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.
So what? The price is still fetched at the register. The on-shelf price is just information.
I agree that this will let them change it faster but not really any different from before. As I said the price has for a few decades been read at the register from the barcode. Not a sticker on the item
I don’t know about the rest of Canada, but in Quebec the label not matching the register is considered a pricing error and generally you get to pay the display price.
With digital labels, the displayed price and the register price will always line up.
EDIT: For some reason I thought this was a post in /c/Canada. Some states might have similar regulations though…
How though, when it changes between you grabbing it off the shelf and scanning it at the register?
What I mean is that the displayed price and register are always in sync.
Realistically, I feel like it would mean that they can only change prices during shutdown hours (or perhaps VALID UNTIL prices for changing mid-day). Changing displayed prices manually each night is too much labour to be worth it, but with digital labels, it could be done.
More dystopian, I’m sure at some point Walmart will be able to track each person to display a unique price when they are looking, and that displayed price can follow them to the register.