No Personalized Pricing
Walmart Pledges No Personalized Pricing Amid Growing Regulatory and AI Scrutiny
Anonymous
Walmart CEO John Furner says the retailer will not use shoppers’ identity, income, purchase history, urgency or other personal information to set individualized prices through digital shelf labels or its AI shopping assistant, Sparky. Walmart is expanding digital labels, which let it change prices quickly from a centralized system, but Furner says prices may still rise or fall because of changes in costs or savings the retailer can pass on—not because of who a customer is. He says personalized pricing would violate Walmart’s “Everyday Low Prices” commitment, and that the tools are intended to improve service and store efficiency, not raise prices or hide lower-priced options. Walmart says employees will oversee pricing and it will protect customer data. The pledge comes amid public and bipartisan concerns about personalized pricing, reports of Walmart patents for automated pricing tools that could use customer and purchase data, and a proposed FTC policy on disclosing personal-data use in setting prices.
Key Points
1
Walmart had already installed digital shelf labels in 2,300 U.S. locations and said it expected the technology to reach the entire chain within the next year.
2
One Walmart patent describes a demand-forecasting and price-recommendation tool that could draw on data including purchases, payment methods and customer identification, such as passport or driver’s licence numbers.
3
Furner’s letter appeared on the day public comments were due on a proposed FTC enforcement policy warning that businesses may break the law if they do not tell consumers how personal data is used to set prices.
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Walmart said digital labels also help ensure shelf prices match what customers are charged at checkout, while replacing paper tags that workers otherwise have to change by hand.
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