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Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

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Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#321

Post by michaelbuckbee »

VorpalWay wrote: post #253
ssl-3 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't really change anything. Previously, a criminal could just print their own shelf tags. They'd probably do this somewhere other than in the store to get the details right, but it was doable. (We've all probably seen rolls of blank shelf tags sitting around at the store, and thermal printers are inexpensive. So what if it's two crimes instead of one?) And then, in the store, they could just switch out the she…

> Fixed, basic auth would just get leaked (probably first by Home Assistant tinkerers who find some discarded electronic shelf tags somewhere and want a new display for their house). You know what, that is a great idea for a project of mine, where I want to display outside temp and weather forecast in the hallway next to the wardrobe. I have been musing about it for a while now: how to make it small and not stand out…

Maybe check out TRMNL, they've got a Home Assistant plugin.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#322

Post by Telaneo »

kennywinker wrote: post #301
Telaneo wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're blaming the store, which I agree with. My question was whether you could blame the GP, or the consumer in general. They have little control over how much the staff of their grocery store is being paid.

Ah, yes i did misunderstand. No i don’t blame them, but i am confused about their preference because it doesn’t match my own.

People have different preferences. What's to be confused about that?

I share their preference. The cashier saves me no real amount of work. The difference between putting my groceries on a conveyor belt and having a cashier scan them, and me myself dragging my groceries past a scanner, is somewhere between minimal and non-existent. The amount of work I perform is functionally the same. The biggest difference is in the amount of time I spend, where the win clearly goes to the self-checkout, since then I can bag my groceries at the same time as I scan them, and there's more self-checkouts available than normal ones, meaning I spend less time queuing if I use those.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#323

Post by rithdmc »

gruez wrote: post #42
rithdmc wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardly matters when one may print their own barcode on labels and cover the frangible one.

printing your own sticker requires way more prep than ripping one off a pack of ground beef and sticking it on a pack ribeye steak.

Absolutely, but it's also a low barrier. I think there's a lot of organized theft comparative to opportunistic.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#324

Post by tylervigen »

traceroute66 wrote: post #316

> Usually the advertised price must be honored, because it may have brought the customer to your store. No. In most jurisdictions this is covered by Contract Law 101 that lawyers learn in year 1. A contract only forms when you have an offer, acceptance, consideration The price on the shelf (or shown on the website or in a catalogue) is known as an “Invitation To Treat”. “Invitation To Treat” means you are inviting th…

That is common law, but many jurisdictions have specific regulations related to this. E.g.: https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/2017/04/28/US-Pr...

I don't know whether "usually" is accurate though; it may be that common law prevails as you say in most transactions despite the states with regulations.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#325

Post by arghwhat »

data-ottawa wrote: post #203

I’m very surprised here. I worked in retail many years, including doing store shelf tear downs and replacement and night shift stocking. Back in the day we would get our planograms from HQ, then we’d print out all the labels on perforated paper, and walk the shelves moving product and updating the price tags, throwing out the old. The epaper tags are very clearly an improvement to that process in both time and waste.…

I have never seen an IR-based on in any store myself. Bluetooth, and possibly some proprietary RF setup, seems popular.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#326

Post by devilbunny »

drdec wrote: post #150
devilbunny wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect this law does not apply in cases of fraud. If not, simple tag-switching would be rampant.

They are talking about the price on the shelf vs the price at the register. The price tag on the shelf has information identifying the product. The price at the register is obviously associated to the bar code on the product. So there's no way for a consumer to swap price tags from one product to another. Source - worked at a grocery store in Massachusetts as a teen

I was being colloquial by referencing the pre-scanner way of doing it, but since this article is all about changing the shelf tag, it seemed relevant.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#327

Post by CGMthrowaway »

ssl-3 wrote: post #235
data-ottawa wrote: post #203

I’m very surprised here. I worked in retail many years, including doing store shelf tear downs and replacement and night shift stocking. Back in the day we would get our planograms from HQ, then we’d print out all the labels on perforated paper, and walk the shelves moving product and updating the price tags, throwing out the old. The epaper tags are very clearly an improvement to that process in both time and waste.…

It doesn't really change anything. Previously, a criminal could just print their own shelf tags. They'd probably do this somewhere other than in the store to get the details right, but it was doable. (We've all probably seen rolls of blank shelf tags sitting around at the store, and thermal printers are inexpensive. So what if it's two crimes instead of one?) And then, in the store, they could just switch out the she…

>Previously, a criminal could just print their own shelf tags.

Yep. For the physical "hackers" among us, a price sticker gun (those little orange or white stickers with a number on them that mom and pop shops use) was one of our first tools to mess around with

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#328

Post by miki123211 »

spockz wrote: post #145
the_sleaze_ wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Costco mandates a maximum of 11% margin on goods in the store and aggressively monitor suppliers on that cost. One of the reasons I like costco actually 10% or so is a fine margin to pay.

That is actually quite nice. I’ve been toying with the idea of mandating this 10% maximum margin for products and services on every for-profit company. Trouble is, how do you prevent them making stacks of companies compounding the 10% profits. And is 10% sufficient to build up a buffer for when hard times hit? This thinking has been triggered by fuel producers and sellers making sky rocket profits because of the incr…

This is a bad idea if your industry is CapEx heavy and you have a lot of bets that don't pay off.

The drug industry is like this; the profits on a single drug sale are insane, even counting the R&D costs for that particular drug. However, those profits are offset by the losses incurred on all the other drug ideas that hadn't panned out despite the hundreds of millions of dollars invested in them.

The record and publishing industries are similar. As Steve Jobs once said, the main job of a music label isn't selling records, it's not even marketing or promotion, it's identifying artists with potential to be great hits amongst the thousands of wannabes. The revenue that labels get, and it's a lot of revenue, mostly goes towards recouping the costs of failed bets.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#329

Post by traceroute66 »

tylervigen wrote: post #324
traceroute66 wrote: post #316

> Usually the advertised price must be honored, because it may have brought the customer to your store. No. In most jurisdictions this is covered by Contract Law 101 that lawyers learn in year 1. A contract only forms when you have an offer, acceptance, consideration The price on the shelf (or shown on the website or in a catalogue) is known as an “Invitation To Treat”. “Invitation To Treat” means you are inviting th…

That is common law, but many jurisdictions have specific regulations related to this. E.g.: https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/2017/04/28/US-Pr... I don't know whether "usually" is accurate though; it may be that common law prevails as you say in most transactions despite the states with regulations.

> it may be that common law prevails as you say in most transactions despite the states with regulations

As already mentioned IANAL, but I would take an educated guess as follows:

The specific regulations to which you refer are in effect consumer protection regulations.

Ergo, they are there to protect the consumer against malicious behaviour by unscrupulous traders such as false or misleading information.

Any reasonable judge in a courtroom will likely agree that incorrect display of pricing on a shelf (or website or catalogue) is (in the absence of evidence to the contrary) likely to be an inadvertent error with no malicious intent. And therefore the common law would prevail.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#330

Post by conductr »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #287
ssl-3 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're different risk profiles. When a thief takes a steak from the cooler and walks out the door, they don't know who that person is. And while they may have video of parts of this, they don't necessarily see enough to prosecute. (Acting like you're stealing a steak but not actually doing it isn't a crime. Shoplifting can be hard to prove; part of that proof means demonstrating that they didn't change their mind an…

In principle I agree with you but in practice I feel like this really misses the reality of the situation. If it was an isolated incident at an isolated store in the mid 90s I think you'd be right. But presumably the thief makes a habit of this (otherwise why worry), it's likely a major chain with centrally coordinated loss prevention, the thief has presumably made a legitimate purchase from this chain at some point…

The best a thief can do is just not ring up the steak at all and if confronted just act like it’s an honest mistake.

Anyone just buying bananas and steaks is going to look suspicious fast. So rotating the banana for other things is key. Having a mixed bag of purchases where the steaks are always just accidentally unscanned or misscanned.

The facial recognition thing isn’t really in the picture for this minor type of crime. Law enforcement doesn’t have easy access to it as Hollywood would lead you to believe. Its use is reserved for higher profile crimes. You’d have to really be running a steak stealing criminal syndicate for this to happen. Before that, retailers would have already started forcing different procedures for the steaks. Like locking them up or pay at the butcher stand.

One thing facial recognition can do, if used properly by the retailer, is flag you and alert the store to put extra eyes on you every time you enter the store. There’s an increased chance they’ll confront you in the act or otherwise scare you off of it.

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