Technology

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.

In Poland it's already there in stores owned by the German Schwarz-Gruppe - Lidl and Kaufland. One might want to start shopping local to get exposed to 100% free range organic greed instead of lab-optimized greed at big stores.

Please make it stop

I'm going to start haggling with the cashiers.

Ghettotax for individuals everywhere incoming...

Looks like e-ink. A thumb tack taped to your thumb should take care of these pretty quick and inconspicuously. Especially if people generally agree this is stupid and should be shunned.

Great, I have a very bad feeling about this, given the possible crisis of 2026.

If this happens, I will absolutely try to figure out how to game it

I've gotta wonder... How expensive are these little networked e-ink displays? Probably not super expensive, but they've gotta be more than a paper price tag. Definitely more of a hassle to replace when someone breaks them by running into them, accidentally snapping them off, etc...

It’s obviously shitty and exploitive anywhere, but this makes food desserts even more of an issue.

Scummy ass companies making life worse for everyone to line their pockets.

They wouldn’t even be in financial trouble, they would just be less rich.

My local store can not even get a reliable source of staple foods (the distributor often shorts them milk, meat or whatever), there is no way this:

A) Works

B) Is adopted by any non large store

C) Is accepted as anything but a hated cash grab

Fuckin called it - megacorporations are not to be trusted with digital freedom.

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.

Abandoned grocery carts full of food might also be coming to my local supermarket.

Or they could charge a customer more if they know the customer always buys the same product.

How so they propose changing an e-ink shelf label per customer??