Comment on A supermarket trip may soon look different, thanks to electronic shelf labels
BCsven@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
Loblaws has had this for a while, we no longer shop thete, but it was frustrating because an item would fluctuate in price depending in what day you went. No way to budget for random pricing
blindsight@beehaw.org 3 months ago
To be fair to Loblaws, I’ve never seen them change prices with these mid-day, so they’re not emerged in “surge pricing” that I’ve heard of. (I haven’t been to Loblaws since the start of the boycott, but I don’t expect it’s changed.)
But I do wonder about the legality of that; right now, if the price at the till doesn’t match the item price, you get the first one free and the rest at the marked price (up to $10 items; above that it’s $10 off the marked price for the first item). But my impression is that policy is from Loblaws signing some sort of grocery code ages ago when scanners came in, essentially to assure consumers that they wouldn’t be scammed by scanners ringing up items at higher prices than advertised. I don’t think that is legally mandated.
So, then, what happens if the price changes between when you put it in your cart and when you arrive at the till? Anyone engaging in surge pricing where the timing isn’t clearly marked in advance is going to get into a lot of trouble with consumer backlash, at the very least, but I hope it’s illegal, too.
BCsven@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
I would think the price changes happen overnight. With their system each RFID type price label can be flipped when the push the pricing to the register system.
I’m sure the old way was a deterrwnt in changeing prices because they had to call staff in to swap labels. Now it is computerized, so on a whim they can adjust.
We had an oat drink we liked one day 4.99 go back to grab another the next day 7.99. Few days later 3.50…we said screw this company and just got it at Walmart where price was consitent every time.
blindsight@beehaw.org 3 months ago
Yeah, fair. It’s frustrating when prices fluctuate; I’m lucky that we don’t have many “must have” items on our shipping lists, and I’m very price sensitive, so I just don’t buy things that are expensive. And I only used to go to Superstore at most weekly, so I’d never have noticed daily fluctuations.
CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
Separate point, but are beehaw now not defederated from the world? When did this happen?
blindsight@beehaw.org 3 months ago
Beehaw never defederated with lemmy.ml. Most notably, Beehaw defederated from Lemmy.world which is one of the main reasons I’m happy to stay here. If Beehaw moves away from Lemmy, I’ll definitely need to find another instance that’s defederated with Lemmy.world.
CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
Ah interesting. Appreciate the clarification. Not seen much from Beehaw in a while.
Lemmy.world has a higher percentage of questionable users for sure.