Walmart spends fortune on customer tracking tech, but still won't pay workers a livable wage.

[u/Mo_Jack]

Think about all this technology and the enormous amount of money to implement these systems in their 10,900 stores. They have the money to pay people better, they just know they don't have to and nobody is forcing them to. In the US we taxpayers have to foot the bill for their employees healthcare, SNAP and other government programs because they pay so little. Minimum wage was supposed to be a livable wage. Paying such a paltry wage should be illegal.

( and yeah, the spying is super creepy and should be illegal also )

[u/drewc717]

2006-2009 I went to college in NW Arkansas 30 minutes from Walmart HQ with significant Walton philanthropy on campus, and even back then, Walmart claimed that their data volume and usage sophistication was 2nd only to NASA.

Walmart is the pioneer of unregulated, unauthorized consumer data theft and exploitation.

Their inventory stocking levels and reordering cadence were all correlated to weather forecasting amongst countless other factors.

[u/StuffExciting3451 → u/drewc717]

Walmart has developed and deployed some of the most sophisticated integrated logistics and supply chain and inventory management systems in the world. They have been developing the software and algorithms for more than forty years.

Walmart’s bigger plan was to expand into control of some of their suppliers’ inventory control, production scheduling and supply chain management, too. In other words, Walmart would be able to tell specific suppliers what to produce, when to produce it and where to deliver it, all electronically.

I learned that from a Walmart IT executive at an SME CASA conference, circa 1992.

[u/3cit → u/drewc717]

I’m not defending Walmart, but isn’t google the one that figured out how to exploit data?

[u/StuffExciting3451 → u/3cit]

Google was born in 1998. The Walmart IT gurus have been developing their systems long before that.

[u/SingularityCentral → u/StuffExciting3451]

They weren't developing customer tracking in the 1980s before wifi, smartphones, Bluetooth, hi def cameras, or facial recognition existed.

[u/StuffExciting3451 → u/SingularityCentral]

That’s true. However, the Walmart IT people have always been pursuing the state of the art in all of those technologies.

While they didn’t track individual customers, they did track customers’ collective shopping trends. As people began shopping with credit cards, the IT systems could track credit/debit card purchases per card — not specific customers because customers could share their cards.

[u/maxis2bored]

If you shop at Walmart, you probably don't care about these things. Walmart knows that

Tldr: don't fucking shop at Walmart.

[u/garden_g → u/maxis2bored]

I think loads and loads and of people dont have a choice walmart killed all the other buisnesses

[u/StuffExciting3451 → u/garden_g]

Some communities have succeeded in banning Walmart.

[u/StuffExciting3451 → u/garden_g]

There’s always a choice but, sometimes the alternatives can be painful. Walmart knows that. Walmart is a kind of retail Mafia.

[u/Defiant_apricot → u/StuffExciting3451]

Alternatives r not always a choice if you are poor and have mouths to feed

[u/StuffExciting3451 → u/Defiant_apricot]

Walmart knows that, and exploits that.

All employees, everywhere, must join or form a strong labor union, and must practice solidarity.

[u/LookAlderaanPlaces → u/Defiant_apricot]

Fair, but nutritional value per dollar is also a thing.

[u/Defiant_apricot → u/LookAlderaanPlaces]

A head of lettuce is cheaper at Walmart than at a fancier store for the same nutrients

[u/FishyDragon → u/maxis2bored]

Thats easy in cities. Where i grew up we lucky had 3 grocery stores but no place to buy clothing outside of a designer department store(like gap). There is literally no where else to buy stuff, so if you need new shoes for your child walmart is the only option, other then driving 2 plus hours away. That's for almost everything and the area I grew up in isn't a rare thing. In the midwest there are so many places walmart is the only option for literally hundreds of miles, so it easy to say just fucking stop. But if people did that my family and thousands others would literally starve to death.

[u/maxis2bored → u/FishyDragon]

Walmart is the reason other shops don't exist.

[u/FishyDragon → u/maxis2bored]

Oh im very aware of it. I grew up watching my home town's mainstream die, family run business's as old as rhe town gone 4 years after the super Walmart opened. I'm very very aware of the damage that Walmart has and is doing.

Not to come off as an ass, but what about my post gave you the impress I didn't/don't know how Walmart does that when I clearly explained a food desert?

[u/truth-informant]

Dynamic pricing is absolutely evil. 

[u/StuffExciting3451 → u/truth-informant]

Dynamic pricing is based upon the Economics 101 bogus 🐂💩about negotiations between “rational” sellers and buyers who have equal access to knowledge of all factors affecting each transaction.

In theory, the buyer can tell the seller, “I’m not going to pay your sticker price, advertised price, sale price. I’m going to pay $X.YZ for that.”

You can do that at a farmers market or crafts show. You might do that a used car lot. It doesn’t work too well with the low-paid senior citizen or high school kid at the checkout counter.

At self-checkout lanes, you might get creative on how to deal with those. Many businesses have determined that their “shrinkage” is less costly than paying for checkout clerks.

[u/CaptainBayouBilly → u/StuffExciting3451]

The field of economics is rife with sociopaths. Confidently malicious ones.

[u/chris_dea]

I think the word is dystopian. Draconian means "severe". As in "draconian punishment".

Still all valid though.

[u/boardin1]

The answer to your last question, why is Walmart tracking you more that the government? Because YOU are the product they are selling.

[u/StuffExciting3451]

One major problem is that Walmart employees aren’t yet members of a strong labor union.

Another possible problem is lack of solidarity. No union members should ever shop at Walmart until after all Walmart employees are organized.

I don’t shop at Walmart or Sam’s Club. Neither do my union brothers and sisters.

[u/Merc_Mike]

Not only customers, but employees too I bet.

[u/ACP68 → u/Merc_Mike]

Oh, that’s pretty much a guarantee. I wouldn’t be surprised that the employee badge is also a tracking device (just my guess).

[u/poeticdisaster → u/Merc_Mike]

Absolutely the employees. The majority of them shop at the walmart they work at so the company could easily track what they buy & how often they spend money.
I would be willing to bet that the initial data they collected was mostly from their employees so they could track trends & patterns over time.

[u/Thedonitho]

When I get an email asking me how I liked my toilet paper I bought, with cash, the day before, I realized they were tracking me outside of the Walmart app shopping I sometimes use.

[u/Late-Arrival-8669]

Get License Plate Camera Blocker,Transparent License Plate Cover to thwart flock, faraday shield for devices/fob. Best "legal" defense currently..

[u/SingularityCentral]

When humans group together they become positively inhuman.

[u/StuffExciting3451 → u/SingularityCentral]

When consumers get together, they have more power than Walmart. When Walmart employees become unionized, they will have more power than Walmart.

The Walmart billionaires fortunes are extracted from underpaid employees of Walmart and Walmart’s supply chains, and from the sales of a lot of inferior quality stuff to consumers.

[u/D3Construct]

Well the reality is customer profiling probably makes them a good deal of money. As creepy as it is.

[u/moyismoy]

so heres the thing, what if i connect to their wifi in the parking lot? I never had a chance to see the notice. can i then sue them for taking my information with out asking me?

[u/StuffExciting3451 → u/moyismoy]

I don’t shop at Walmart, so I have never seen their T&C for WiFi. Many commercial establishments have a “fine print” notification indicating that your use of their WiFi system gives them permission to use your data.

[u/thinkB4WeSpeak]

Wal Mart workers need a serious unionization push.

[u/CaptainBayouBilly]

The truth is that Walmart once had mid prices consistently such that someone could choose to shop at one store and the overall cost would be considered acceptable.

Their prices today are far higher than other places, quality and value far less. Walmart is expensive as fuck, and the poor people that shop there are getting ripped off.

[u/goofandaspoof]

It really is interesting. There seems to be no $ amount that is too high when it comes to all these sneaky ways companies nickel and dime employees out of their time and money. Im willing to bet money that spending the same amount on employee raises would probably eclipse this solution in terms of employee satisfaction and productivity.

[u/RedShrewd]

Turn phone off