In Germany the price is actually set at the cashier, not the tag. I found that out the hard way once, where the price tag was wrong and I had to pay more.
So dynamic pricing wouldn’t even require deploying these smart tags, the cashier or the ‘smart’ self-checkout could just do it on their own. They could just use their cameras, analyze your face to figure out if you are in a hurry or not, or in any other way willing to accept a higher price and then offer you the ware to something you are probably going to accept.
The future is realtime individualized price gouging.
How is that not illegal in Germany? This has to fall under some anti-discrimination law
Haggling is legal in Germany. The cashier is making the offer.
Wherever it is discrimination or not would probably depend on the metrics used to decide the price.
If someone is really desperate for an article, then I could imagine that the cashier can raise the price.
But I am not a lawer. This is just my assumptions on how it could be implemented.
Haggling makes sense for transactions revolving around used cars, bulk goods and the like. A grocery store is a completely different setting. Everyone expects that they’re getting the same deal for a given location. Kind of feels too close to what is legally considered fraud to be feasible.
I’m not sure there is a difference between those things in the German law.
As I said, in Germany the price tag is a mere price suggestion, the final offer and transaction happens on checkout.
In my case it was an electronic article, where the price tag showed a much lower price and the cashier then demanded much more. But it turned out that they can do that.
In Australia if the price at the checkout is higher than the price tag you are entitled to the first item free and subsequent items at the tag price.
So this dynamic pricing bullshit is even more bullshit.
In Australia if the price at the checkout is higher than the price tag you are entitled to the first item free
Got a source on that? That’s not what the ACCC says.
My experience is they give it to you for ticket price and then immediately go and take away the incorrect ticket before someone else does the same. (Otherwise this would be false advertising and ACCC will fine them)
Yes, they have two options. Either honour the sticker price, or stop selling it at all until the price is fixed.
It’s illegal in Germany, but not in the way you think.
It’s illegal to write to wrong price on the sign on purpose, but if it happens by accident the shop is not obligated to sell at the price on the sign.
That’s it. You is blowing this way out of proportion.
Kurzum: Erst wenn Sie mit der Ware an die Kasse gehen und eine eindeutige Kaufabsicht mit Preisvorstellung abgeben, entscheidet sich, ob Sie den Artikel auch wirklich zu diesem Preis erhalten. Sie haben kein Recht, den angegebenen Preis einzufordern.
In short: Only when you take the goods to the checkout and express a clear intention to purchase at the asking price will it be decided whether you will actually receive the item at that price. You have no right to demand the stated price.
To me, that the price label is accidental wrong doesn’t really matter.
They already do that, just not as frequently. They change price tags of items every day by hand
Right? This isn’t a question of if, more like how often
And if they do it on an individual basis.
Like do they detect that a shopper is in a hurry, or if they just need one more ingredient for their cake so they are willing to pay more.
Time to vote with our wallets. I absolutely will refuse to shop at any store in my area that starts implementing this.
Sure… If you even notice it. And if enough people will care and if there are still stores around that don’t do that, clearly superior profit maximising scheme.
I’d rather want this stuff to become illegal. So calling your representatives, make news and go to the streets about this would I think help more that yet another boycott.
I completely agree. Best case scenario I hope this becomes illegal, however if not then I still would never shop somewhere with this sort of scummy tactic.
if there are still stores around that don’t do that
That would be my concern is that we end up with an illusion of choice.
Or be like me where we have two Coles over the road from each other and a woolworths 5 minutes down the road and that’s about it beyond corner stores that are only there surviving off the sale of alcohol to itinerants who get refused service at big name bottlos
Abandoned grocery carts full of food might also be coming to my local supermarket.
remember if you see someone shoplifting food no the fuck you didnt
Especially if you work there.
honestly the best part about working at a supermarket was delivery day when i could weave through the maze of pallets and sleep on the paper towels behind everything like a fort. i sure as fuck aren’t going to report anyone shoplifting food.
Thank you for your service in working minimum effort at a giant corpo
Let’s call it what it is: price discrimination.
Dynamic sounds way more fun!
Dynamic mass theft.
Innovative exploitation.
Next-Generation sculduggery.
My grocery store has had these for a while. Dynamic price reductions are coming too. Instead of a set % off, it’ll calculate the most optimal percentage to take off based on popularity of the product, how long until expiry, etc. Just a heads up.
Thank you for telling the useful side of what this could be like. I’m on a sales team who considers options like dynamic pricing, and it is nice to know what good vs bad to look out for.
fucking lol
Yeah, shame on you. Even if this is used to make things cheaper it still fits the definition of ‘discriminatory’. As a company you’re not going around doing handouts, you’re doing the very opposite because your whole existence relies on maximizing what you take over what you give and the more desperate someone is the more you take. Which is why rich people and business owners in general pay less for a pack of cornflakes than some poor mom raising kids on her own.
Dynamic pricingPrice gouging. FTFY.Please make it stop
Fuckin called it - megacorporations are not to be trusted with digital freedom.
and then there will be a really popular AI driven phone app that you will use to scan items and find out if you’re being ripped off or not
Not quite the same thing, but I used an LLM to cobble together a HTML file that allows me to search for products on Coles, Woolies, Aldi and Amazon at the same time in the same window (via frames and a Firefox extension to get around some security settings).
Works a treat when planning our big shops for the week, and has already saved us hundreds of dollars since Jan.
You don’t need a fucking AI app to do that…JFC
I already have a browser plugin that tells me the price history of everything at Coles. There’s one for Woolies too.
Those are some huge price swings for some chocolate in just a couple months time span. Is it common for products to fluctuate so much in price in your area?
Yes. It’s like this for close to half the product range at both Coles and Woolworths.
“50% off” I consider to be the normal price. Every price is either doubled or not. There are no “specials”.
Do you have an App that offers better places to shop?
What’s the name of that plugin?
Good choice of product to care about.
I actually saw Tim Tams on the shelf at a Morrison’s in Northern Scotland, and it was cheaper than Coles in Australia. It’s absurdly priced here.
I found an industrial sized box of them, and snapped them up. I’ve been doling them out to some poor ozzies stuck in my neck of the woods for months now. I think the end price was about two dollars a box.
$6 dollarydoos for fucking timtams?!
Then I won’t be going to that supermarket.
Ghettotax for individuals everywhere incoming…
They already do this in Korea. I don’t know if they are actually changing prices moment-to-moment, but they are using e-ink price tags that are impossible to distinguish from their printed, paper brethren. I saw one glitch out one day, and that was the only way I could tell. I mean, I guess I might be able to tell if I hunched down and inspected one closely, but it seriously looked identical to the same old printed ones at a glance.
