Wal-Mart is rolling out surge pricing!

21 comments

1. This will be universally hated. Hopefully there is enough push back that this doesn’t become the norm.

2. Prices already change the difference is it’s done manually by workers usually before or after close or during restocking. Now it will just be done automatically. I like how the article talks about surge pricing but fails to mention the person who is quoted talking about surge pricing doesn’t even work for Walmart. Stores like Kohl’s have been doing this for years. 

3. “If it’s hot outside, we can raise the price of water and ice cream.” That’s not right.

4. We are just one big stock market

5. >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 labels. The new labels allow employees to change prices as often as every ten seconds.

   I know Aldi already has these labels, don’t know what other stores do.

   This is first I’m hearing anything about surge pricing in stores.

6. Every 10 seconds is unjustifiable for anyone on a budget. Every day dynamic pricing where it can be looked up a head of time similar to gas is more reasonable

7. After reflecting on this for a minute, I think the NPR article has an alarmist framing that lacks substantive support. It seems to exaggerate the potential negative impacts without enough evidence.

   Citing a food analyst who only highlights the negative effects of the label changes can obscure the fact that Walmart hasn’t committed to implementing these changes for those reasons. This approach can mislead readers about Walmart’s actual intentions and the potential benefits of the new labeling system.

8. Whaaaa.

   So price you see online isn’t guaranteed ??

9. Walmart ALREADY commits pricing fraud. This will simply make it a LOT easier.

10. But it’s going to take you longer than 10 seconds to get to the register, so the price could change before you get there? Doesn’t make any sense then, you have no idea what the price of the item might be until you ring it up

11. I already use Walmart as minimal as humanly possible. Unfortunately, they won’t notice my money not being spent there. 

12. Let this happen and they will start changing price of gas multiple times daily during peak hours, during crisis, storms etc

13. Does the greed ever stop?

14. This 100% will never happen. People will complain and start going to other stores. This is meant to replace people having to manually change price stickers every week.

15. Everyone take the electronic stickers and place them randomly around the store.

16. Late stage capitalism

17. I’ll stop using them

18. I feel it would be bait and switch to grab a .75 can of corn and by the time you get to the register the corn is .80c. If you’re on a budget and have half your cart go up even a few cents per item over the span of an hour shopping trip – it feels like trickery. I can see the value of a digit system for price adjustments but following the same weekly ad model that exists today .

19. This again would screw the poor. People who have to buy on specific days. and/or times.

20. This isn’t real. Nothing in the article should make you think it’s real. The price a customer should pay is the price the tag shows when they take an item off the shelf, for obvious legal reasons. That’s why the price at the beginning of the day will always be the same at the end of the day. No quotes in this article are from anyone related to Walmart in any way. This is fake news in every way. They’re making these tags digital because each store has multiple employees whose only job is to change these tags, and doing so saves them multiple FTEs per store.

21. Simple way to fight this: take a photo of the price on the shelf, if price at register is higher, they can keep that item. When the front of the stores get clogged with carts full of put backs, and the decrease in sales hits their bottom line, walmart will end surge pricing real quick.