this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
341 points (97.8% liked)

News

23267 readers
3002 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

Apps like Uber already use surge pricing, in which higher demand leads to higher prices in real time. Companies across industries have caused controversy with talk of implementing surge pricing, with fast-food restaurant Wendy’s making headlines most recently. Electronic shelf labels allow the same strategy to be applied at grocery stores, but are not the only reason why retailers may make the switch.

(page 3) 43 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 40 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Ooooo. Can't wait till a hurricane is coming and they raise the price of water and canned food.

I wonder how much price gouging will be permitted. If they can raise the price of water when it's hot then could they raise it "just enough" to not get in trouble with the state when a hurricane is coming

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)
  1. Buy groceries when the price is low.
  2. Refund when the prices go up.
  3. Profit!
[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Receipts have a time stamp, so they'd have a record of the actual price you paid. If you paid in cash and didn't get a receipt, and if they make an exception for your return, they'd base it on when you said you bought it. You might be able to get one or two exceptions depending on who's working. With that said you'd better make a purchase of thousands of dollars and pay in cash to make sure to get at least a few dollars back for your efforts.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

I can't possibly shop there any less than I already do, but this is good to know.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 months ago (5 children)

On one hand, this cuts down on paper/sticker waste and time spent making and printing new prices and such.

On the other, I don't like that they could just change the price whenever they feel like. Though others have said multiple states have laws against changing prices during the business day.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Wal-Mart shoppers! Chocolate chip cookies are on sale at $1 for the next 30 minutes.

Good luck!

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Potentially every 10 seconds. So you put the item in your cart at one price, and then discover it's a different price at checkout.

I hope shoppers start dumping a bunch of these back on the store, and they are forced to restock them. Would serve them right. It's the only thing that will impact it it: make it an expensive hassle for them.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I can't even go to Walmart no more without running into people I know. Back in the day I never did myself up before going to Walmart because I never saw anybody there that I have acquaintance with. Now everybody is shopping there and I feel like I have to get dressed up or I don't fit in. Sometimes even put on lipstick and you know how the prices on that has gone up. I'm on a fixed income and the best shade that compliments my skin tone but doesn't break me out costs almost $10 when it was $6.99 before COVID.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Is this copypasta or have we just witnessed the birth of a new one?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago

Now everybody is shopping there and I feel like I have to get dressed up or I don’t fit in.

Said nobody ever in regards to Walmart.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Whole Foods and Best Buy have done this for years. It allows centralized control of sale pricing without having to print and post new signage at every location.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Aldi has been doing it forever. But it doesn't change based on surge pricing. What an evil idea...

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago

IMO the tech itself is fine, but using it to gouge people based on weather and such is not.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago

This is probably a prelude to groceries getting Uber like surge pricing, and likely targeted pricing schemes too.

[–] [email protected] 89 points 4 months ago (3 children)

So what if you placed some water in your cart, walked around and then they raise the price before you check out? How does that work?

[–] [email protected] 67 points 4 months ago (3 children)

There are laws in many states governing many items clearly articulating that the price cannot change during business hours/within a business day.

Hopefully the FTC revs up it's engines like it's been doing.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 80 points 4 months ago (2 children)

They're going to end up with a bunch of people complaining to the manager about the price not matching the sign, which already happens, but it'll be 10x worse.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

They'll price check it and find the new price. The customer will be blamed.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 51 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Good. Annoy the managers until they get rid of this shit

[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 months ago (2 children)

The thing that sucks is that the managers aren't going to be the ones with the power to do that. Then again, all of my managers were spineless as fuck when I worked in a grocery store (literally never had employees' backs), so they'll probably just do an override on the price anyway.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Just gonna squeeze every last drop out of you. Every. Last. Drop.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 235 points 4 months ago (13 children)

If it’s hot outside we can raise the price of water…”

Holy fuck dude that’s some endgame capitalism right there.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Always has been. Do you know the story of Jacob and Esau and the cost of a lentil stew for a starving brother?

[–] [email protected] 43 points 4 months ago (2 children)

They really will just fuck us to death if we let them.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

One dose of capitalism please.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago

It's Walmart. They are one of the scummiest around. They nickel and dime everything and everyone.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 4 months ago

Yes. That is actually the point. MUST maximize that profit!

Airlines do this now, as does Uber.

The tech is only just catching up for retail. This is end game capitalism hope you enjoyed the ride.

[–] [email protected] 83 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Is it price gouging if there is a heat advisory is my question, and how enforceable is that. For water it's just cruel, especially in places with little access to drinkable tap water.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (8 replies)
[–] [email protected] 71 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Just wait until they track your phone in the stores and tie it to demographics like where you live and profession to build a financial profile to estimate how much you are able to pay. As you walk down aisles, the prices change to your price to gouge out every possible penny from you.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

Time to design a phone faraday cage for grocery shopping.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like a market to pay people to shop for you.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

But don't pay them too much.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I can see this happening 100%. It's already kind of a thing in home renovation and construction. Some businesses will charge you a higher hourly labor rate if your materials are expensive. Installing tile or whatever should be the same labor rate, but they assume customers buying expensive materials "must be rich" and won't blink at paying more for labor, too. They don't all do this, of course, but it's something to watch out for (and one of many reasons you should always get multiple estimates from different contractors).

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

This is just a great opportunity for a poor person to rent their phone out, you gotta look for the silver lining in the capitalism!

[–] [email protected] 40 points 4 months ago

The true cyberpunk dystopia. They ultimately want to keep you as close to destitute without actually being bankrupt as possible, that way they extract as much as possible from you at all times for as long as they can.

Capitalism will always try to get as many people as possible, to pay as much as possible, for as little as possible.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›