Weather 
Getting a bargain today can feel like hitting a moving target.
Inflation-weary US customers are fed up with feeling like they’re on an economic teeter-totter. A recent survey found that nearly 70% of Americans are concerned about surveillance pricing jacking up the cost of goods — although a troubling 20% think the price tags will stay the same.
The poll, conducted by GBAO Strategies and distributed by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, was part of the latter org’s campaign to convince states to ban surveillance pricing.
This algorithm-fueled scheme exploits customers’ personal data to charge different people varying prices for the same product. It’s a subset of “dynamic pricing,” a similarly money-grubbing scam where stores use algorithms to change prices based on broader trends and demand.
Facilitating the predatory practice are electronic shelf labels, which allow the stores to update the labels in real time, often several times a day.
Earlier this month, a TikTok creator named Kat recalled how she thought she was buying $3 shoes at Walmart — only for it to ring up at nearly $19 at checkout.
“It’s choosing the price based on where I’m standing in the store, and that’s unacceptable,” she declared. Walmart recently patented AI-powered pricing changes, sparking accusations of facilitation surge pricing — claims the company denied.
Surveillance pricing is frequently employed by E-bazaars such as Amazon or Instacart, while dynamic pricing has been used at grocery stores at Kroger and Whole Foods, leaving customers feeling shocked and appalled that different shoppers are paying different prices in the same store.
According to the survey, 68% of Americans believe that surveillance pricing will drive up grocery prices, while one-fifth think that there will be no change, and 5% believes it’ll prompt a price reduction, Gizmodo reported.
Views regarding electronic labels were more divided.
While 58% of respondents said these digital price tags would discourage them from shopping at said location, 35% said these wouldn’t make a difference, while 3% claimed they’d make them more likely to patronize a business.
In that vein, 65% believed stores would use digital price tags to inflate prices, 24% thought it would maintain them, and 3% thought they’d be used to mark them down. The remaining 8% claimed they didn’t know.
Thankfully, 67% of those polled claimed they supported banning electronic price tags and pricing surveillance in grocery stores.
“Electronic shelf labels are a tool for price gouging Americans – full stop – and tech companies market it as such repeatedly,” declared UFCW International Vice President Ademola Oyefeso. “Across the country, families are having to make tough choices in the grocery aisle every day as a result of sky-high prices, and polling clearly shows that they want these predatory technologies banned.”
This comes after inflation surged by 3.8% year on year in April, outpacing the wage increase for the same period — 3.6% — for the first time since 2023.
Thankfully, lawmakers in 12 states, including New York, have introduced bills to ban both ESLs and surveillance pricing in grocery stores.
Under the Empire State’s bill, companies would be prohibited from using shoppers’ locations, movements, browsing history, or past purchases to tailor a higher price than others might receive.
“New Yorkers deserve transparency and fairness when purchasing essential goods, and the Council will make New York the first city in the country to take a strong stand against predatory surveillance and exploitative dynamic pricing practices,” said City Council Speaker Julie Menin, while introducing the bills Thursday.
