Comment by muvlon
1 day ago
Has that actually happened in retail stores? All I can find on the topic is about online purchases (or ordering/paying online and picking it up at the store).
To do this in brick-and-mortar, you'd have to use remotely programmable price tags and detect who is looking at what, which seems doable, but then you still run into all kinds of tough questions with no good answers. If I happen to see the price tag change from $3.49 (perhaps set for the person in front of me) to $4.49 and I put that item in my cart, which price am I getting charged at the register? And did a legal sale even occur if I wasn't aware what I would be paying? I don't think it's going to work.
"Please scan this item with our app to see the price"
As of now, my local supermarkets still have price tags on the shelves. And if there's a higher price at the register when the item is scanned, they will honor the shelf price if you call it to their attention. The biggest supermarket now has e-ink shelf tags so I assume those are synced with their item database so that doesn't happen anymore.
it's the other way around, the shelf prices can be stable and they decide which discounts you can get based on your shopping profile which they built using surveillance
8 replies →
Okay, and what happens at the register?
Yes, it's happening in brick-and-mortar. They've been conditioning people to accept the idea that prices will differ depending on who is doing the buying through the use of apps and loyalty cards (https://web.archive.org/web/20201111164410/http://www.nytime...)
They've known for a long time now that their profits will go through the roof if they can get away with it, but the fact that consumers find the practice offensive has held them back along with the cost of initial investments in things like digital price tags and facial recognition systems (https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057/s41272-019-002...) but all of it is coming. The big chains have already started. By the end of this year Walmart should have digital price tags in every store. Facial recognition is spreading too (often using loss prevention as an excuse). The grocery chain Kroger announced they'll be using facial recognition to offer different prices to different people. Their digital price tags scan faces, and your track appearance and behaviors, like how long you spend looking at various products.
It'll be simple for stores to do things like charge people more when their cameras see them wearing expensive clothes, or when the data collected from their app shows that they live in rich neighborhoods or when they can use the data they collect on you in combination with information from data brokers to learn what your income level is. I fully expect things to get even weirder like stores setting higher prices for people with the wrong opinions or political views. Algorithms will be caught "accidentally" discriminating on things like skin color and gender.
There's a little bit of pushing back against that kind of things in some places, but with the massive amounts of money on the table I expect that politicians will be bribed to allow it.
> If I happen to see the price tag change from $3.49 (perhaps set for the person in front of me) to $4.49 and I put that item in my cart, which price am I getting charged at the register?
The store shelves have cameras in them. You won't see your price until the system detects you. They can even display your photo/avatar next to the price so you know that it's for you. Facial ID at the register tells them who you are when it's time to pay up. That's just for now though. Eventually it'll likely all happen in a cell phone app and you won't be able to as easily look over someone else's shoulder to see what price they're paying.
"Please scan this item with our app to see YOUR price" -ftfy
Somehow this doesn't scare me at all. Fast food restaurants have been doing this for like 8 years. Almost any order you could make normally, you could get a buck or two off of it if you order through their incredibly sluggish, bloated cross-platform-framework "app" and redeem a "deal." And they tell you this with giant ads.
The function is to get incremental sales (and hopefully establish a pattern of repeat business) by discounting selectively to people who might not buy at all otherwise.
If you're thinking "But they should give that discount to everybody!" that's not a thing. There's not enough margin in the first place, especially at a supermarket or Walmart, that everyone could just have lower prices on everything.
My grocery store already sends me individualized paper coupons every month.
All of this is promotions. It's all just trying to get some incremental sales, and hoping that if you get an offer for free hot dog buns you'll also buy the hotdogs.
I've always figured the dream would be to be able to advertise a low price without ever having to deliver it.
Some particularly skeevy car dealers were skewered many years ago for saying "Advertised price is less tax, title, and additional $2,000".
But they CAN get away with saying "The $8.99 burger is $11.99 unless you: - possess one of a range of sanctioned devices - have access to data services - are able to create and manage an account - are willing to opt in to whatever tracking/marketing gimmickry - can claim the "deal" in advance
Each of those steps is a funnel that opts out at least some potential customers from the deal. The 12-year-old who doesn't own a phone can't get the deal. The 85-year-old who can't operate Android can't. The person making impulse purchases and not pre-researching their meal selection misses the offer.
I feel like there's a argument for a precedent akin to "no purchase necessary to enter" for sweepstakes-- no additional purchase, software install, or commitment should be required to claim any advertised offer.
1 reply →
> There's not enough margin in the first place, especially at a supermarket or Walmart, that everyone could just have lower prices on everything.
Strange how this totally worked until a few years ago. I never cut coupons or any other time wasting shenanigans, but was able to stop up on deals on the commonly used shelf-stable items I buy without even needing to signup to a loyalty program.
I understand price segmentation is a thing. But it's gotten pretty exhausting and only increasingly so.
Fast food you can simply opt out of. My health improved due to them shifting all the "deals" to the app, and doubling menu prices. Groceries are a different thing.
It doesn't scare you that $store can decide to double their lrice because they detected a brand new phone in your pocket?
This isn't even a little hypothetical- bluetooth had to anonomyze the MAC address to stop this, and it still fails sometimes.
2 replies →
Maybe you haven't got sufficiently developed imagination...
https://nypost.com/2026/04/21/business/jetblue-x-post-sparks...
The idea of the price you pay could be far higher because your McSocial Credit Score is too low doesn't scare you?
I don't really care about fast food. That's strictly an optional luxury. If the experience sucks too badly, skip it. Grocery would be another matter.
I also think this hypothetical "scan to see your price" scenario is a lot worse. As things stand now, there's still a baseline price. If the shelf says $8.99 then you know that you may be able to get a better price through their loyalty program or with a coupon, but it will never be more than $8.99. In a fully dynamic pricing world where you have to scan scan to get a number at all, which is what a lot of businesses would really love to have, you'd lose that baseline. That item might ring up at $20 if the system decides I'm desperate or inattentive or just don't care. This is already possible online, of course. If it spreads to grocery stores, though, I'm going to start channelling Ned Ludd and it won't be pretty.