Nick Nadeau wanted a hard drive. He opened Walmart’s app on his phone and saw $369. His wife opened the same app on her phone, and the same drive was $110 less. He bought it on her phone and felt watched. “It just felt invasive,” he told the Journal’s Sarah Nassauer. Walmart says the gap was an error, and it’s been fixed.
Sarah Nassauer calls the mood AI-induced price anxiety. Shoppers now believe stores, apps and restaurants use artificial intelligence and personal data to charge them more. Walmart (WMT), Kroger (KR) and McDonald’s (MCD) all say they don’t. Walmart’s chief executive, John Furner, wrote to customers last month. Prices do move, he said, but not because of who you are. Your income, your past purchases and how badly you need the item won’t push the price up. “We price the product, not the person,” he wrote. A customer sued McDonald’s this month over what the suit calls algorithmic price-fixing. McDonald’s says the suit is full of errors.
Part of this is old. Airlines, hotels and ride-share apps have charged by demand and timing for years. Loyalty programs give different shoppers different discounts. Student and senior discounts are personal pricing too. What’s new is the data. Companies know far more about each of us, and they can change a price in seconds. And prices feel sore right now. The consumer-price index is up more than 29% over the past six years. Any number that moves looks like a trap.
The shelf label isn’t the villain
Much of the anger lands on digital shelf tags. Grocers in the U.S. and Europe have used them for more than a decade, and studies there found no surge pricing. Anyone walking by would see the change. Grocers mostly use them to mark down food about to expire. Walmart says it usually changes its digital tags when stores are closed. Lawmakers are moving anyway. New York passed a law last year that makes companies disclose algorithmic pricing. Maryland, Connecticut and New Jersey passed limits this year, and dozens of states are weighing bills. The Federal Trade Commission has proposed penalties for unfair personalized pricing. Colorado’s governor vetoed one bill, saying it would punish lower prices too.
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This is consumer protection (M11), and the fix is cheap. Before any big online purchase, check the price a second way. Use another phone, a logged-out browser, or the website against the app. If the numbers differ, buy at the lower one and keep a screenshot. It took a second phone to save Nadeau $110. Walmart and McDonald’s are held at weight, in 12 and 6 books; nothing added.
The concrete thing in your plan is the habit on big-ticket buys. Most of us price-check a car and skip the $369 hard drive, and the small stuff adds up. This week, pick one purchase you’re about to make and check it on two devices. It’s the shopping version of looking at the sky before you leave the umbrella at home. We’re glad to walk through the rest of the plan with you too.