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Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

theguardian.com

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Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#191

Post by chongli »

crazygringo wrote: post #61
dTal wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 don't have to be that specific. They can look at you and the other customers in the store in aggregate, and raise/lower prices accordingly.

If you're poor and you're a in store full of millionaires, you'll end up paying millionaire prices, unless it's for an item the millionaires rarely buy.

Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#192

Post by Starman_Jones »

handoflixue wrote: post #160
Starman_Jones wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The use case that jumps out at me is long tail items and whales. Let’s say that you’re a wine store, and you have an assortment of nice Italian wines all priced at $40 (to make it tidy). You’ve priced them competitively to attract your Chianti drinkers to step up and splurge if it’s a special occasion. A customer walks in, and the system recognizes that’s it’s Giovanni Vinoamore. Giovanni only comes in twice a year,…

But how do you do that without people noticing? If I pick up a $40 bottle of wine, and it's suddenly $50 when I hit the register, that's fraudulent pricing - you advertised one price when I picked up the project, but a different one because Giovanni is now in the shop.

This problem already exists in retail. Pricing algorithms are easy to run, and paper tags are difficult to change frequently or in bulk. Every store will honor the posted price, but within that there’s still a range of responses between “make the customer happy” and “the onus is on the customer to prove that the register price is incorrect.” Digital signage really tips the scales against the customers proving that the price is wrong, but I expect that most companies will adopt policies closer to the “make the customer happy” end of the spectrum. It’s not worth fighting about $10, especially if you both know they’re right.

Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#193

Post by chongli »

nsxwolf wrote: post #178
themafia wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s hundreds of people in the store. Where are you shopping? I get groceries the most I've seen is 30 people at a time. > How will the can of peas know which price to display People are talking about facial recognition and smart phones driving this. What they're missing is that your shopping cart is likely to contain a selection of items which make it _highly unique_. Not just on the day you're shopping but acr…

Midwest Walmarts, Meijer’s, Costco etc very often have hundreds of shoppers. So we’re going to see a price and by the time we get to the register all the prices will have changed? And that’s not going to cause a bunch of commotion and demands for price checks at the checkout?

If they profile all of the people in the store simultaneously, they can raise/lower prices based on time of day and item purchased. Then you won't see the prices changing constantly as people walk around the stores, they'll just change gradually throughout the day, when people aren't looking.

If all the people who work at Goldman Sachs next door to the store get off work at 6pm, the store can raise steak prices at 6pm while lowering the price of Oreos (or whatever). It doesn't even have to be based on economic class statistics, it can be tailored to the specific times when individual people shop at the store and which items they buy.

Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#195

Post by fc417fc802 »

bombcar wrote: post #158
fc417fc802 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hardl…

Grocery stores already do this! Why do you think there's "senior discount day"? The thing is nobody will pay more than the advertised price so they want to not list a higher price, and then offer discounts. They do it via coupons and other mechanisms, but they'll never get anyone to pay $20 for a $5 bottle of Coke.

I realize that. My point is that you can view university financial aid favorably while also being against individualized offers from retailers. The current or historical practices of grocery stores isn't the primary issue under contention here.

A coupon that you must be over a certain age to redeem is an entirely different beast than one which was sent only to you specifically with an individualized price based on opaque criteria aimed at directly and immediately optimizing revenue. It is entirely possible to outlaw the latter (though Maryland appears to have failed to accomplish that) without restricting the former.

Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#196

Post by magicalhippo »

crazygringo wrote: post #44

Sadly, 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…

Based on the headline I thought it was what grocery chains here in Norway do, where they have people hired to "shop" at a competitor while simultaneously noting prices on items. If they see the competitor has lowered the price of milk, they'll lower it to match.

Apparently they can do such adjustments multiple times a day back and forth.

Been some talk about banning that here.

Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#197

Post by antonvs »

ryandrake wrote: post #182
Aurornis wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Doesn't that depend on the state? I'm almost sure there are quite a few states that allow stores to charge a higher price at checkout than what the product is labeled with on the shelf.

That’s fraud, plain and simple. There are already laws against that. No more specific laws are needed.

Fraud: “a deliberate act of deception, misrepresentation, or concealment of material facts intended to gain an unauthorized benefit—typically money or property—while causing loss to another party.”

Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#198

Post by tdeck »

everdrive wrote: post #49
xnx wrote: post #10

Pricing 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.

>Customers will need aggressive agents to price-shop on their behalf. Take hotel booking as one of the current nightmares of price visibility. Or I'll just buy as little as possible and buy used whenever possible. The only answer I see anyone suggest is _more_ complexity. "This complex system we've built is flawed. I know what to do: I'll add another layer of complexity and abstraction on top of it." "Needing" buying…

> Or I'll just buy as little as possible and buy used whenever possible.

You're forgetting that consuming newly created products is the only way to express yourself or gain a modicum of fleeting happiness. Also, if you're not consuming, you can't "vote with your dollar" which is of course the most effective way in history for ordinary people to hold the powerful accountable.

Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#199

Post by frm88 »

djeastm wrote: post #176
crazygringo wrote: post #44

Sadly, 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…

>"surveillance pricing" (which is just a scarier-sounding synonym for "dynamic pricing") For your consideration: >"dynamic pricing" (which is just a friendlier-sounding synonym for "surveillance pricing")

Dynamic pricing and surveillance pricing are two different things, e.g. reduce price for fresh produce by x% 1 hour becore the store closes = dynamic pricing. Surveillance pricing is based on personal data of the individual customer (browser history etc.) which, when applied to groceries is basically everything Instacart does.

Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#200

Post by rhettsnaps »

free_bip wrote: post #151
Aurornis wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You're already watched by security cameras, it's not hard to do facial recognition anymore. And you have companies literally lining up to sell such facial recognition databases. It's conceivable they could determine what price you pay for groceries while your car is on the way to the store, thanks to Flock.

Disney Parks patented tracking via shoes and groups of people/families based on scanning their shoes upon park entry to build an index of guests. Not sure how and where it was all applied during park visits for guests but you're definitely correct that facial recognition upon store entry to kickoff a live dynamic profiling of a customer is what's currently being beta tested/deployed by some retailers.
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