Walmart’s Boss Weighs In On Digital Shelf Pricing

Walmart Inc. President and CEO says his company won’t use digital shelf labels to charge different customers different prices. In an open letter to the retail giant’s associates and customers, John Furner said any use of differential pricing via such technology flies in the face on Walmart’s longstanding “Every Day Low Prices” (EDLP) approach to business.

EDLP “means you can count on without guessing whether Monday or Tuesday is the better day to shop or wondering if someone else is getting a better price than you,” he wrote. “Prices can change. We lower them when we can pass savings along. Sometimes they rise because an item costs more to buy or transport. But using someone’s income, shopping history or moment of need to charge them more would violate the EDLP promise our business model is built on. We won’t do it.

Furner also said that Walmart’s AI shopping assistant, Sparky, would not use personal information to “set a personalized price” on the DSLs. “We’ve never used the relationships our associates have with customers to charge more, and we won’t do that with AI,” he noted.

As to why Walmart uses such technology, Furner says it’s because “a shelf price should match what rings up at checkout. Digital shelf labels help us do that more consistently by displaying the right price. They also save associates time replacing paper tags. It may sound like an easy task – but as someone who has had to change those paper tags by hand over the years, I can tell you it’s a time-consuming and unrewarding task. Our associates would much rather be helping you, our customers.”

The bottom line, per Furner: “We price the product, not the person.”

Walmart’s stance notwithstanding, some law makers on the federal, state and local levels have been working to ban such electronic labels. The includes New Mexico Senator Ben Ray Luján (D) and Oregon Congresswoman Val Hoyle (D), The U.S. Sun reports.

“There needs to be laws and enforcement to protect consumers — and until then, I’d like to see them banned outright,” Hoyle said in a release. “Without proper regulations, it is not so hard to see corporations using the loopholes to raise prices on consumers. The idea exists. It’s only a matter of time before a billionaire in a boardroom implements that idea.”