This month, Walmart became the latest retailer to announce it’s replacing the price stickers in its aisles with electronic shelf labels. The new labels allow employees to change prices as often as every ten seconds.
“If it’s hot outside, we can raise the price of water and ice cream. If there’s something that’s close to the expiration date, we can lower the price — that’s the good news,” said Phil Lempert, a grocery industry analyst.
Jesus, I can’t imagine just coming out and saying this like it’s not fucking deranged to charge people more for WATER during a heat wave.
Also, the first time the price of something rises in the 5 minutes it takes for me to get my shopping done and get to the checkout, I’m taking a shit on the floor.
We’re gonna need some new regulations that require all price labels to have a date/time of last change so we know when they changed the prices.
There is a rule for gas stations that prices can only be changed once a day. Sounds like that would be a good start.
Jesus, I can’t imagine just coming out and saying this like it’s not fucking deranged to charge people more for WATER during a heat wave.
and if there is a fire, we can raise prices of fire extinguishers, how cool is that?
Just leave my gallons of ice cream sitting there.
They’ll probably require you to shop with your phone and scan shit as you go.
Yea, no, kiss my ass.
I won’t say never, but my company has these and the tags aren’t able to be centrally updated meaning it would require manual intervention to reprice those items at all locations (and incorrect pricing is grounds for shutdown in some states) furthermore our software only does a pricebook load once a day so I can’t see that in our near future. I’m inclined to believe Walmart execs may be regurgitating a sales pitch more than what they’re capable of doing. That being said never say never and out techno dystopian future will be upon us soon.
In my country we’ve had these electronic labels for many years, using them was part of my first real job a decade ago. And here they definitely can be updated centrally, and in near real time.
It helps that it’s an “industry analyst” and not someone from Walmart.
I can tell you, working in retail, there’s no way they’d jack up prices during a heatwave for water. They still gotta compete with other stores, and charging more would cause shoppers to go to where it’s cheaper.
Now if there’s shortages all over town and even the followers can’t keep up, I can see them fucking with prices. But they could do that right now if they wanted to. It’s not hard to adjust prices.
The real advantage of electronic labels is not having a crew to replace stacks and stacks of labels all over the store. The cost of labor and cost of the actual label sheets and printer maintenance to keep all that up to date, I’m guessing, is getting to the point where it’s cheaper to use electronics.
You say that like people would stop at multiple locations just to compare prices before buying water. Most people will just go wherever is most convenient, such as their usual supermarket. They’re not going to spend the time and money driving around to each supermarket in town.
Also, I’m pretty sure that jacking up prices for water string a heat wave is basically the definition of price gouging.
We’ve been seeing these electronic tags on sale items at Walmart for the past few years. It’s been a few months since the last time we were in the store, but last weekend we noticed ALL items now had small two-color OLED price tags on them. I don’t know if that means we’re just lucky enough to be one of the first to get the new tech, or that the chain had already started rolling them out well before the article, but they’re definitely out there. I’d actually love to get ahold of some just to play with them, although seeing the prices of OLEDs on ebay makes me wonder how any store is saving money by using them.
The standard elabels cost around $5 in quantity plus some for the hub that updates them, but you get it back eventually as nobody has to print and swap price labels any more.
Aren’t those ePaper? Here in switzerland, they use ePaper displays (like the display of kindle devices)
While the labels give retailers the ability to increase prices suddenly, Gallino doubts companies like Walmart will take advantage of the technology in that way. “To be honest, I don’t think that’s the underlying main driver of this,” Gallino said. “These are companies that tend to have a long-term relationship with their customers and I think the risk of frustrating them could be too risky, so I would be surprised if they try to do that.”
How to tell if an academic doesn’t get out enough.
Probably the same guy that says inflation is “not a problem/getting better/under control”.
Are these people just available for hire by the media? Are they like professional witnesses for “two sides” reporting?
Inflation is largely not a problem, corporate price gouging accounts for the bulk of increases. Price gouging increases are an enormous fucking problem for people. Calling it inflation is their script, don’t adopt their language.
Consolidation or competitors that has been allowed almost unabated the last 25 years exacerbates the effects.
Oh Ffs, what a fucking idiot, or liar, probably both.
Of course that’s the whole fucking point, you over-educated fucktard.
And people wonder why the average Joe mistrusts academia?
I mean there are clear savings advantages to switching to electronic tags. It takes like 30 to 100 man hours every week to swap out labels depending on store size. Thats like 20 to 50k a year you can save on labor by just having them automatically update each week.
Plus the tags/price strips right now aren’t free. Probably another 5k you save a year
So, if these prices can be so easily updated, surely the retailers can now include tax in the listed price. It’s very simple automated math of course…
Wait, you’re telling me that the price on the shelf doesn’t include tax where you live?
And how about price comparison, is it mandatory for US supermarkets to display the price per unit based on a standard unit of measurement (such as per pound or per ounce or whatever metrics are used)?
No way this benefits the consumer.
Of course not. It lets their office or even corporate computers change the prices in real time whenever they feel like it. Hypothetically, you could pick something off a shelf where the digital signset $3, and by the time you walked it up to a register, it cost $4. It’s like changing the price of something in a shop simulation video game after the customer has picked it up, and now they have to pay $9,999.99 for a bag of potato chips.
That would be illegal. I worked on the software deployment of these devices in a store. If we increased the price, we’d automatically give the customer the lowest price in the last several hours.
The other problem was they were extremely low powered and low bandwidth and it would have killed the battery to update more than a few times a day.
And my country has price laws where tagged prices have to be honoured (I forget all the technicalities of the policy) - so if something scans up wrong, what stops the employee at service from changing the shelf price to reflect the wrong one while another employee walks over to verify with me? It would need a nefarious intent, which most minimum wage shop employees could care less about, but it’s a theoretical that could happen, especially on higher price items.
Imagine walking down the aisle, normal day, no thoughts about the prices or any of that.
Then one day you walk down the aisle but this time you forgot your phone in the car.
Different prices. Then some one walks is coming close from the other end of the aisle. The price changes. They walk past, nonplussed. A few seconds later, it switches back.
The year is 2047. Individually tracked pricing algorithms determine prices for each customer. I am the local water man, who everyone pays a small fee to go buy clean water, because my high volume of purchases means I get a slight discount. In only 34 more years I can pay off my 8th grade education and start thinking about a down payment on a double sleeping pod.
In 2291, in an attempt to control violence among deep space miners the New Earth Government legalized no-holds-bared fighting.
Liandri Mining Corporation, working with the NEG, established a series of leagues and bloody public exhibitions.
The fight’s popularity grew with their brutality. Soon, Liandri discovered that the public matches were their most profitable enterprise.
The professional league was formed; a cabal of the most violent and skilled warriors in known space, selected to fight in a Grand Tournament.
Now it is 2341, 50 years have passed since founding of DeathMatch. Profits from the Tournament number in the hundreds of billions.
You have been selected to fight in the professional league by the Liandri Rules Board. Your strength and brutality are legendary.
The time has come to prove you are the best- to crush your enemies- to win the Tournament.
This is basically Ballmasterz 9009, if you like weird adult cartoons (made by the same guy that did Superjail).
