Technology

Surveillance pricing usually makes people think per-person pricing, but the law goes further than just that.

I worked on an electronic shelf label project at a (now defunct) retail project. I'm less worried about them trying to target prices per user while in a store because there are some difficult hardware and software challenges trying to show a price to one person (like what if two people are looking at it.) Showing a per-user price per app is trivial. There's also laws in most states that require you to pay the price shown on the price tag and trying to target per person risks failing that, though that depends on state enforcement. The system I worked at linked the prices to the point of sale system to ensure you paid the lowest price shown on any price tag in the last few hours (though that was company policy to make complying with the law easier.)

What I am worried about is prices dynamically changing based micro trends like water getting more expensive on warm days. Some people might say that increase prices means increased supply to meet that demand, the real risk is retailers being able to micro optimize prices to better capture consumer surplus as profits. A consumer is un-prepared for that and the consumer will not benefit.

These include electronic shelf labels, which advocates have warned could allow companies to instantly change grocery prices based on the time of day, weather, and other factors that influence consumer demand.

“Digital price tags are replacing paper ones. It’s happening because we are having cameras that are watching aisles, it’s happening because we have apps that are moving from search-based to predictive,”

You are not immune.