UnderpantsWeeviltoNews@lemmy.world•3 months ago
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- technology@lemmy.world
Grocery store prices are changing faster than ever before — literally. This month, Walmart became the latest retailer to announce it’s replacing the price stickers in its aisles with electronic shelf.
(www.npr.org)UnderpantsWeeviltoNews@lemmy.world•3 months ago
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- technology@lemmy.world
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.
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?
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.
Good. Annoy the managers until they get rid of this shit
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.
Managers like that suck. When I was a manager in retail whenever I made a choice that may have agreed with or disagreed with one of my Team’s opinions or choices I always stopped to explain my reasoning and sought to make sure they understood. Taught my whole team how to deal with shit without needing me present, though I also reminded them that the instant it became too much they were to call me up.
No one fucks with my crew. Though I also knew the best thing I could do for them was stand in front only when I needed to, not every time if they wanted to handle it.
I wish they’d all been more like you. Instead, all of the ones I had until my mid 20s were the kind of people who would tell us the policy was X and we absolutely could not do Y, and the second a customer bitched, suddenly Y was fine and they made us look like liars or idiots.
The pricing decisions will be made above the manager’s pay-grade.
They’ll price check it and find the new price. The customer will be blamed.
Sounds like a good idea to take photos of the price signs in that case.
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.
That depends on who is in charge of the country at any given time. Three-letter entities have a way of being hamstrung during conservative administrations.
The next time conservatives have control, though, it will likely be permanent. The FTC would certainly be dismantled.
For now…
Shall we okay a game of “guess which shit hole states don’t have this”?
Then you pour it out at the checkout and walk out without paying.