It’s going to be hilarious when these get hacked
Reminder that by law, if the price is listed wrong:
Sometimes the price of an item in store or online at the checkout may not match the displayed or advertised price in store or online. If this happens, even by mistake, the business must either:
- sell the product for the lowest price - either the checkout price, or displayed or advertised price, or
- stop selling the item until the incorrect price is corrected.
What law? In what country?
Australia, the country the article is talking about. That was a quote from the ACCC website.
stop selling the item until the incorrect price is corrected
Not a lawyer but couldn't they just refuse to sell it to you? We all know it would be bullshit but couldn't a company say "Oh that minimum wage clerk made a mistake, but don't blame them, just an honest mistake."
Or is the law, if it's on the shelf, it must be honored?
They would have to refuse to sell to anyone. It would likely not be lawful to leave it on the shelf and sell it at the higher price to someone else who might not have noticed the discrepancy, until they fix up the shelf pricing.
~~Dynamic pricing~~ Price gouging. FTFY.
If my local store switches to digital price tags to do this I'm just going to gather as many as I can and flush them down the toilet.
It's a nice thought but good luck not getting caught on the 3k cameras in the store and following you to your car.
It would be a shame if your phone was infected by a malware that rewrites all the prices in the tags in your vicinity.
My local Woolies has had e-ink tags for at least two years, maybe more. Between this and Coles hiring Palantir, we mostly shop at Aldi. Bunnings and Kmart using facial recognition as if it's no biggie as well. How long until they partner with CBA to check your credit card limit as you stand in front of the bananas to see how much you'll pay?
They're opening an Aldi's near me. I'm excited.
Aldi's is the shit. No bloat, no bs, just groceries. They don't have some stuff, but for the staples you're set. I usually go to the more traditional grocery store every 4th trip or so.
Let’s call it what it is: price discrimination.
Dynamic sounds way more fun!
I’m still not clear on exactly what triggers this. Is it phone location, because a phone number is linked to all your data (unless you’ve been gaming it for the last 5-10yrs)? Do I walk by with my phone and the price goes up?
Is it like goodwill? Does the price change as you’re checking out? Do I grab a 2lb bag of medium roast coffee beans for $13, and because buying it consistently for decades, it’s now $18 at checkout? But is still $13 for the guy behind me who decided to try whole bean over pre-ground?
If rich people turn off their phones before hitting the parking lot and poor people leave theirs on, does the entire store get cheaper?
If you take a pic with your phone of the “advertised” price does that mitigate sudden increases while checking out, if you’re even watching?
Does having your unemployed, deadbeat uncle or kid do the shopping from their phone make it cheaper for the household?
What are the triggers?
That's the personalized prices. That's step two.
This one is the digital price tags that let the store manager or corporate office instantly raise prices throughout the store for everyone.
In other news, shoplifting is inexplicably on the rise in shops featuring dynamic pricing.....
We can't compete against these internet stores. People just don't respect brick and mortar and buying locally anymore /s
Boycott the stores that use them, it might help them change their mind behind they become the norm.
This is Australia and I think 90% of grocery shops are either this one or the competitor
Should be against the law to change the price after the shop opens at something like a grocery store. Nobody should be able to shop anywhere where the price you pick it up at can change by the time you get to the checkout.
Edit: Maybe there could be some exception for mid day price changes if you emptied the entire store of customers first, but enforcing something like that seems difficult.
Time to vote with our wallets. I absolutely will refuse to shop at any store in my area that starts implementing this.
Sure... If you even notice it. And if enough people will care and if there are still stores around that don't do that, clearly superior profit maximising scheme.
I'd rather want this stuff to become illegal. So calling your representatives, make news and go to the streets about this would I think help more that yet another boycott.
and then there will be a really popular AI driven phone app that you will use to scan items and find out if you're being ripped off or not
I already have a browser plugin that tells me the price history of everything at Coles. There's one for Woolies too.
I've already sent feedback to Walmart about my refusal to buy anything with a digital price tag. The thing is, I believe them when they say that prices are only updated between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m. The problem is that that policy could change literally any time.
Walmart has every inch of their store covered in cameras. They have facial recognition systems so they know who I am the moment I walk in the store. They know I buy graham crackers. They know I've put up with price increases in the past. What is preventing them from adding $0.10 to those graham crackers' price tag the moment I walk down the crackers aisle? Literally nothing. They could, and that's reason enough for me to boycott
Personally I have been boycotting Walmart for over 15 years because they refuse to hire most of their employees full time so as to dodge having to provide mandated health insurance and they have a long history of completely screwing the lives of people who use their automated check out system.
Couldn't pay me to shop at their horrible stores. FUCK Walmart and FUCK the Walton family who've become billionaires off the back of poor people in America.
Thanks. I hate it.
If they want to do dynamic pricing, maybe we'll just have to start dynamic shopping.
Portland banned it for housing. Time to ban it for everything else!
Looks like e-ink. A thumb tack taped to your thumb should take care of these pretty quick and inconspicuously. Especially if people generally agree this is stupid and should be shunned.
In Germany the price is actually set at the cashier, not the tag. I found that out the hard way once, where the price tag was wrong and I had to pay more.
So dynamic pricing wouldn't even require deploying these smart tags, the cashier or the 'smart' self-checkout could just do it on their own. They could just use their cameras, analyze your face to figure out if you are in a hurry or not, or in any other way willing to accept a higher price and then offer you the ware to something you are probably going to accept.
The future is realtime individualized price gouging.
Free epaper displays!
Dynamic mass theft.
Innovative exploitation.
Next-Generation sculduggery.
They already do that, just not as frequently. They change price tags of items every day by hand
The chain grocery store near us (Safeway) has had stupidly high prices since the pandemic. I decided I’m not going to shop there anymore unless I really have to. We are lucky to have a locally-owned, small chain grocery store very close to us. Prices are high but honestly not much if at all higher than Safeway and I’d rather pay a small premium to help them stay in business. Also I doubt they would ever opt into something like this stupid price scheme, but Safeway absolutely would and will.
In Poland it's already there in stores owned by the German Schwarz-Gruppe - Lidl and Kaufland. One might want to start shopping local to get exposed to 100% free range organic greed instead of lab-optimized greed at big stores.
Ghettotax for individuals everywhere incoming...
Please make it stop
It’s obviously shitty and exploitive anywhere, but this makes food desserts even more of an issue.
Scummy ass companies making life worse for everyone to line their pockets.
They wouldn’t even be in financial trouble, they would just be less rich.
Great, I have a very bad feeling about this, given the possible crisis of 2026.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
