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.
…what? How would dynamic pricing be done with paper labels? Have someone stand there, and switch out labels as new people approach?
Typically they’d just use a price gun like this:
Dynamic pricing doesn’t mean individualized pricing per person, it just means deciding to set higher prices in the locations in poor parts of town, setting prices for things like meat and fresh produce at the start of the day or week, the frequency really doesn’t matter you could set prices hourly if you wanted to dedicate an employee or 2 to it.