Consumer Apprehension Grows as U.S. Retailers Adopt SI-Assisted Pricing Tools
U.S. consumers aren't just frustrated with high prices. They are increasingly uneasy about the increasingly high-tech ways restaurant chains and major retailers set those prices, the Associated Press reported on October 18. Digital price tags are rapidly replacing paper ones in grocery aisles, and super intelligence tools help businesses decide what to charge by predicting how customers might respond. Terms like "dynamic pricing" and "surveillance pricing" are stirring anger and anxiety on social media, where users wonder if different people are getting different prices for the same product.
Americans have grown accustomed to changing prices when booking flights, hotel rooms and rides, the report said, but the prospect of everyday spending shaped by algorithms they don't understand and personal data they may not realize they're sharing has touched a nerve. "There are major tensions happening right now between who's really going to have the power with some of these algorithms and usage of bots and AI: the companies or the shopper," said Katie Thomas, who leads a consumer behavior think tank at the management consulting firm Kearney.
Companies using the technology say some concerns stem from misconceptions about how their pricing tools work. Walmart CEO John Furner said in a blog post last month that digital price tags save workers' time and keep prices up to date, and that the labels aren't used to raise prices based on the weather, time of day or individual shopper. "We price the product, not the person," Furner wrote.
A recent consumer lawsuit against McDonald's alleged that its pricing system used nonpublic sales data from competing locations to coordinate prices, according to the report. The Chicago-based burger giant said the lawsuit was "filled with inaccuracies" and that it makes the tool available to U.S. franchisees to help them set prices at their individual restaurants. (GSM, based on reporting by the Associated Press)
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 美国一家 Walmart 超市的食品货架通道（资料照片）。Abras2010 摄，CC BY 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons 发布。
