tech · ai
the price on the shelf is now a guess about you, or shoppers fear it is
digital shelf tags and pricing software are spreading through us shops. regulators and at least thirty state legislatures are asking what the software knows about the person paying.
- 250+shops and firmsusing pricing middlemen the ftc studied
- 28%of businessestune prices in real time with ai, per one survey
- 30+us statesweighed pricing bills this year
paper price labels are giving way to screens in american supermarkets, and behind them sits software that forecasts how shoppers will react to a price. the ap reports that the worry online has moved from how high prices are to how they are set: whether two people can be charged different amounts for the same thing, a practice critics call surveillance pricingsetting the price or offer a person sees using data about them, such as where they are, what they browsed and what they bought before..
the federal trade commission looked inside the trade last year. its staff ordered eight pricing and consulting firms, including mastercard, accenture and mckinsey, to hand over documents, and found they served at least 250 clients, from grocers to sports betting sites. the signals on offer ran from location and purchase history to how far you scroll and where your mouse goes. the firms told the ftc the tools lift revenue by 2 to 5 percent, which is the whole argument for using them and the whole worry about them.
price the product
- one price per item, per store
- changed on a schedule, often weekly
- screens just save relabelling time
price the person
- the offer depends on who is looking
- built from browsing, location, history
- hard for a shopper to see or compare
“we price the product, not the person.”
pick one
in 2025 price-tracking data cited by the ap, what share of us price changes were cuts?
what is settled so far: maryland and new jersey now limit using shoppers’ personal data to set grocery prices, connecticut goes wider, and the ftc has proposed treating undisclosed personal pricing as a consumer protection breach. what is not: how often any of this happens at the till.
sources
- surveillance pricing 6(b) study: research summaries · federal trade commissionprimary
- consumer apprehension grows as us retailers adopt ai-assisted pricing tools · associated press