I worked in a Walmart on the overnight shift (cleaning, separate company) when they rolled them out 3+ years ago here in Canada. They've honestly become the norm in grocery stores and other large stores here. If some company was going to be sleazy about them, it probably would've happened already (Loblaws, I'm looking at you).

I straight up asked why they were being installed, and it's two-fold. One, they can save money cause now they don't have to pay staff to go around and change the little paper tags, which takes an absurd amount of manpower and is easy to fuck up. And two, they can all be changed over to a barcode/QR code during inventory, which speeds up the whole process. I'll be the last person to defend corpos, especially Walmart, but I don't think this one was done with the intentions of directly fucking over the customer.

Technically, a price can change at 9 a.m., change again at 2 p.m., and change again before the dinner rush.

Technically in one sense, maybe. Technically in a practical sense, no. Because the price on the shelf is the agreed price to pay, and if it changes after you put it into your cart, that's gonna break laws.

People are making hay over something that will not happen.

but let's say it does. People will absolutely lose their SHIT. And while companies are stupid, they are not THAT stupid. And even let's say they ARE that stupid: This is the type of the legislatures would love to pass laws about becauase it's easy to do and extremely popular. Like cops running stings. It's easy and shows they're doing something.

So I am absolutely zero worried about this and all this hype is stupid.

Will they changes prices nightly? Sure. Will they change prices multiple times during the day or for individual shoppers? Nope.

And if they were going to pull this shit, they'd already be pulling it online where they can already do that. And yet, not a single fuckin peep about that from any of these people hyping up this thing.

I wish I could boycott them, but haven’t gone there in years

But seriously, they’re not talking about price segmentation, just a more efficient way to update their prices

Are the cameras going to detect when I have a fever and then triple the cost of Tylenol?

And let me guess - they still don't display the price including tax?

The better to steal from you, my dear.

That these stores find the sizeable investment of figuring out ways to mess over customers rather than just hiring a proper workforce at any wage, let alone a living wage, tells you how much more profitable it is to mess over customers.

Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price

I will continue to never shop there

I get how this can save money in labour but there should be laws or regulations that prices cannot change during store open business hours. If not, greed wins yet again.

Was in one today and they haven't made it here yet

And they're already dogshit in practice. Some of them are broken, we can't tell where to put things because the stupid digital interface glitches. People misplace them. They aren't properly installed or they're a pain to install. They don't even blink when you try to find something.

Oh yeah, what a wonderful investment...

Get a blue vest, and go down the aisles taking them down. You aren't damaging anything or stealing anything, just making it less valuable for their bottom line.

How would it work if the price changed between getting the item off the shelf and paying for it? Will I have to take a picture of every price tag in case the price goes up?

Theoretically these have a lot of benefits as well, like saving on paper and ink. One barker could last as long as thousands of prices over its lifetime, and mean staff don't have to spend time changing them.

I mean, capitalism gonna capitalise and they'll be used for evil, mostly, but.

I wonder if they're all wired or run off batteries? If the former, then there's a single point of failure, if the latter then ho boy do I have a plan for a zigbee/wifi/whatever device.

Be sure to handle them appropriately, the screens are vulnerable to damage, and replacing them would be more expensive than printing out a new paper tag. It'd sure be a shame if the corps lost money there.