartment - into the kitchen. Also, I cannot tip, meaning no decision or choice on the matter.
I’m not passionate about Walmart. I wish other stores would get their shit together like them, though, because I’d like to throw my business around. I really wish I had better access to Aldi and Lidl, but I can’t pay the inflated instacart/doordash prices for groceries, and I hate instacart grocery shoppers. Nice poeple, but they can never find everything and having to babysit the chat and hope they don’t pull nonsense right before checking out so I don’t have time to catch them… it’s not been good experiences.
Walmart ain’t perfect and it’s annoying when they’re out of something or they make a mistake, but they fix mistakes, and overall, it’s a solid service.
Should anyone else use it? Up to your needs. I’m glad to have it, though.
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Aldi has had these for ages and never really had a problem with it. Once something was displayed wrong and I mentioned it so they corrected it for me and then fixed it so the tags were showing correctly. 2 products were price switched by mistake.
Aldi ain’t Wal-Mart.
