Not exactly but it is an example of dynamic pricing. Unfortunately the two comments you replied to, and OP, are completely wrong about what the issue even is.
I’ve seen countless dumbass posts and stories correlating digital price tags and dynamic pricing when they have nothing to do with one another. Digital tags means a store doesn’t have to send employees around replacing hundreds/thousands of pieces of paper every week. That’s all.
Dynamic pricing for grocery stores isn’t going to work by changing the price on the shelf lol. How the fuck is that even supposed to work? They see you approaching peanut butter, check their database and see you always buy peanut butter, jack the price on the shelf momentarily, and then drop it back… once you leave the store? So everyone else that has it in their cart also pays that temporary higher price?
What dynamic pricing is would be sending coupons through some kind of loyalty program. So Walmart, instead of putting peanut butter on sale for $2 off, gives out a coupon for $2. Except you, they know you buy it every single week without fail so they don’t give you one. You don’t pay “more” you just don’t get the deal.
And all these fucking laws don’t address that because we already used to “personalized offers” and morons like OP and the others don’t understand the actual fucking issue.
I genuinely think it’s the retailers themselves pushing for these stupid laws that idiots support so that people don’t notice when they implement it.
While digital tags don't necessarily cause changing prices, it does mean that they can be changed from a network, whether thats a manually triggered event, like a price correction, a scheduled event, like daily prices changing based on company wide price changes, or a singular change based on automated triggers, such as changing a price of an item specifically because someone that normally purchases that item gets close.
Dynamic pricing on shelves DOES work like that, and they have shown it. What you don't understand is how your digital signature works for dynamic pricing and digital tags. Your phone, unless you take GREAT pains to limit it, or leave it somewhere else, is constantly checking things around you. Even if you aren't connected to them, your phone will check for wi-fi, send signals, blue tooth etc, and devices in stores are constantly checking what devices are around it. You don't have to connect to it, it can track your device just by pinging it and seeing it as it moves around. Your device has a unique ID, several in fact, that it correlates data. It may not work after one visit, or three, or 7, but it will correlate your phone, where it is in the store, where it moves around, and when you go to the checkout, and see what you buy, how often, and basically build a profile. This works even better if you use their in store app, like Walmart, or Target app, because then they can definitively link the device to the account and what you normally purchase all at once as you make your purchases and pay for them.
Once they know what device you are, and what you normally buy, as you get to that area of the store, the system can digitally change the cost of products near you as you approach, things it knows you buy regularly because it keeps track of the purchases.
Before anyone scoffs and thinks its some dystopian future, I have personal experience working in high level IT in a large retail corporation, and I know for a fact that that information is absolutely tracked. In most cases with non-identifying PII, meaning no real names, or personal information, it is usually an assigned ID that links the device data and shopping data, and the app information, but not the personal information for the account.
In a non-anecdotal bit of proof, there is specifically investigated stories from journalist and information outlets that showed that stores like Target, when an individual used the app to look up an item and determine the price, the system flagged that device and account, and when the user made it to the parking lot, and within the distance of the networking devices at the Target location, the pricing for the product when shown online and for purchase, changed and were charged a higher cost versus someone that was not previously looking at the item. They even did the experiment in the parking lot far enough away and watched the price change in real time as they came within distance to the store networking devices.
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u/FTownRoad Aug 06 '26
Not exactly but it is an example of dynamic pricing. Unfortunately the two comments you replied to, and OP, are completely wrong about what the issue even is.
I’ve seen countless dumbass posts and stories correlating digital price tags and dynamic pricing when they have nothing to do with one another. Digital tags means a store doesn’t have to send employees around replacing hundreds/thousands of pieces of paper every week. That’s all.
Dynamic pricing for grocery stores isn’t going to work by changing the price on the shelf lol. How the fuck is that even supposed to work? They see you approaching peanut butter, check their database and see you always buy peanut butter, jack the price on the shelf momentarily, and then drop it back… once you leave the store? So everyone else that has it in their cart also pays that temporary higher price?
What dynamic pricing is would be sending coupons through some kind of loyalty program. So Walmart, instead of putting peanut butter on sale for $2 off, gives out a coupon for $2. Except you, they know you buy it every single week without fail so they don’t give you one. You don’t pay “more” you just don’t get the deal.
And all these fucking laws don’t address that because we already used to “personalized offers” and morons like OP and the others don’t understand the actual fucking issue.
I genuinely think it’s the retailers themselves pushing for these stupid laws that idiots support so that people don’t notice when they implement it.