This "dark forest" feeling is what has recently driven me back to brick-and-mortar stores. Of course they can and do manipulate me via ads, store layout etc. but at least the store looks the same for me as for the person before or after me. They can't algorithmically optimize the store around my behavior in particular.
Recently I was looking for a fun summer book and spent around 30 minutes (?) browsing amazon and asking google AI with no luck.
Came by a bookstore yesterday, went in, asked the nice lady, she recommend 3, one was a pretty good match, bought it on the spot.
It’s so easy to get lost online when you’re looking for something these days…
ah but what they can manipulate around you is the price, which is a behavior some places are trying to get ahead of
https://www.nj.gov/governor/news/2026/20260723a.shtml
Has that actually happened in retail stores? All I can find on the topic is about online purchases (or ordering/paying online and picking it up at the store).
To do this in brick-and-mortar, you'd have to use remotely programmable price tags and detect who is looking at what, which seems doable, but then you still run into all kinds of tough questions with no good answers. If I happen to see the price tag change from $3.49 (perhaps set for the person in front of me) to $4.49 and I put that item in my cart, which price am I getting charged at the register? And did a legal sale even occur if I wasn't aware what I would be paying? I don't think it's going to work.
"Please scan this item with our app to see the price"
As of now, my local supermarkets still have price tags on the shelves. And if there's a higher price at the register when the item is scanned, they will honor the shelf price if you call it to their attention. The biggest supermarket now has e-ink shelf tags so I assume those are synced with their item database so that doesn't happen anymore.
it's the other way around, the shelf prices can be stable and they decide which discounts you can get based on your shopping profile which they built using surveillance
Well,,, OK?
If I buy a lot of Scott toilet tissue, I'm happy to get a discount on Scott toilet tissue.
Though mostly, the discounts I use are already posted on the shelf, I just need to "clip" an e-coupon in the app to get it.
They do send me emails and even postal mails with coupons too, but those all go in the trash.
It's the opposite in my market and with my store.
I never get coupons for what I actually buy, I only get coupons for things I don't buy. Those things are sometimes related, but if I wanted the other brand, I'd already be buying the other brand.
Depending on the retailer, they may have little say in what goes on sale. I work for a retailer and 98% of our promotions are based on what our distributors and producers offer us, whether it directly says manufacturer coupon or whether we handle the discount after the fact as a scan-back/credit.
It's not really a "Well, OK?" situation.
The local supermarket chain near me has more or less done away with normal low prices on the shelves. If you want anything resembling a deal, you get to deal with their shit-tier quality app plus other friction inducting time wasting crap like "clipping" digital coupons. Plus opting in to all the associated tracking the app does in order to use it.
They effective raised prices 10-20% for the entire store and then the only way to get a deal is use the app. This is only currently slight hyperbole - every month it rolls out more and more in this direction.
This way they can tell regulators "we only give discounts in a discriminatory manner! We don't raise prices!" when the time comes.
With any luck a judge will see right through that unmitigated bullshit, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
Requiring the app also disadvantages the elderly, particularly with dementia, who can't operate a smartphone. In theory, the cashier is supposed to allow anyone to access the discount on request but, in practice, I've seen them get rather unfriendly, even to the elderly, when they have to go through the process of manually punching in the discount.
This predates the 'Apps' by a good margin. Safeway used to do this a decade (or more?) ago. All the prices in shelves are artificially jacked up. Only if you use their 'card' you got real prices at checkout.
I refused to get their card and stopped shopping there.
> If I buy a lot of Scott toilet tissue, I'm happy to get a discount on Scott toilet tissue.
Don't expect discounts on what you buy often. They know they have you hooked on those already and they'll drive up the price on those items (for you) the minute they can. They'll give discounts on brands you don't buy to entice you to switch (if those other brands pay them enough to do it). These surveillance pricing systems are not for your benefit. They aren't there to save you money. They only exist to take more of your money away from you.
is that still ok when you're paying more because you don't shop as much as the people who live in the wealthier part of town? or what if you get fewer discounts for being male?
Okay, and what happens at the register?
Yes, it's happening in brick-and-mortar. They've been conditioning people to accept the idea that prices will differ depending on who is doing the buying through the use of apps and loyalty cards (https://web.archive.org/web/20201111164410/http://www.nytime...)
They've known for a long time now that their profits will go through the roof if they can get away with it, but the fact that consumers find the practice offensive has held them back along with the cost of initial investments in things like digital price tags and facial recognition systems (https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057/s41272-019-002...) but all of it is coming. The big chains have already started. By the end of this year Walmart should have digital price tags in every store. Facial recognition is spreading too (often using loss prevention as an excuse). The grocery chain Kroger announced they'll be using facial recognition to offer different prices to different people. Their digital price tags scan faces, and your track appearance and behaviors, like how long you spend looking at various products.
It'll be simple for stores to do things like charge people more when their cameras see them wearing expensive clothes, or when the data collected from their app shows that they live in rich neighborhoods or when they can use the data they collect on you in combination with information from data brokers to learn what your income level is. I fully expect things to get even weirder like stores setting higher prices for people with the wrong opinions or political views. Algorithms will be caught "accidentally" discriminating on things like skin color and gender.
There's a little bit of pushing back against that kind of things in some places, but with the massive amounts of money on the table I expect that politicians will be bribed to allow it.
> If I happen to see the price tag change from $3.49 (perhaps set for the person in front of me) to $4.49 and I put that item in my cart, which price am I getting charged at the register?
The store shelves have cameras in them. You won't see your price until the system detects you. They can even display your photo/avatar next to the price so you know that it's for you. Facial ID at the register tells them who you are when it's time to pay up. That's just for now though. Eventually it'll likely all happen in a cell phone app and you won't be able to as easily look over someone else's shoulder to see what price they're paying.
"Please scan this item with our app to see YOUR price" -ftfy
Somehow this doesn't scare me at all. Fast food restaurants have been doing this for like 8 years. Almost any order you could make normally, you could get a buck or two off of it if you order through their incredibly sluggish, bloated cross-platform-framework "app" and redeem a "deal." And they tell you this with giant ads.
The function is to get incremental sales (and hopefully establish a pattern of repeat business) by discounting selectively to people who might not buy at all otherwise.
If you're thinking "But they should give that discount to everybody!" that's not a thing. There's not enough margin in the first place, especially at a supermarket or Walmart, that everyone could just have lower prices on everything.
My grocery store already sends me individualized paper coupons every month.
All of this is promotions. It's all just trying to get some incremental sales, and hoping that if you get an offer for free hot dog buns you'll also buy the hotdogs.
I've always figured the dream would be to be able to advertise a low price without ever having to deliver it.
Some particularly skeevy car dealers were skewered many years ago for saying "Advertised price is less tax, title, and additional $2,000".
But they CAN get away with saying "The $8.99 burger is $11.99 unless you: - possess one of a range of sanctioned devices - have access to data services - are able to create and manage an account - are willing to opt in to whatever tracking/marketing gimmickry - can claim the "deal" in advance
Each of those steps is a funnel that opts out at least some potential customers from the deal. The 12-year-old who doesn't own a phone can't get the deal. The 85-year-old who can't operate Android can't. The person making impulse purchases and not pre-researching their meal selection misses the offer.
I feel like there's a argument for a precedent akin to "no purchase necessary to enter" for sweepstakes-- no additional purchase, software install, or commitment should be required to claim any advertised offer.
Agree. I see it also as, and maybe it's just the kinda wealthy area that I live in (though I'm myself a lifelong cheapskate)... I assume that the upper 50%, by income, of the people who walk into these places value their time too much to spend it dicking around to get the promos, so it's a convenient way to maximize the revenue from the people who don't mind wasting money.
> There's not enough margin in the first place, especially at a supermarket or Walmart, that everyone could just have lower prices on everything.
Strange how this totally worked until a few years ago. I never cut coupons or any other time wasting shenanigans, but was able to stop up on deals on the commonly used shelf-stable items I buy without even needing to signup to a loyalty program.
I understand price segmentation is a thing. But it's gotten pretty exhausting and only increasingly so.
Fast food you can simply opt out of. My health improved due to them shifting all the "deals" to the app, and doubling menu prices. Groceries are a different thing.
It doesn't scare you that $store can decide to double their lrice because they detected a brand new phone in your pocket?
This isn't even a little hypothetical- bluetooth had to anonomyze the MAC address to stop this, and it still fails sometimes.
If a store does this, they will eventually be caught and lose business
Lol
Maybe you haven't got sufficiently developed imagination...
https://nypost.com/2026/04/21/business/jetblue-x-post-sparks...
The idea of the price you pay could be far higher because your McSocial Credit Score is too low doesn't scare you?
I don't really care about fast food. That's strictly an optional luxury. If the experience sucks too badly, skip it. Grocery would be another matter.
I also think this hypothetical "scan to see your price" scenario is a lot worse. As things stand now, there's still a baseline price. If the shelf says $8.99 then you know that you may be able to get a better price through their loyalty program or with a coupon, but it will never be more than $8.99. In a fully dynamic pricing world where you have to scan scan to get a number at all, which is what a lot of businesses would really love to have, you'd lose that baseline. That item might ring up at $20 if the system decides I'm desperate or inattentive or just don't care. This is already possible online, of course. If it spreads to grocery stores, though, I'm going to start channelling Ned Ludd and it won't be pretty.