SO, while I was in WalMart the other day, I noticed that the price tags for the items on the shelf had changed. If you look at the pictures from the post referenced above, the usual price tags on the shelf have been replaced with digital price tags that are remotely updated. In the old days, you had a guy trundle a cart down the aisle a couple times a week with new price stickers to put on the shelves. No more. Now, the guys in the back office can update the price on an item and it’s instantly reflected on the shelves. I admire this sort of efficiency, yes….but the cynical part of me says that this is a sign that prices are changing so frequently, probably upwards, that it makes sense to be able to change them instantly and often to keep on top of inflationary pressures.
Sign of the times? Yes. But specifically what kind of times is the better question.
More interesting is what I have noticed at the gas pump. The prices charged for gasoline vary throughout the day, sort of like surge pricing for fuel. Gasoline is more expensive in the evening than it is during the day. I don’t see why the same thing isn’t happening at the grocery store.
Change frequently? Yes. Because of inflation? In part. I think the two biggest reasons they use those things are A) they can have several less employees, with all their attendant costs, and B) They can jack prices around multiple times a day depending on sales trends and algorithms. Save $100 a day in compensations, and make an extra $500 a day from diddling prices (Pure profit) and they net an extra $219 thou a year. Not huge at their level, but multiply that by 4587 locations.
Ah yes the Sportsmans Guide to algorithmic pricing!
I think you are spot on with the savings on wages. Your second reason will gain more traction once they let AI run the pricing. Will also help them keep ahead of the tariff nitwit.
If I could I’d repost the meme of a family RUNNING to the casher to pay BEFORE the prices go up again.
Weimar Germany anyone?
That book The Mandibles comes to mind.
History in real time folks. Hope you have trusted friends and trusted family to work through it.
So now we photograph the tag and item, in case the price changes while we shop. “Price check” means you lose every time.
About 13 years ago, my local Kohls had this or similar system. I selected a pair of shoes, and check the digital price three times. At the register the shoes rang up $10 higher. The price checker agreed with the higher price. I left without the shoes and have not purchased anything at Kohls since that incident.
Digital – so be it. Now they no longer have an excuse to get the price per (ounce, pound, whatever) wrong. They almost always are with the current paper price tags. And they do their best to make them useless – one item may be in $/oz, another of the same kind is $/lb, etc. And I am tired of the fake product descriptions. For example a “frozen turkey white meat roast” is prominently labeled “48 oz.” Buy it and find 10 oz are “gravy” (whatever chemical mess that may be). Then cook the 38 oz “roast” and find you get 28 oz of “meat” because they injected 10 oz of liquid that cooked off. When it is labeled “turkey” I expect meat, not added crap not disclosed. The most prominent weight ought to be the meat before additives.
Not sure if my local Wally World has them yet, they are across town and not cheaper then Fred Meyers on most things, but I have seen the digital tags at Lowes. I’m surprised it’s taken this long, I’ve been reading about them existing since the “e-ink” technology devices like the kindle paperwhite uses (used?), it only takes power to change the text so they don’t have to be hard wired.
Makes me wonder who will be the first one to ‘hack’ the system and start re-pricing stuff to suit what they want and not what the store does.
My brother in Christ. They have been doing that literally since the technology was invented.
https://hackaday.com/blog/?s=e-ink+price
Where we are, the W is currently remodeling, a town over from ours, which we live a few miles from. Prices are a bit higher, no digital stuff yet. We garden, get meat from a good source, rancher type. The main issue here, mechanics on our mid 70’s vehicle. I have to correct the mistakes, cost us lots, I’m an old 60 plus former mechanic , not really surprised but even in our neck of the prairie, it hits hard.
Yeap, the WM we frequent on southern Minnesota has them. I’m not sure when they appeared but today when I checked, there they were.
I’m doubting they’re wireless as there appeared to be a light based input nub on the upper left side (also visible in CZ’s pic).
Steelheart
Setting the stage for “dynamic pricing”. Walmart already has some of the most incredible customer surveillance available (classic case years ago where someone used a shovel purchased at Walmart to kill someone. Left the SKU code tag on the shovel. Police took the shovel to Walmart to try and get some leads. Walmart was able to give police video of the guy buying it). Let’s say you walk in the store with your cell phone. Store registers that and uses it to data mine various services that have accumulated much info on you. They are watching you shop through a multitude of cameras and other sensors. You live in a nice neighborhood, you have a well paying job and a high credit score. Maybe the price on everything you look at ratchets up a percent or two…or five.
Have not seen the digital price tags yet, but out store has at least 20 video cameras just looking at the parking lot.
I noticed WM’s order tracking when I shopped online for curbside pickup. The website not only tells me I have purchased a specific item before, but how many times, up to 5+. What surprised me was when I made a purchase in the store using a different credit card and those items showed up in my online account. I guess the system was smart enough to combine my name and the store location and jump the the conclusion that both purchases were the same person..
Moral of the story: Shop in person and pay cash to a human cashier if you buy anything you don’t want Big Brother, your spouse, or your mother to know about.
Toured a wallymart dc about 20 years ago. Serviced 8o stores. Cycled about 200 trucks in and out every 24 hours. Miles of conveyors. Their performance metrics were measured to 3 decimal places. Many terabytes of data stored. Can only imagine how much they have tightened up since then.
When going through self-checkout, the *ding* sound is different, seems to echo making me think it charged twice. Confusing.
I’m in Walmart everyday for work. In the Peoria, Il area those tags haven’t appeared yet at Walmart.
Reminds me of the good old days at our local “sell everything” hardware store. You’d go to the widget shelf and if the price was $6 you could reach in the back and brush off the dust and buy it for $4.
I used to do that with oddball and low-demand boxes of ammo in gun shops. Once bought a couple dozen boxes of old Mexican-made .44 AutoMag ammo for $9/box and dumped them to collectors for five times that.
I took Mr Becks advice years ago when he said buy ammo now while it’s plentiful and cheap! I was comfortable through the ammo “drought” and have only been buying on our trips down south since here in the peoples republic of NY they require background checks and a fee. Can’t wait to flee this hell hole one day soon.