this post was submitted on 07 May 2026
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While surveillance pricing is a real problem; digital shelf tags have absolutely nothing to do with it and this doesn't fight it in anyway...
Digital shelf tags are replacing paper tags, but they are simply e-ink displays. They're not networked and don't show different prices per-person. All this person is doing is changing what's on the display, then arguing with a cashier, who doesn't get paid to deal with this crap, over the till ringing up a price different than what's displayed on the shelf (because this person has changed it on the shelf). Plus people after him are going to be confused and cause a fuss over it too.
It's just overly complicated retail theft, unrelated to surveillance pricing; while causing headaches for people just trying to do their jobs.
It causes a problem for stores that use technology to squeeze more out of customers. It remains that these tags are closely tied to predatory pricing practices and it causes more than just a headache for the cashier, it causes a trust issue between customers and predatory businesses. The goal is to make these predatory practices damaging to the business. the cashier will be fine, they already deal with people being complete garbage for less, at least this gives them an excuse to bring in the manager and send the problem uphill.
In what way?
Yes, there are predatory pricing practices; but my point is these tags are unrelated to that problem. They're just a display. A non-networked display that's not capable of setting/displaying a per-customer price, as they can't even be changed remotely.
They're no more related to predatory pricing than paper tags are.