Yet another Walmart technology fail
This is not a consumer oriented website. But I think this issue rises to the level of importance that it warrants inclusion here. I featured Lindey Glenn in a post on McDonald's earlier this year. Here she returns with a video on digital pricing in a Walmart retail store.
I have become a Glenn fan and she does excellent work in a usually entertaining fashion.
For those who may not know, Walmart has started using digital price displays on its shelves. The prices shown on these displays can be changed at will by the company. This lowers the labor cost involved and gives the company greater pricing flexibility. But if you think this may not be as advantageous as Walmart does, you really should watch this video.
Take a date and time stamped photo of the digital price display tag (ESL, Electronic Shelf Label) of any important purchase. Or even of any possible purchase. And as in this video, do not put up with any bullshit.
My question is: Is Walmart acting out of malice for its customers or sheer incompetence. I mean, hey, it's Walmart. And Walmart's deployment of technology. So almost assuredly, it is incompetence.
But this is what I walked alway from this video with: In regard to digital pricing in any retail environment, whether the motivation is malice, purposeful deceit, or incompetence, the point is, shoppers should not trust it.
Even if the store does everything above board, say for example, they only change prices once a day, at midnight, the potential for abuse is high. And further, we all know that retail businesses lust for the dynamic pricing precedent set by airlines and Uber.
Let's just imagine a future: You push your cart past a display of Walmart toothpaste, on sale for $2.69. But you just bought toothpaste last week, so you move along. But somewhere around the auto parts section, you remember that you paid $3.19 for the same toothpaste last week. So you return to the toothpaste display only to discover that now, ten minutes later, the price has changed to $2.99.
But that is not the worst of it; yes, the price changed, but only for you. The system reads the MAC or IMEI identification number on your smartphone and says, hey, that guy was just here, let's charge him more. Meanwhile, the next customer still gets the original $2.69 price. And a third customer, who has never purchased this particular toothpaste before, gets a price of $2.49.
You do not have to be very creative to come up with any number of similar scenarios. One day, the tags will only include QR codes and you have to use your phone to see the price. So every customer will get their own unique price based on shopping history, demographics, credit score, education level, time of day, etc.
Take a date and time stamped photo of the digital price display tag (ESL, Electronic Shelf Label) of any important purchase. Or even of any possible purchase. And as in this video, do not put up with any bullshit.
Update, 4 July 2026