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    Digital price tags bring online-style 'dynamic pricing' to supermarkets
    Australia

    Digital price tags bring online-style ‘dynamic pricing’ to supermarkets

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    34 Comments

    1. Worldly_Cobbler_1087 on

      Get ready for dynamic pricing tailored to individual shoppers after they have spent a decade or so collecting data on all of our shopping habits and as soon as they use facial recognition to know we’ve entered the store our favourite items will magically increase in price.

    2. ThunderDwn on

      > A Woolworths spokesperson told the ABC: “[ESLs] make updating labels far more efficient, they save a lot of paper, and they free our store teams up for other customer-focused tasks.”

      “Customer focused tasks” *snort*. yeah, right. You mean like stacking shelves and blocking aisles during peak times because you’re too fucking cheap to pay out-of-hours stackers any more?

      Or is it sending 40 people with little carts running around the store blocking aisles while they’re filling online orders without giving a single fuck for the people int e store?

      Those “customer-focused” tasks?

    5. sarinonline on

      “Trends show milk sells more in the morning, and with people on the way home from work. So during these hours we are raising the price of milk. Also our cameras noticed you look at the Tim Tams three times while walking past, as such we have raised the price for you 25%” lol.

    7. Gremlech on

      this shit gets paired with AI, surveillance and cameras to make sure you always get screwed over.

    11. australisaquarii on

      The chances of the supermarkets changing prices on demand are the same as me losing on the lottery. We need to come together and keep an eye on these profiteering corporate schysters.

    12. TheCurbAU on

      Every day I’m more upset with my cat that he only wants to eat a specific food that Coles sells. It’s the last thing keeping me going there.

    13. Pewpewgilist on

      I am not advocating for this, because it would be illegal and I am a law-abiding citizen, but could someone walk through a store with a strong magnet and fry these things by the thousands?

    16. Quietwulf on

      Looks great! We can eventually link it up to our social credit system, so only the most well behaved shoppers get the best discounts! /s

      This fucking timeline man. I can’t even. You’re rich enough you fucking parasites. Fuck off.

    17. Pottski on

      They’re gonna just do away with prices on things soon enough – look at the McDonalds website and try to find prices on their menu pages lol.

    18. Javerage on

      I’ve seen prices go down at Aldis while shopping, but that left me wondering how often it might’ve gone up before I bought something. It’s also annoying as I tend to do broad math while putting things into my basket, and I’d be a bit extra miffed if I was budgeting for exactly $150 only to have it go over. :/

    19. AverageAussie on

      I’m with the chemist on this. We print hundreds of labels per week. There are multiple price changes per day that requires someone to print out labels and swap them over on the shelves.

      They could already implement dynamic pricing but it would all be manually done. Can you imagine how hard it would be to properly implement? The example given is ice cream. They couldnt touch anything advertised in catalogues etc because it would require EVERYTHING to be changed everywhere at once. They would then need to issue statements and print out signs explaining the incorrect price in the catalogues. It would need to be unadvertised full price items. Spoilers they already do increase prices on everything, if something is on special, the special price remains but signs need to be updated to show the correct savings. Metcash was getting into shit for the “low prices” specials because they run for 3 months, but the full price can change meaning the signs would be wrong.

      How would returns work? Dave buys X at $100, Andrew buys X at $90. Dave returns Andrews item and makes $10? (is my math correct there?). 2 people could do 2 identical shops, and then the person who paid more could return the cheaper version and get the difference back in cash. Is my potato brain working correctly with this? I’ve seen staff fired for buying items with staff discount then having friends return it for full price refunds.

      My brain is hurting with this. Items couldnt show different prices per person because if you see a different price on the shelf because Susan had her phone out, and you get charged a different price at the register then you get the item at the cheaper price or free or whatever depending on the retailer.

    20. Hobowookiee on

      I so over this fucking shit. Getting reamed financially for existing, just line pockets and kill the planet. I’m fucking out

    22. AvisMcTavish on

      We need to just stop doing most our shopping there, its pretty simple. We keep choosing convenience over our own long term self interests, then acting shocked when massive billion dollar companies don’t act altruistic. I’m as guilty as the next Aussie when it comes to this. When companies see the worst we’ll do is whine about it but not change our behaviour they will keep pushing the boundaries of just how much they can fuck us over, why wouldn’t they? More money with no bottom line consequences? Hell yeah they love it. I get that not every person has access to a local greengrocer, butcher, baker etc, but the absolute vast majority of us do, we’re just lazy fucks. My local greengrocer has better quality produce for a much lower price, my butcher is a bit more expensive, but the quality is 100X better than Colesworth. Vote with your dollar, take an extra 20 mins to do the groceries and things might actually improve

    24. taskmeister on

      I can see angry people carrying a screwdriver around with them in response to this.

    25. 2toten on

      I’m feeling more and more crushed by life.

      Every single step in life seems to be a game of how much can you crush the little person for profit making purposes by every big (and little) corporate in every sector.

    26. pwnersaurus on

      I think they might just need to legislate that for instance stores above a certain size cannot change their prices during the day. It’s certainly possible, in WA for instance petrol stations need to upload tomorrow’s price in advance, so not only does the price not change during the day, by afternoon/evening you can see what the price change will be. Whereas in NSW you can see one price when you’re heading to work, and that price is gone when you stop to fill up on the way home. So those kinds of rules are certainly possible to implement

    27. Flashy-Amount626 on

      >When there were just taxis, no-one had heard of surge pricing

      This guy hasn’t tried to get a taxi home from the city on a weekend before.

      We went from shopping with masks to avoid COVID to needing a mask to shop to avoid personalised pricing. “Steve quit smoking and is heading to the Nicorette, better juice up that price!”

    29. Jealous-Hedgehog-734 on

      >…in-store price can now be updated instantly.

      How would the customer know what the price of the item was going to be when they get to checkout? I mean it’s a pretty established part of retail that people put things in their shopping trolley based on the price of the item, if that prove moves before checkout you’re going to get a lot of complaints.

    31. Procastinateatwork on

      How does this even work? What if the price changes between when you picked it up off the shelf and got to the checkout? What if one person is targetted for higher pricing versus another customer, how does it work out what price it charges you at the checkout? They can’t force you to scan your loyalty cards at checkout. Are they going to use facial recognition to determine my pricing?

      This shit needs to be stamped out yesterday.

    32. too_invested31 on

      “There’s only 1 BBQ chicken left so let’s raise the price to $30”

    33. unconfirmedpanda on

      Can’t wait for them to adjust the price of water to $7.50 in a heatwave /s