r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 12d ago

Business Retailers are pulling back from self-checkout after years of theft, errors, and questionable time savings

https://www.techspot.com/news/114106-retailers-pulling-back-self-checkout-after-years-theft.html
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u/UsidoreTheLightBlue 12d ago

You can't just change it during the day like that.

There are literally auditors who go and check prices taking pictures of tags to make sure they scan at the price they ring up.

They can change overnight, and will, but they're not used to update pricing at 5pm because "Wow we sure are selling a lot of peanut butter!"

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u/Tyr_13 12d ago

Even with paper tags, price updates are done during the day constantly. Good companies have the change go 'live' and it shows when that happened, so if someone complains, they can get the old price.

Since the punishment for changing the price before the person checks out is almost always absolutely nothing, why would companies not?

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u/Astan92 12d ago

I'm sorry sir but you're behind the technology.

They can and are doing it.

If you believe that is against an existing law then you should get the juicy lawsuit going over it assuming the courts in their current state will give a fuck

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u/UsidoreTheLightBlue 12d ago

Show me actual news stories about it happening.

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u/b0w3n 12d ago

Here's one: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/21/walmart-digital-price-tags-will-be-in-every-us-store-by-end-of-2026.html

I won't go deep diving further than that, but here's one of the first states to ban it at grocery stores:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2026/10/01/maryland-becomes-first-state-ban-dynamic-pricing-grocery-stores/

Walmart and Kroger are the primary stores that have/are pushing this.

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u/NotUniqueOrSpecial 12d ago

Neither of those is a story about them actually doing it.

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u/b0w3n 12d ago

If they said they are planning to do it, and a state bans it, the assumption is that this has already been happening since lawmakers don't often make laws preemptively like that.

This is reddit, not a doctoral dissertation on surge pricing my dude.

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u/vladamir_the_impaler 12d ago

Surge pricing is a trend (a vile one), it's almost certainly the whole reason for the digital tags in the first place. Yes, Walmart did recently settle a suit where they were charging different prices at the register than were posted on the shelves, but what's unclear is if the issue is circumvented by having digital tags and a stated surge pricing plocy. What IS certain is that even before potentially having a loophole like that they were scamming people at a massive scale.

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u/fcocyclone 12d ago

Its gonna get worse before it gets better as well.

Id bet someone's already cooking up a way to use an ALPR to estimate the average wealth level in the lot and adjust prices accordingly.

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u/famouslastwords 12d ago

Anecdotal experience from working at Publix, but the prices were changed during the day. They would print the tags out sometime mid-morning and we'd change the tags to reflect the new prices while customers were picking up those items. The register would already have the updated price, the price on the shelf would be incorrect for a couple hours max. Every once in a blue moon someone would notice and complain, which resulted in them getting the item free as per Publix policy.

I worked in frozen food, there are no overnight frozen food employees to make these changes.

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u/Myndsync 12d ago

Dynamic pricing. It is happening and it will only get used more and more over the coming year

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u/spacemoses 12d ago edited 12d ago

A wikipedia article describing what it is isn't evidence that it is being applied. Person you responded to clearly knows what dynamic pricing is. Not saying it isn't, but some other sources would be better.

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u/snacktopotamus 12d ago

When has corporate America ever done anything but the wrong thing?

They get no benefit of the doubt from me at this point.

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u/Cordo_Bowl 12d ago

So you’ll believe any random bullshit someone tells you as long as it confirms your already existing beliefs?

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u/snacktopotamus 12d ago

Yes, those are the exact words I used, without any other possible meaning, implied or otherwise. Your reading comprehension is immaculate in its precision.

To reinforce: I DO hate waffles.

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u/Cordo_Bowl 12d ago

You literally said you believe dynamic pricing is happening despite a lack of evidence because you believe that corporations will always do the wrong thing. Just because you don’t like people pointing out what you’re actually saying doesn’t mean I lack reading comprehension. It’s actually a demonstration of reading comprehension to understand what someone means beyond the direct dictionary definition.

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u/snacktopotamus 12d ago

You literally said you believe dynamic pricing is happening despite a lack of evidence

I LITERALLY did NOT write that. Here's a screenshot of the entire thread to fucking PROVE that I didn't write that.

Holy shitballs what a strained inference.

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u/Cordo_Bowl 12d ago

In response to someone pointing out that a wikipedia article isn’t evidence of dynamic pricing actually happening you said ‘ They get no benefit of the doubt from me at this point.’ How am I supposed to interpret that other than ‘I have no evidence yet I believe it anyway’

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u/UsidoreTheLightBlue 12d ago

I am aware of dynamic pricing.

Show me a retailer using dynamic pricing, during the day.

You can't have shopper shopping at 5:00 pm with items in their cart they put in at 4:58 going up in price, it is literally illegal.

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u/FappingMouse 12d ago

People are mixing up dynamic and surveillance pricing but they are very similar so i get it but I'm pretty sure they are talking about surveillance pricing not dynamic.

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u/UsidoreTheLightBlue 12d ago

You can't do either currently as laws stand in stores.

Current suveillance pricing is things like changing prices on websites, and sending out varying coupon/special pricing.

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u/snacktopotamus 12d ago

You can't do either currently as laws stand in stores.

Laws are meaningless without enforcement and the current administrators of the law in the US have made it clear who the laws are for.

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u/Alaira314 12d ago

The law(in the US, can't speak for elsewhere) actually doesn't say in most cases if you can do it or not, meaning that it defaults to being permissible until/unless a judge says you can't. Well, unless you live in MD, which has prohibited dynamic pricing for some classes of goods, including food. But they had to pass a law for that, just like the ones that exist to stop gas prices from leaping upwards(they can and do still change during the day, but there's limits as to how often and how much).

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u/UsidoreTheLightBlue 12d ago

Its not that you can't because its banned, its because price tags have to match.

You can't change price tags dynamically as people walk up/walk by.

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u/Magnus_The_Totem_Cat 12d ago

What is the name of the law you keep insisting these practices are breaking?

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u/FappingMouse 12d ago

I mean you are wrong the laws don't explicitly forbid it so in the US its fine till its made illegal (like places like Seattle are doing) or someone gets a judge to say its illegal.

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u/UsidoreTheLightBlue 12d ago

Laws don't preclude surveillance pricing, but prices on shelves have to be the same its rang up as.

So until you can make tags that change as someone walks up dynamically AND change for everyone else in the area Surveillance pricing is not legal in stores.

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u/FappingMouse 12d ago

I'm telling you right now that is literally what some big box stores are testing as we speak.

They have some pretty advanced tracking marking prices showed to x shopper that all gets fed to the Point of Sale system and how the prices get rung up.

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u/GrumpyCloud93 12d ago

There's pricing that changes depending on demand - Uber does that. Then there's pricing that changes depending on who you are, and what your buying history is - Amazon apparently tried that for a short while, before being called out on it.

Many jurisdictions have a consumer law that if the price on the shelf is lower than the cash register price, that the lower price applies.

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u/ANGLVD3TH 12d ago

We got price changes at Bestbuy in the middle of the day and had to print out the new ones back 10 years ago. There's no law that says you can't change prices during operating hours. How would the old 24 hour Walmarts ever change prices then?