United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) has launched a campaign against what it calls “surveillance pricing.” Grocery chains prefer to call it “dynamic pricing.” Whatever its name, it’s a strategy by retailers to individually tailor prices based on a consumer’s personal information like location and browsing history. Using algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI), sellers charge different prices to different customers based on guesses about what they’re willing to pay.
Up to now surveillance pricing has been most widely utilized by online grocery delivery services like Instacart. An investigation by Consumer Reports found that prices for identical grocery items differed as much as 23% from one Instacart customer to the next. After the group reported its findings last December, Instacart said it would halt the practice.
But UFCW says the next frontier could be in the stores themselves, using electronic shelf labels that could change price depending on who is standing in front of them.
In response, U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon is cosponsoring the Stop Price Gouging in Grocery Stores Act, a bill to ban electronic shelf labels and personalized pricing based on consumer data. Representative Val Hoyle (D-Oregon) is a lead sponsor on a House version.
