Walmart Announces Digital Price Labels for Every Store in the U.S. By the End of 2026 (cnbc.com)
- Reference: 0181079310
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/03/22/2346224/walmart-announces-digital-price-labels-for-every-store-in-the-us-by-the-end-of-2026
- Source link: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/21/walmart-digital-price-tags-will-be-in-every-us-store-by-end-of-2026.html
> Amanda Bailey, a team leader in electronics who works at a Walmart in West Chester, Ohio, estimates that the digital shelf labels — known as DSLs — have cut the time she used to spend on pricing duties by 75%, time that has freed her up to help customers. She also said the DSLs are a game-changer because Walmart's Spark delivery drivers looking for an item will see a flashing DSL so they can more easily find the product...
>
> Sean Turner, chief technology officer of Swiftly, a retail technology and media platform serving the grocery industry, said that while it makes sense that people are raising questions about dynamic pricing, the real issue is store-level efficiency. "Digital shelf labels solve some very real operational headaches. They cut down on manual price changes, reduce checkout discrepancies, and make it easier to keep in-store and digital promotions aligned," Turner said. All of that can mean fewer surprises at the register for shoppers and better-tailored promotions. "For consumers, the biggest benefit is accuracy and consistency," Benedict said. "Shoppers want to know the price they see is the price they pay. Digital labels can also make it easier for stores to mark down perishable items in real time, which can lower food waste and create savings opportunities."
A Walmart spokeswoman promised CNBC that "the price you see is the same for everyone in any given store." But the article also notes that several U.S. states "are looking to ban dynamic pricing. Pennsylvania became one of the latest states to introduce a bill outlawing the practice, following New York's Algorithmic Pricing Disclosure Act, which became law in November."
And at the federal level, U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján recently introduced the "Stop Price Gouging in Grocery Stores" act, which would ban digital labels in any grocery store over 10,000 square feet, while Congresswoman Val Hoyle is sponsoring similar legislation in the House. "There needs to be laws and enforcement to protect consumers," Hoyle tells CNBC, "and until then, I'd like to see them banned outright."
CNBC adds that "While there is no reported use of digital shelf labeling being tied to surge pricing yet," in Hoyle's view "it's only a matter of time."
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/21/walmart-digital-price-tags-will-be-in-every-us-store-by-end-of-2026.html
Digital price labels aren't a problem... (Score:4, Informative)
We have had digital price labels in some supermarkets here in Australia for a while now and we do not have dynamic pricing or other issues. To be fair we have strong consumer laws and a regulator with teeth enforcing the laws.
Re: (Score:2)
I see nothing wrong with the digital labels as well. They eliminate paper and time waste. However law makers should probably get in front of any dynamic pricing issues. Perhaps put a max limit to the number of times a price can change per day.
Re: (Score:2)
Another option is for stores to be open about the frequency of the pricing changes. They could say something like we update pricing every 3hrs at 9a 12p 3p 6p and 9p. That gives customers the start their shopping right after a price change and the option to make their way to checkout before the prices change. Stores will have to get used to the waves of customers.
Re: (Score:2)
Imagine having to take a picture of every thing you want to buy, because they could change it by the time you reach the front.
People are too trusting that stores wont do some nefarious stuff to get their money.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly, what's to stop the store from changing the price at the register when the barcode is scanned? Why would banning digital price tags stop that practice?
Re: (Score:2)
> They eliminate paper and time waste.
... and replace them with electronic waste and energy waste. Plus the extra cost of running power to every shelf in the store.
I will be curious to see what the effective lifetime of these electronic labels is...
Re: (Score:2)
Same in my place in Europe. They have been standard for 10 years or so in some stores.
The reason digital labels are bad for America (Score:2)
Is because we all here know we have already given up and let the corporations do literally anything they want. And we know we can't stop them anymore.
So when we see them doing something like this we all are just bracing for the other foot to drop. Because we don't have those consumer protection laws and we know we can't get them because about 45% of our country is dumber than dirt and it's easy enough to stop another 6% from voting and we are a winner take all first past the post voting system so that's
Re: (Score:2)
> We have had digital price labels in some supermarkets here in Australia for a while now and we do not have dynamic pricing or other issues. To be fair we have strong consumer laws and a regulator with teeth enforcing the laws.
That's good and all, but does Australia have the right number of people actively look to enforce those laws?
"Bigger punishment if caught" is way different (and much less effective) than "bigger chance of getting caught".
Connection b/w dynamic pricing and digital labels (Score:2)
If the company is saving money using the digital labels, then they should not have any problem with a ban on dynamic pricing. It seems like changing the shelf price is an opportunity for blatant fraud, since a customer could pick up a product and by the time they got to the register there's a different price in the system.
Re: (Score:2)
I mean technically that can happen even today with paper labels but tends not to due to the cost of sending someone out to manually update labels. Stores would these days likely update pricing on a daily basis while they are sending people out to restock the shelves after hours.
Re: (Score:2)
I can attest that one of the major grocers in Southern California does not do dynamic pricing like this. Our prices change on Wednesday once. A couple items will go on deeper discount on Friday and that price changes prior to the store opening. Sometime before the store reopens on Saturday, the Friday deals have reverted back to the price they were on Thursday. At no point do our tags change throughout the day. Pepsi products don't magically go up in price during the lunch rush nor does Ice cream change pri
Re: (Score:2)
We do have such laws. I've caught a discrepancy several times, twice at the same store in the same month. I no longer go to that store.
The issue is you have to remember what the shelf price was, then notice while checking out that it has increased, stop the line and demand a price check.
Are you willing to be Kevin or Karen for five minutes? It depends on how much it is. And some people just won't.
Re: (Score:2)
I used to like busting the grocery store because their policy was if the price was wrong you got the item for free.
Re: (Score:3)
The price being what's marked on the shelf tag isn't the problem; the problem is going to the supermarket at, say, 0600 on a Tuesday morning and the 28-ounce container of Maxwell House coffee is $14.99, but if you shop at 1100 on a Saturday, the same product is tagged $16.99, because there are more shoppers and more demand. Or, in a more excessive case of fearmongering ridiculous scenarios, using AI hooked to the cameras that are all through stores to track shoppers, judge their financial status based on th
Re: (Score:2)
Theres generally no law per se that im aware of. But most stores will honor pricing discrepancies between what comes up at checkout and was was on the shelf label if you catch it and call it out when they ring it up. If it's a small amount they might just go on the honor system if its a large discrepancy they might call someone in the dept or send someone to do a price check and confirm. The problem happens when they start changing pricing with very short intervals perhaps maybe every 15 min could very well
Re: what? (Score:2)
There are certainly laws in California if you get charged a higher price than the sticker. I have used it many times. Helps only if you remember the sticker prices, though. If it happens a lot, the state will go after the company and fine them.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course not. The government doing the smallest thing to strengthen consumer protection is labeled as communism. It gets even more confusing on the state level because some grocery items have tax and some don’t.
New mantra for shoppers (Score:2)
"Round and round she goes. Where she stops, nobody knows."
Let me provide some more information here (Score:2)
I work in a grocery store in San Diego. We just switched over to digital tags a month ago. They have their pluses and minuses that I won't get into here but overall, I like them. It's super easy to update pricing and we've been able to divert most of our price change workers to other tasks. It's also really easy to add a new item on the shelf, toss up a digital tag and then assign it to that item, all in a minute or less. Before, there were a lot more steps, not counting literally walking from the shelf to
Re: (Score:2)
If the price changes on lettuce while I'm wandering through the rest of the store how does it not charge me the new price at the checkout?
If the price only changes when the store is closed anyway then there is no issue.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm the opposite from you on the digital coupons. I really feel strongly that if they require me to sell myself and what I'm buying to advertising / trackers in order to get the best deal, I'll just go to another store. even if it's more. Yeah...I could just buy at the higher price, but I'm doing the voting with my wallet. Honestly, I'm probably the 0.01% of the population that cares about this...probably less, so they don't care. Just the other day I was buying something, and then I noticed it was $2 cheap
Gas stations do it (Score:3)
So why is it such a problem in grocery stores? If there is surge pricing, during emergencies or whatnot it would prevent scalpers from going in and buying all the toilet paper and then reselling it. Someone's going to make a profit it just depends on whether it's the grocery store or not.
once you start pumping they can't change the price (Score:2)
once you start pumping they can't change the price also the sign when going up is the 1st thing changed with the pumps going up after that.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless surge pricing goes to $10k for a roll of toilet paper people will hoard it. Going from $1 to $10 isn’t going to stop scalpers. As AC below has stated, limit one per customer is the real answer.
Re: (Score:1)
With a gas station the price is set when you pul/push the handle/button on the pump, you are not filling up and in the middle the price changes.
With grocery stores I can be in there for a period of time, if you up or lower, no one will care about the lower the price, after I have placed the item in a cart then you have a legal issue.
So the problem becomes how do you make sure you have not raised the price on products for that person who is still shopping. Stores use to do it while closed to the public.
Re: (Score:2)
> So why is it such a problem in grocery stores?
Grocery stores are unusual in that you routinely buy a large variety of various small-ish items. People don't often do that at clothing stores, home-decor stores, etc.
It's hard enough to do comparison shopping on groceries as it is (who wants to track the price of 50 individual products?), but now the prices might not even stay mostly the same from day-to-day, or even morning-to-afternoon.
There's a simple fix for dynamic pricing (Score:2)
And that is: The register must honor the lowest price displayed in the last 6 hours.
There's nothing wrong with a store dynamically lowering prices. We just don't want them to go up while we're shopping.
Virtually all shoppers are wandering around with smartphones with cameras, so it's easy to take photos of the tags. If you catch the register not following the rules, you get some payback. (What is an implementation detail. Double the difference? One item free? Depends on how frequently that store has a
Re: (Score:1)
In theory, it's universal theft. In practice, it's dictatorship and widespread poverty.
Re: (Score:2)
The point of this setup is to show you the highest price you'll pay for any item. There will be no "savings", it is a strategy to eat your consumer surplus the same way they ate the producer surplus already.
But congrats on your gullibility, it is world-class.
Re: Of course, the Communist Democrats are against (Score:1)
No it isn't. I used to work retail a long time ago, and like they're saying, price tags are a logistical headache. That was probably the third most annoying thing in a retail job after cycle counts and throwing load. Every Sunday, we had to be in the store at zero dark 30 replacing fucking price tags by the thousands. Nobody wanted to do it, but it had to be done. If we had this back then, it would be one less annoying thing we had to deal with in a job that is full of really annoying shit work.
Stop making