Walmart is the biggest retailer in the country and sets the trends for the industry.
But a major change is coming for shoppers at their stores.
Now Walmart is making one big change that left everyone asking this scary question.
Walmart is shifting to digital price tags in all of its stores
Walmart announced that it’s going to switch out the paper price tags on its shelves for new digital ones.
The retailer will begin making the change in its more than 2,600 stores in the United States by the end of 2026.
Walmart officials said that change is about saving time and labor for employees having to manually switch out paper price tags.
The average Walmart store has about 120,000 items for sale with an individual paper price tag.
Now employees will be able to use an app to digitally update prices versus days of walking around the store swapping out paper price tags.
Walmart has already begun using the new digital price tags at a few locations around the country.
Grapevine, Texas Walmart employee Daniela Boscan – who participated in the pilot program – said the new digital price tags “represents a significant shift in how I, and other store associates, manage pricing, inventory, order fulfillment, and customer interactions, ensuring our customers enjoy an even better shopping experience.”
“A price change that used to take an associate two days to update now takes only minutes with the new DSL [Digital Shelf Label] system,” Boscan added. “This efficiency means we can spend more time assisting customers and less time on repetitive tasks.”
Walmart’s new system raises fear of a surge pricing
The pandemic, followed by the inflation crisis created by President Joe Biden, saw retailers frequently having to switch out their price tags for increases.
Big Tech companies have begun to use surge pricing to raise prices in response to higher demand.
Ride-share apps Uber and Lyft raise the price of a ride when demand for them begins to spike.
Walmart’s new digital price tags sparked fears that surge pricing could be coming to the nation’s largest retailer.
Digital price tags could allow Walmart to raise prices on something that’s in high demand, like toilet paper during the pandemic.
Walmart Senior Vice President of Transformation and Innovation Greg Cathey denied that the retailer had plans to implement surge pricing.
“It is absolutely not going to be ‘one hour it is this price and the next hour it is not,” Cathey said.
Walmart spokeswoman Cristina Rodrigues told Retail Brew that the digital price tags would make it easier for the retailer to implement more of its famous rollbacks.
“The DSL program is not designed for dynamic pricing,” Rodrigues said. “Walmart adheres to Everyday Low Price.”
Wendy’s tested new menu boards at some of its drive-thru that changed the price throughout the day, which sparked fears of surge pricing.
The fast food giant issued a denial that the change was about implementing surge pricing.
Dynamic pricing where price fluctuates up and down based on the demand for products could be in the future for consumers with the rise of digital technology.
Read All About It will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
