You can just assume it is every US company because it is.
This stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum.
CEOs talk to each other about this kind of shit and plan together.
Just like how "AI" has been shoved into fucking everything by everyone even though it is useless and makes a lot of people upset.
Expect all of them to do it so you don't have a choice and they all did it to "stay competitive with each other."
Making sure there isn't another option is one hundred percent part of industry plans.
Just like how trying to replace fast food workers with automation and touch screens has been in the works since the 80's at least. The tech is just finally cheap enough is all.
They actually use consultants like McKinley, who are the coordinating force behind a lot of the obviously self-destructive decisions companies are making in lockstep
atm, Wendy's because of their plan for dynamic pricing based on how busy they are, and 'my local KFC', because in 2017 I had to wait 50 minutes for my order (for 2), and they gave away the last of something I ordered to someone who came in like half an hour later, and they weren't going to be making more. (that and KFC is way over priced for their standard menu if you aren't getting some kind of 'deal')
I love how reality manages to combine the most comically exploitative parts of cyberpunk fiction with literally none of the intense, vibrant, or interesting parts. It's just a dull, gray, sexless, post-industrial dystopia with ugly cars, chronic obesity, and fentanyl addiction. And now surge pricing.
Black's conviction has presented another challenge for U.S. authorities already working to gain the release of several Americans in Russian jails on what the White House says are spurious charges.
Does it? He isn’t a political prisoner. It sounds like he’s a horny, apparently violent dumbass who secretly went to Russia against military rules (and common sense) and then did crimes.
dynamic pricing, perhaps.
Depend on who is looking, the price on e-tag will display to match the ability to pay of that customer. If you are rich, then price increase.
MOSCOW — A Russian court has sentenced a United States soldier to nearly four years in prison on charges of theft and threatening to murder, the latest in a series of arrested American citizens in Russia amid simmering tensions over Ukraine and other issues.
Without informing superiors, Black traveled to Russia's Far Eastern city of Vladivostok, entering via China, to see his Russian girlfriend with whom he had started a relationship during his posting overseas.
Last month, Vashchuk filed a police report that accused Black of stealing 10,000 rubles — just over a hundred dollars — from her purse and attempting to choke her after the couple had an argument.
Black's conviction has presented another challenge for U.S. authorities already working to gain the release of several Americans in Russian jails on what the White House says are spurious charges.
The White House says it has made substantial offers aimed at gaining the release of Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, a former Marine who was sentenced to 16 years on espionage charges in 2018.
In recent years, the Biden administration has also cut deals with Moscow to secure the release of WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner and former Marine Trevor Reed from Russian prisons.
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We already have this in Australia - my local supermarkets are all using electronic pricing labels - you cannot tell if prices have changed and they can literally change them whilst you are in the store - you cannot even tell when something is on special anymore as the large paper tags you used to see have all gone in the name of “saving the environment” - which is absolute garbage considering we are subjected to a grocery store duopoly in Australia who are renowned for price gouging….
I've often wondered what the "saving the environment" numbers of these actually look like. Is making and recycling paper shelf labels worse for the environment than a small device that's a mix of plastics and electronics and has a battery that will eventually need replacing? Especially when I consider my local grocery store probably has thousands of these tags, all rolled out overnight one night, that will probably all need replacement batteries at similar intervals too.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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)?
Depends, generally no. Some supermarkets do as a company policy though and I choose to shop at those that do show per-unit pricing (and are also locally/employee owned)
The race to the bottom continues imagine all the useful things we could be doing instead of this fucking shit just to take more from the pockets of people. Fuck this shit
Some of my local supermarkets have these already. The worst part is that they use real shitty, dark displays. It was always easy to see the price when it was black ink on white or yellow paper, but trying to check the price on what amounts to a calculator screen at ten paces is horrid.
Doesn’t help that the displays are so much smaller than paper tags, and the stores like to put the “3 for $10” as the priority, meaning the actual unit price is millimetres tall.
I hope there’s pushback on this. They mention prices can change as often as 10 seconds. Meaning you can add something to your cart and by the time you check out the price has gone up. That seems like false advertising. Will the store associates have a way to override the cost if we make a fuss and ask them to price match the items to the cost when we added them to our carts?
It feels like this is another area where technology is advancing faster than our consumer protection laws. I suppose another thing to write your local representatives about. I’d hope legislation protecting a family grocery shopping would be an easy win for politicians and bipartisan.
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.
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.
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
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.
Yeah every store values client loyalty, but pretending companies (e.g. Walmart for crissakes) want to be loyal to their customers should disqualify you from being called an "industry analyst".
Oh, so when the crippling inflation from the money printing actually happens, they won't even have to hire somebody to physically go around and change the prices every hour. Impressive.
Not only that but they can identify you by your cell phone and see if you are a high income person or big spender, and change the prices as you walk down the aisles.
There's not really a way to do that with this technology. These are just price tags on the shelf, so if they changed the price it would change it for everyone in the store.
This is not precisely accurate. These are individually addressible and can be commanded to change what's displayed based on any arbitrary input, such as detection of a critical mass of apple products in that part of the store, or a device which is signed into a store account on the store app, accurate down to about 3 meters last time I looked at the state of presence analytics tech. So you absolutely could have 20% higher prices follow a person around a store if you wanted to.
But you don't carry the sign with you. It stays at the shelf. Sure, they could build a system that tracks you everywhere in the store and marks what price they showed you and tells the register what price to display when you check out. They'll try all that, but this won't do it yet.
With that technology, no. But retailers track where you are in their stores. And even if you don't bring your phone with you, they're using facial recognition technology and will eventually try working with that.
So they probably have a good idea who you are. And they also have your purchase history - what you bought and at what price you bought it. They have your frequent shopper card history, your online purchases, everything they've put together from data aggregators.
They have all the pieces: they can track you in the store, they know the prices you're willing to pay for things, and they can change the price as you walk down the aisle. Do you seriously think someone isn't going to start putting all that together?
More than that. They have your frequent shopper card and your online purchase history and everything else they've aggregated together. They know at what prices you purchase things, they know how much you shop around, they know the days of the week and times of day your more likely to make an impulse purchase. It's lunch on Tuesday and your favorite snack suddenly costs five cents more because they're moving the Overton window on your price points. It's after work Friday and suddenly everything costs 10% more because they know it's the end of the week and you're tired and aren't going to go to another store.
npr.org
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