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Walmart Is Putting Digital Labels That Change Prices Instantly on Every Store Shelf in America (www.inc.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world
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[–] -1 points 7 months ago (8 children)

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?

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    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

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    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

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (3 children)

    Here's the thing: You live in Canada, where consumer protection laws mean something and the law isn't largely based on which side of a case can burn money the longest on court fees and outlast the other side.

    Here in the US, companies doubling the price of something just so they can mark it as on sale for 50% is illegal, but still happens all the time for big sales like Black Friday. Hell, Amazon does it to people with a Prime membership in order to recoup what they spend on the free shipping - double dipping with your subscription fee and increasing the price on things. Airline companies and hotels will increase the price of a flight or room on a specific day based on how often you search it up (if you allow cookies, that's how they track it. You can look up the same page in a private window and get a totally different price for the same flight or hotel room).

    Sony just announced a few weeks back that they were going to roll out "dynamic pricing" for PlayStation games.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    No, Canadian companies pull the same bullshit too. Consumer protection laws are little more than "agreements" that many companies are directly pulling out of. In particular with grocery stores, if Galen Weston (the owner of the largest family of grocery chains in the country) wants it, it happens. Look into the bread price fixing situation from a few years back. Nothing actually came of it on a legal front, aside from metaphorically smacking the companies on the nose with a rolled up newspaper and being told they're being bad.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    Fair enough. Have companies up there talked about "surge pricing" as well? I remember from this past summer companies like Wal Mart were talking about using electronic price tags to update prices in real time at different times of day and different seasons depending on demand. Given examples were things like increasing the price of water and ice on hot days or ready made meals around lunch and dinner time.

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