this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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There's not really a way to do that with this technology. These are just price tags on the shelf, so if they changed the price it would change it for everyone in the store.
This is not precisely accurate. These are individually addressible and can be commanded to change what's displayed based on any arbitrary input, such as detection of a critical mass of apple products in that part of the store, or a device which is signed into a store account on the store app, accurate down to about 3 meters last time I looked at the state of presence analytics tech. So you absolutely could have 20% higher prices follow a person around a store if you wanted to.
But you don't carry the sign with you. It stays at the shelf. Sure, they could build a system that tracks you everywhere in the store and marks what price they showed you and tells the register what price to display when you check out. They'll try all that, but this won't do it yet.
With that technology, no. But retailers track where you are in their stores. And even if you don't bring your phone with you, they're using facial recognition technology and will eventually try working with that.
So they probably have a good idea who you are. And they also have your purchase history - what you bought and at what price you bought it. They have your frequent shopper card history, your online purchases, everything they've put together from data aggregators.
They have all the pieces: they can track you in the store, they know the prices you're willing to pay for things, and they can change the price as you walk down the aisle. Do you seriously think someone isn't going to start putting all that together?