Sticker shock has taken on a complete new which means at retailers and grocery shops. That’s as a result of sticker value tags are going out of favor, solely to get replaced by “digital shelf labels,” or DSLs. Retailers have been attempting for some time to determine methods to cope with modifications in client habits on account of inflation. Some are including on service charges or sneaky value labeling—however others are utilizing DSLs to their benefit.
Certainly, Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, introduced earlier this month it could be casting off sticker shelf pricing at its 2,300 shops by 2026, a change “ultimately making us faster and improving the customer experience.”
To place it in perspective, Walmart shops have greater than 120,000 merchandise on cabinets, every of which have their very own price ticket. Staff have to alter costs repeatedly for brand spanking new gadgets, markdowns, and “Rollbacks,” or Walmart’s model of a sale merchandise. This course of could be particularly time-consuming for the corporate’s retail workers.
“A price change that used to take an associate two days to update now takes only minutes with the new DSL system,” Daniela Boscan, a meals and consumable staff lead at a Walmart retailer in Hurst, Texas, wrote in a weblog publish. “This efficiency means we can spend more time assisting customers and less time on repetitive tasks.”
Walmart swears it’s not introducing surge pricing
Whereas this new know-how could possibly be helpful for Walmart employees, the pace and ease of updating costs has raised some eyebrows, contemplating how the corporate is introducing DSLs proper as surge pricing has change into a well-liked strategy to fight inflation. If it’s that straightforward to replace a value, then why wouldn’t Walmart implement surge pricing into its enterprise mannequin?
Different corporations—significantly eating places—have just lately taken the warmth for implementing surge pricing. Wendy’s confronted backlash earlier this 12 months for plans to introduce digital menu boards and dynamic pricing at its eating places, which Sen. Elizabeth Warren stated was “price gouging plain and simple, and American families have had enough.” The corporate rapidly clarified its stance on pricing.
“We said these menuboards would give us more flexibility to change the display of featured items,” the corporate stated in an announcement. “This was misconstrued in some media reports as an intent to raise prices when demand is highest at our restaurants. We have no plans to do that and would not raise prices when our customers are visiting us most.”
Walmart equally insists that introducing surge pricing would go towards one of many firm’s pillars: providing an “Everyday Low Price.”
“The DSL program is not designed for dynamic pricing,” Walmart spokesperson Cristina Rodrigues instructed Retail Brew. “Walmart adheres to Everyday Low Price.” She doubled down on the assertion that DSLs simply make it simpler for associates so as to add pricing for brand spanking new merchandise and replace pricing on sale gadgets. The know-how additionally makes it simpler to handle Rollback merchandise, that are placed on non permanent sale for weeks or months at a time.
The power to alter costs at simply the contact of some buttons additionally raises the query of how typically the retailer plans to alter its costs.
“It is absolutely not going to be ‘one hour it is this price and the next hour it is not,’” Greg Cathey, senior vp of transformation and innovation at Walmart, instructed Reuters in the course of the firm’s annual shareholder assembly in Bentonville, Arkansas, final week.
