Comment on Walmart math: Wrong price per ounce

• orclev@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  The math on that does seem to line up rather perfectly but that raises the question of if the ounces on the label are wrong or someone copied the wrong line item when filling in the per ounce price (not that they should be doing that manually, it should be derived automatically from the price and weight). I suppose they also could have copied the wrong weight as well so the label says 32 oz, but the item is listed in their DB as a 40 oz product.

  source

  • paraphrand@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    Why isn’t it automatically calculated. It’s 2026. Surely we have metadata for products on lock by now. If the tag has the volume and the price, it has all the information it needs.

    source

    • bss03@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      Having worked on POS software, I can guarantee you we do not have “metadata for products on lock”.

      Manufacturers will sometimes reuse the same UPC even though the packaging is fairly different. The UPC doesn’t contain the price, size, or any size – it is just a convenient look up for whatever POS the retailer uses, and for systems targeting independent retailers, that might be maintained mostly manually, though some warehousing associations might provide and importable list.

      In large retailers sometimes the smart tags are controlled using a system that doesn’t even deal with UPCs, just images / webpages, shelf locations, and schedules.

      Buyer beware, indeed.

      source

      • paraphrand@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        Yeah, and I realize that. It’s absurd that our capitalist society boasts about big data and technology and Roll Backs and Saving and all sorts of other things that might make you believe they care about such a fundamental part of it all.

        I name drop the current year because as they years go on, it’s ever more absurd that something like this isn’t perfect yet.

        source

        • -> View More Comments
  • Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    It’s probably 32oz with 8oz free!

    source