Technology

Then I won't be going to that supermarket.

In other news, shoplifting is inexplicably on the rise in shops featuring dynamic pricing.....

Dynamic mass theft.

Innovative exploitation.

Next-Generation sculduggery.

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'm going to start haggling with the cashiers.

I will institute my own "dynamic pricing" scheme if this ever happens

What's the common way for updating these? I have some similar devices that use Wi-Fi but local stores seem to use some sort of nearby transmitter pointex towards the shelves, maybe infrared/optical

Let’s call it what it is: price discrimination.

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.

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.

Time to vote with our wallets. I absolutely will refuse to shop at any store in my area that starts implementing this.

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?

Please make it stop

Already here in Canada.

I hate to be THAT GUY, but I have seen it used to discount stock close to expiry dates. It does not mean the prices always go up.

Man would really suck if internet cuts out to get updates when its at the lowest prices...

Boycott the stores that use them, it might help them change their mind behind they become the norm.

Ghettotax for individuals everywhere incoming...

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.

A problem area is pricing that changes 10 minutes after you put it in basket but before checkout. Though OP did go through some other abuse scenarios, though some were far fetched. This can't allow a store to personalize prices the way a web site can.