Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good point, we should regulate pricing models in service of the 0.000001 percent of people that live in places like Kingman, Arizona.
Please go look up what a Food Desert is.
A completely made up thing?
Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores
141–150 of 219 posts
Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores
#142Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores
#143Gosh, I hope colleges don't find out about this pricing strategy.
> Gosh, I hope colleges don't find out about this pricing strategy. They've been doing it for years; it's called "financial aid". It is literally the textbook example of how to get people to pay different amounts for the same thing based on what they are willing or able to pay. It's also why the recent shift in immigration policy has affected top-tier universities so much: domestic education is, by and large, subsidi…
Provided the criteria are transparent and directly applicable I don't see the issue. I wouldn't object to a grocery store that offered standardized discounted rates if you applied with documentation of your financial situation. Whereas an opaque operation with the goal of maximizing the final bill on an individual basis using entirely arbitrary criteria is dystopian and clearly extremely consumer hostile.
I can hardly claim omniscience but my understanding is that by and large universities bin students into broad categories and apply a uniform rate schedule based on demonstrated financial need (plus academic performance in some limited cases), with international students generally billed at the highest rate.
Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores
#144Sadly, this article doesn't explain how this "surveillance pricing" (which is just a scarier-sounding synonym for "dynamic pricing") would even work in a physical grocery store. Like, prices are displayed on the shelf for everyone to see. And they have to match what you pay at checkout. So how the heck would a grocery store even do this? And this law is specifically around grocery stores . Like, there was a big kerfu…
> Like, prices are displayed on the shelf for everyone to see. And they have to match what you pay at checkout. Not all stores honor the prices posted on the shelves. Dollar General is one of the major offenders of this. > Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has filed suit against Dollar General, claiming deceptive and unfair pricing at its more than 600 retail stores throughout the state. The lawsuit alleges tha…
> Not all stores honor the prices posted on the shelves. Dollar General is one of the major offenders of this.
That's already illegal, as indicated by your link about the ongoing lawsuits.
Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores
#145Pricing will become increasingly adversarial. The Internet did too much to expose price differences to customers, so sellers are responding. Customers will need aggressive agents to price-shop on their behalf. Take hotel booking as one of the current nightmares of price visibility. Total price often isn't exposed until you show up at the hotel.
We need to invert the markets. Show the demand at a specific price the community is willing to pay for a given thing in a given area and let the grocery stores come down to that price, instead of having the markets guess and fail.
Like, basically how an exchange works. We should go massively capitalistic with purchasing everything, even gum.
Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores
#146Sadly, this article doesn't explain how this "surveillance pricing" (which is just a scarier-sounding synonym for "dynamic pricing") would even work in a physical grocery store. Like, prices are displayed on the shelf for everyone to see. And they have to match what you pay at checkout. So how the heck would a grocery store even do this? And this law is specifically around grocery stores . Like, there was a big kerfu…
> Like, prices are displayed on the shelf for everyone to see. And they have to match what you pay at checkout. Not all stores honor the prices posted on the shelves. Dollar General is one of the major offenders of this. > Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has filed suit against Dollar General, claiming deceptive and unfair pricing at its more than 600 retail stores throughout the state. The lawsuit alleges tha…
But that's already illegal. And it's not dynamic pricing.
Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still don't understand how that would work. Yes, e-ink is great for updating prices, I welcome it at grocery stores. But if both me and another person are standing in front of the prosciutto and cured meats fridge, we're seeing the same prices, even if I'm poor and they're rich.
They just get rid of the prices on the shelves.
Nobody will shop there then. They've tested this and consumers will go elsewhere unless you're selling super luxury goods.
Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores
#148Sadly, this article doesn't explain how this "surveillance pricing" (which is just a scarier-sounding synonym for "dynamic pricing") would even work in a physical grocery store. Like, prices are displayed on the shelf for everyone to see. And they have to match what you pay at checkout. So how the heck would a grocery store even do this? And this law is specifically around grocery stores . Like, there was a big kerfu…
E-ink price tags are not uncommon. Technology to track individual customers through the store based on smartphone RF is already deployed in many supermarkets. Some stores even do scan-as-you-shop, where the customer scans the item at the shelf, rather than at the front of the store. There are certainly a lot of i's to dot and t's to cross, but it's hardly a theoretical impossibility - find the right store and you cou…
> Technology to track individual customers through the store based on smartphone RF is already deployed in many supermarkets.
Phones have been randomizing and rotating MAC addresses for a long time. With enough antenna arrays you could theoretically track an individual RF source through the store but you wouldn't be able to tie it to a returning customer or identity by itself.
The days of easy external phone tracking are long over.
Your scenario is more than just a software update and dotting some i's. Pulling this off would require a lot of hardware and compute.
The best you could do is force everyone to scan prices through their phone with an app registered to them. You probably won't have many customers left when everyone gets tired of pointing their phone at everything to see their custom price.
Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Or I'll just buy as little as possible and buy used whenever possible. This is the way, but also, places like eBay are increasingly “professionalized” by huge resellers and refurbishers who squeeze out any possible margin. I’ve also noticed that thrift and consignment stores aren’t such a bargain anymore. You can often get a better deal from large retailers when they go on clearance. P2P transactions still pay off…
That's good to know regarding ebay. I don't use it much, but I wasn't aware. Agreed with regard to thrift stores. Some of them have seen quite a lot of inflation. I think it's yard sales and minimalism for me.
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Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Like, there was a big kerfuffle a while ago about how Wendy's was going to engage in dynamic pricing so that a burger would be cheaper during the slow period at e.g. 3-4 pm, compared to the lunch rush. But that wasn't personalized. And the outcry was so strong they never did it, no law needed. That's crazy that people were kerfuffled over it as stated. Restaurants very commomly have early bird and happy hour specia…
The difference is that early-bird pricing is transparent and predictable. There is a written, known policy of $X discount during specific hours. You can plan for it. It's never a surprise . Dynamic pricing means sometimes you go there, and Wendy's decides on the fly whether you get a lower price and how much. It gives Wendy's the option to pinch pennies how they see fit for their own benefit, rather than offering a d…
I can't tell if you're implying that Wendy's was going to offer different prices to different customers "on the fly", but that wasn't the case.
It was store-wide with updated prices shown clearly. Yes it could change on a daily basis, but you would also expect it to be roughly predictable because the whole point is to get more people to come in when it's cheaper.
Saying that Wendy's is "pinching pennies" doesn't make any sense.