Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
45
“Capitalism Final Stage”: Guy Goes Viral Exposing Dystopic Retail Games Happening In Real Time
Interview With Expert
Technological advancements have impacted just about every facet of our lives. We can shop online with the click of a button and see a package on our doorstep later that day. We can connect with former classmates we haven’t seen since h**h school by doing a quick Google search and “adding them as a friend.” Even the tasks that you might assume will never change, like going grocery shopping on a Sunday morning, have been transformed by our digital world.
TikToker Kenneth Munoz recently posted a video documenting a new digital pricing model that his local grocery store has implemented, and many viewers became concerned about how dystopian the entire concept is. Below, you’ll find Kenneth’s video, as well as a conversation with Michael Ashton, aka “Inflation Guy.”
RELATED:
This man noticed a new digital pricing system at his local grocery store
Image credits: twoideas
So he decided to document how prices can be changed throughout the day depending on demand
So these are the new digital price screens. So the whole goal of these is to adjust the prices on the items as they become more in demand. So, for example, right now, these are 90¢.
Image credits: twoideas
Let’s say around 6:00, or during the busier time, these will go up to a dollar. They’ll fluctuate based off of demand. So these are connected to the WiFi and to the registers.
Image credits: twoideas
Once the inventory on these items becomes low, the prices will start to shoot up to $1.20. Um, they’re gonna start incorporating all these all over.
Image credits: twoideas
So it’s pretty crazy. I’ll come back later on in the day and you’ll see this go up and down in price.
You’ll see it go as low as, like, 89¢, which is pretty crazy.
You can see the full video that Kenneth shared right here
@twoideas #inflation ♬ original sound – twoideas
Later, he responded to comments from viewers and provided more information about the new system
Image credits: twoideas
That 10% thing is crazy. You’re walking in there, you’re like, ‘dang, this is cheap, this is cheap, this is cheap.’ And then the little fine print, 10% at register. Check out 10% on top of that, on top of the taxes.
Image credits: twoideas
Yeah, it should be illegal. But then again, if you look at cars, at dealerships, if you look at gas, gas changes every day. Look at the rent…
“When inflation is low, companies absorb small changes in prices and only move when there is a big change or a sustained change”
Grocery shopping is an activity that many of us dread. It often feels like the price of food rises every single week, and if you only have the opportunity to shop during busy times, you have to be mentally prepared to fight off crowds before going. Weaving your cart through narrow aisles and standing in line for 15 minutes before getting to the checkout is not most people’s ideal way of spending a Sunday afternoon or Wednesday evening.
And one of the absolute worst parts of buying groceries is seeing the bill at the end. To learn more about inflation and how it impacts food prices, we got in touch with Michael Ashton, aka “Inflation Guy.” Michael is the founder of Enduring Investments LLC and was kind enough to have a chat with Bored Panda about this topic.
“Inflation is a decrease in the purchasing power of the dollar, so it affects EVERYTHING to a greater or lesser extent,” he explained.
“But what people don’t realize about groceries is that, except for raw produce, most of the cost of food is packaging, shipping, and advertising. So even if egg prices are low, if the cost of shipping eggs, or the cost of the cartons, goes up a lot, then so does the price,” Michael shared.
“The situation with eggs, though, is due to the avian flu, which has nothing to do with inflation, so maybe that’s a bad example!” he added.
Michael says that, when inflation is low, grocery prices change less frequently because it takes time to adjust prices, and it annoys the customers. “All businesses, in fact, operate this way.”
“When inflation is low, companies absorb small changes in prices and only move when there is a big change or a sustained change,” Michael told Bored Panda. “Economists say this is due to ‘menu costs’, because a restaurant, for example, doesn’t want to reprint menus all the time.”
“Prices that move make it harder mentally to the consumer but also raise the value of smart shopping”
“However, when inflation is higher, it happens more often and it can happen multiple times per day in very-high-inflation countries,” the expert says. “But here is where it gets interesting: During [the pandemic], you started to see restaurant menus with stickers over the prices, and THEN they started using iPads. Once they started using iPads, restaurants could change prices very easily, and they did.”
Michael says that, once we have digital pricing in grocery stores, prices will change much more frequently. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “This is more burdensome for the consumer, but it is potentially a good thing because menu prices are sticky going up AND going down.”
“Prices that move make it harder mentally to the consumer but also raise the value of smart shopping,” he explained. “I think it’s probably a good thing overall because it’ll remove the ‘safety cushion’ that merchants had to put in there. But you’ll have to be on your toes.”
“Wouldn’t it be great if there was a currency that was always worth $1 in TODAY’S dollars?” Michael asks. “Whatever you could buy today with $1, you could buy next year with $1? Chile has had such a currency since the 1960s called the Unidad de Fomento. My partners and I are working and will soon launch a digital currency that does the same thing.”
We would love to hear your thoughts on this situation in the comments below, pandas. How would you react if you saw this new model in your local grocery store? Feel free to weigh in, and then if you’d like to check out another Bored Panda article discussing similar issues, look no further than right here!
Many people were not impressed with the new pricing system, and Kenneth joined in on the conversation
Viewers did not hold back when sharing their opinions, as many considered the new system to be dystopian
Poll Question
Thanks! Check out the results:
Newsletter
Subscribe to Access
Exclusive Polls
By entering your email and clicking Subscribe, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Privacy Policy.
Thank you! You've successfully subscribed to newsletters!
What do you think ?
Carl Roberts 2 weeks ago
That "plus 10% at register" feels like straight up fraud. The signed price says 90 cents, but the fine print means it's actually 99 cents.
Kit Black 2 weeks ago
There's a chain near us that does this, but they do have it posted in huge posters at the entrance to the store and throughout the store
Load More Replies...
Emma London 2 weeks ago
In Europe this would never float. In my country it's illegal to give a different price at the shelf and at the register. Also the "+10%" and forcing the customer to stand next to the item and wait for the price to show up is really scammy, it's for intentionally confusing the actual price. I would never shop in a place like this.
Fembot 2 weeks ago
Don’t be so sure because in my part of Europe a supermarket is using dynamic pricing, so far it seems fine: just decreasing a price when the item is about to pass its sell-by date. But once the technology is there.. I don’t know
Load More Replies...
Libstak 2 weeks ago
So now we have to shop with our phones recording or taking a snap of the price when we put an item in our basket? 15 minutes delay is no where near enough before prices update at the till. This is if I accepted the dynamic pricing at all, which I will never do. Yet another bright spark in marketing with the morals of a gutter rat making their mark with the latest in corporate grift schemes. Plus a boardroom full of greedy grifters thinking oh awesome, that's another $1million bonus to me right there, let's vote to do this.
Reset Game 2 weeks ago
And wait until the new increased tariffs start. It's going to be so much worse
BrunoVI 1 week ago
Tariffs don't increase prices unless there is no alternative source. It's not like Trump didn't impose tariffs in his first term... and no, the prices on washing machines didn't go up. It's amazing the way liberals are terrified about taxing China, but are gung-ho for taxing America.
Load More Replies...
Šimon Špaček 2 weeks ago
And this is happening in the very same country that says "we cannot include tax on price tags, because price in all states has to be the same and with taxes it would show different prices". Nice.
BoredPangolin 2 weeks ago
I can imagine a scenario where a grocery store would rise the price by a few cents per items in rush hours, forcing people who are on a tight budget to shop in less convenient times. Another way to divide people on each side of the income line. :(
General Anaesthesia 2 weeks ago
Those on a tight budget are working their butts off elsewhere in "less convenient times", so they can't shop. Poverty is expensive.
Load More Replies... 
Remi (He/Him) 2 weeks ago
Dynamic pricing in it's current form, meaning price is set by the day is ok. This scammy helll isn't. Imagine going in a store and they raise the prices on things plucked off the shelf or something. If you can't know how much your groceries cost before going to the till, that's against a lot of laws
Lee Banks 2 weeks ago
I'll eventually read this article, but the censorship is infuriating. High school? Seriously?! Folk with half a brain/over the age of ten already know what whatever euphemism you're using means. Best not to use cusre words around toddlers, but that's because they haven't learned code switching yet. It is also rifuckingdiculous to think that anyone capable of using a computer to read doesn't have the capacity to understand "unalived" is the exact same as 'killed". At what point does sheltering become making young people ignorant, and real speech unviable?
CK 1 week ago
I blame Tiktok and similar social media sites with the nebulous "algorithm" that boosts some content and buries other content for reasons that aren't always clear, leading people to think that they need to use euphemisms to placate the algorithm.
Load More Replies... Kamal Hasan 2 weeks ago (edited)
This dynamic pricing model is quite alarming! It feels like we're living in a dystopian world where prices change unpredictably. It's unsettling to think that something as routine as grocery shopping could become so volatile.
Daisy1355 2 weeks ago
When I worked in retail, I had the thought that these should exist. And never in a million years did I think they should exist for a scam like dynamic pricing. I wanted them to exist for the purpose of the ad set up and take down. Instead of having to spend hours before and after the store closes wasting manpower and paper on signs, I thought it would be nice if those could be electronic so that manpower could be utilized on stocking and cleaning and other things. But of course the corporate overlords gotta find the scummy way to utilize it.
Traveling Lady Railfan 2 weeks ago
Figuring out 10% isn't difficult, I don't think that that's a gigantic problem, but the whole dynamic pricing thing? I would never shop at a store that did this, unless I found that shopping at for instance 8:00 in the morning always yielded the lowest prices, cuz that's when I shop anyway. I would never change my schedule to try to shop when I think the prices are be lower... it sounds so much like going to the casino and trying your luck.... Maybe I'll try this machine maybe I'll try that machine maybe it'll pay off? No. Could you imagine trying to reorganize your whole day because at 1:38 the grocery store may have soup on for $0.89 instead of 99 cents but if you get there at 3:00 the soup will be $1.19 because everyone's there after picking their kids up after school? No no. That would never fly by me. I miss the days when items would have a price tag on them.
Tucker Cahooter 2 weeks ago
Colesworth in Australia have been copping some stick recently in relation to their pricing practices but even they wouldn't be so stupid as to try to pull a stunt like this. And if the sticker price says $1.25 that's what you will pay at the register. None of these fuc*ing stupid additional taxes, or tips, added at the checkout
Paul Khon 2 weeks ago
One of them was bringing in trollies with built-in check-out. I think a tablet thing where you scan the items as you go & pay in trolley. Obviously another way of ditching staff/increasing CEO bonus, but once scanned, the price should remain. WW was looking at/trialling dynamic shelf prices in some stores over the past few years. No idea what happened with it.
Load More Replies...
WonderWoman 1 week ago
The store bought the food for a certain cost - those costs didn't vary due to the time of day it was delivered to them. Dynamic pricing is corporate greed at it's finest. Screw any store that does it, it would never get my business.
Frank 2 weeks ago
The system exists in Brazil for vegetables and other fresh goods, where the price can change multiple times during the day. By law each client pays what was the price at the moment the goods were taken (or lower, of course), never higher. Some kind of tracking system has to be implemented by each store to make this a reality. It seems to work.
Jeanne 2 weeks ago
the companies also move items around and items that will likely sell more in aisle where the most customers go. if they notice people favor cheaper items placed at the bottom, they will put expensive ones there with the cheap ones so as to make more sales..
Kit Black 2 weeks ago
They've been doing that for decades, it's a fairly established science right now.
Load More Replies...
Robert Beveridge 2 weeks ago
I'm sure this is the least surprising answer you could possibly get: Walmart's been testing it for a while. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/walmart-digital-price-tags-stores/
Load More Replies...
pumpkin 1 week ago
If you got the items at $3, you check out them at other price ... So interesting ~
Load More Replies... Seedy Vine 1 week ago
I love how the media lies to us with the whole "Inflation is around 3%" bullsh!t when we have ALL seen the cost of many of our groceries DOUBLE in the last year or two.
Tiffany Marie 1 week ago
I mostly shop at an outlet. I try to mostly buy single ingredient foods anyhow and sales on produce.
Daisy1355 2 weeks ago
When I worked in retail, I used to dream of things like this existing. Never for the purpose of dynamic pricing though. Simply so that it could clearly show product and sales, so we didn't have to waste so much manpower and paper on sales and they could be activated each week with a button, and that time could be spent on cleaning and stocking. But of course, corporate overlords gotta find the scummiest ways to utilize the technology.
Pittsburgh rare 2 weeks ago
So many things could go wrong with this...those screens seem fragile, the WiFi could be hacked... just hope nobody has any nefarious idea...🙏
JP Doyle 2 weeks ago
We have a local store that has gone to an app style system. You need to "clip" the coupons in the app to get the sale price. But you can only do it once. After that you pay full price. They also did shelf tag "coupons" you can use with the app. But that is for a single item. It makes it look like it's the full sale price. But you take 5 cans of soup to the front. 1st one is $2.25, the other 4 are at $3.95. Pops and chips are the worst. Big sale sign saying a 12-pack of Mountain Dew is only $6.99 each then in small print it says you Must Buy 5. Sorry, I'm not blowing my budget with $35 worth of pop, just so I can get the sale price. If I wanted to do my shopping I would be spending $200 for huge amounts of things in multiples of 4 to 6, which I would never eat before they went bad. I've stopped shopping there. One cannot plan a food budget with bait and switch pricing like that.
Steve Sharpe 2 weeks ago
Say I buy a bottle of wine for $60, get home, and realise I've picked up the wrong sort. When I take it back to exchange it for a different one an hour later and the price has gone up to $70, what happens? How about if it's gone down to $50? If I wanted a refund instead of an exchange, how much do I get?
Traveling Lady Railfan 2 weeks ago
It would work out exactly the same as if you bought a product for $5 on Thursday and on Friday it went on sale for $4 and you went to return it, you wouldn't get $4, you'd get $5 however you couldn't return it without a receipt. No receipt no return. You will get the price that you paid
Load More Replies...
Traveling Lady Railfan 2 weeks ago
Cost Plus 10%, if it is very clearly explain to you, is not offensive to me. That's actually a very small markup, 10%. And very easy to figure out mathematically. But the dynamic pricing? I would never go for that.
CK 2 weeks ago
No, it's not this way with any industry, because the norm is that the price tag constitutes an offer of sale for a reasonable time frame.
Load More Replies... Carl Roberts 2 weeks ago
That "plus 10% at register" feels like straight up fraud. The signed price says 90 cents, but the fine print means it's actually 99 cents.
Kit Black 2 weeks ago
There's a chain near us that does this, but they do have it posted in huge posters at the entrance to the store and throughout the store
Load More Replies... Emma London 2 weeks ago
In Europe this would never float. In my country it's illegal to give a different price at the shelf and at the register. Also the "+10%" and forcing the customer to stand next to the item and wait for the price to show up is really scammy, it's for intentionally confusing the actual price. I would never shop in a place like this.
Fembot 2 weeks ago
Don’t be so sure because in my part of Europe a supermarket is using dynamic pricing, so far it seems fine: just decreasing a price when the item is about to pass its sell-by date. But once the technology is there.. I don’t know
Load More Replies... Libstak 2 weeks ago
So now we have to shop with our phones recording or taking a snap of the price when we put an item in our basket? 15 minutes delay is no where near enough before prices update at the till. This is if I accepted the dynamic pricing at all, which I will never do. Yet another bright spark in marketing with the morals of a gutter rat making their mark with the latest in corporate grift schemes. Plus a boardroom full of greedy grifters thinking oh awesome, that's another $1million bonus to me right there, let's vote to do this.
Reset Game 2 weeks ago
And wait until the new increased tariffs start. It's going to be so much worse
BrunoVI 1 week ago
Tariffs don't increase prices unless there is no alternative source. It's not like Trump didn't impose tariffs in his first term... and no, the prices on washing machines didn't go up. It's amazing the way liberals are terrified about taxing China, but are gung-ho for taxing America.
Load More Replies... Šimon Špaček 2 weeks ago
And this is happening in the very same country that says "we cannot include tax on price tags, because price in all states has to be the same and with taxes it would show different prices". Nice.
BoredPangolin 2 weeks ago
I can imagine a scenario where a grocery store would rise the price by a few cents per items in rush hours, forcing people who are on a tight budget to shop in less convenient times. Another way to divide people on each side of the income line. :(
General Anaesthesia 2 weeks ago
Those on a tight budget are working their butts off elsewhere in "less convenient times", so they can't shop. Poverty is expensive.
Load More Replies... Remi (He/Him) 2 weeks ago
Dynamic pricing in it's current form, meaning price is set by the day is ok. This scammy helll isn't. Imagine going in a store and they raise the prices on things plucked off the shelf or something. If you can't know how much your groceries cost before going to the till, that's against a lot of laws
Lee Banks 2 weeks ago
I'll eventually read this article, but the censorship is infuriating. High school? Seriously?! Folk with half a brain/over the age of ten already know what whatever euphemism you're using means. Best not to use cusre words around toddlers, but that's because they haven't learned code switching yet. It is also rifuckingdiculous to think that anyone capable of using a computer to read doesn't have the capacity to understand "unalived" is the exact same as 'killed". At what point does sheltering become making young people ignorant, and real speech unviable?
CK 1 week ago
I blame Tiktok and similar social media sites with the nebulous "algorithm" that boosts some content and buries other content for reasons that aren't always clear, leading people to think that they need to use euphemisms to placate the algorithm.
Load More Replies... Kamal Hasan 2 weeks ago (edited)
This dynamic pricing model is quite alarming! It feels like we're living in a dystopian world where prices change unpredictably. It's unsettling to think that something as routine as grocery shopping could become so volatile.
Daisy1355 2 weeks ago
When I worked in retail, I had the thought that these should exist. And never in a million years did I think they should exist for a scam like dynamic pricing. I wanted them to exist for the purpose of the ad set up and take down. Instead of having to spend hours before and after the store closes wasting manpower and paper on signs, I thought it would be nice if those could be electronic so that manpower could be utilized on stocking and cleaning and other things. But of course the corporate overlords gotta find the scummy way to utilize it.
Traveling Lady Railfan 2 weeks ago
Figuring out 10% isn't difficult, I don't think that that's a gigantic problem, but the whole dynamic pricing thing? I would never shop at a store that did this, unless I found that shopping at for instance 8:00 in the morning always yielded the lowest prices, cuz that's when I shop anyway. I would never change my schedule to try to shop when I think the prices are be lower... it sounds so much like going to the casino and trying your luck.... Maybe I'll try this machine maybe I'll try that machine maybe it'll pay off? No. Could you imagine trying to reorganize your whole day because at 1:38 the grocery store may have soup on for $0.89 instead of 99 cents but if you get there at 3:00 the soup will be $1.19 because everyone's there after picking their kids up after school? No no. That would never fly by me. I miss the days when items would have a price tag on them.
Tucker Cahooter 2 weeks ago
Colesworth in Australia have been copping some stick recently in relation to their pricing practices but even they wouldn't be so stupid as to try to pull a stunt like this. And if the sticker price says $1.25 that's what you will pay at the register. None of these fuc*ing stupid additional taxes, or tips, added at the checkout
Paul Khon 2 weeks ago
One of them was bringing in trollies with built-in check-out. I think a tablet thing where you scan the items as you go & pay in trolley. Obviously another way of ditching staff/increasing CEO bonus, but once scanned, the price should remain. WW was looking at/trialling dynamic shelf prices in some stores over the past few years. No idea what happened with it.
Load More Replies... WonderWoman 1 week ago
The store bought the food for a certain cost - those costs didn't vary due to the time of day it was delivered to them. Dynamic pricing is corporate greed at it's finest. Screw any store that does it, it would never get my business.
Frank 2 weeks ago
The system exists in Brazil for vegetables and other fresh goods, where the price can change multiple times during the day. By law each client pays what was the price at the moment the goods were taken (or lower, of course), never higher. Some kind of tracking system has to be implemented by each store to make this a reality. It seems to work.
Jeanne 2 weeks ago
the companies also move items around and items that will likely sell more in aisle where the most customers go. if they notice people favor cheaper items placed at the bottom, they will put expensive ones there with the cheap ones so as to make more sales..
Kit Black 2 weeks ago
They've been doing that for decades, it's a fairly established science right now.
Load More Replies... Robert Beveridge 2 weeks ago
I'm sure this is the least surprising answer you could possibly get: Walmart's been testing it for a while. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/walmart-digital-price-tags-stores/
Load More Replies... pumpkin 1 week ago
If you got the items at $3, you check out them at other price ... So interesting ~
Load More Replies... Seedy Vine 1 week ago
I love how the media lies to us with the whole "Inflation is around 3%" bullsh!t when we have ALL seen the cost of many of our groceries DOUBLE in the last year or two.
Tiffany Marie 1 week ago
I mostly shop at an outlet. I try to mostly buy single ingredient foods anyhow and sales on produce.
Daisy1355 2 weeks ago
When I worked in retail, I used to dream of things like this existing. Never for the purpose of dynamic pricing though. Simply so that it could clearly show product and sales, so we didn't have to waste so much manpower and paper on sales and they could be activated each week with a button, and that time could be spent on cleaning and stocking. But of course, corporate overlords gotta find the scummiest ways to utilize the technology.
Pittsburgh rare 2 weeks ago
So many things could go wrong with this...those screens seem fragile, the WiFi could be hacked... just hope nobody has any nefarious idea...🙏
JP Doyle 2 weeks ago
We have a local store that has gone to an app style system. You need to "clip" the coupons in the app to get the sale price. But you can only do it once. After that you pay full price. They also did shelf tag "coupons" you can use with the app. But that is for a single item. It makes it look like it's the full sale price. But you take 5 cans of soup to the front. 1st one is $2.25, the other 4 are at $3.95. Pops and chips are the worst. Big sale sign saying a 12-pack of Mountain Dew is only $6.99 each then in small print it says you Must Buy 5. Sorry, I'm not blowing my budget with $35 worth of pop, just so I can get the sale price. If I wanted to do my shopping I would be spending $200 for huge amounts of things in multiples of 4 to 6, which I would never eat before they went bad. I've stopped shopping there. One cannot plan a food budget with bait and switch pricing like that.
Steve Sharpe 2 weeks ago
Say I buy a bottle of wine for $60, get home, and realise I've picked up the wrong sort. When I take it back to exchange it for a different one an hour later and the price has gone up to $70, what happens? How about if it's gone down to $50? If I wanted a refund instead of an exchange, how much do I get?
Traveling Lady Railfan 2 weeks ago
It would work out exactly the same as if you bought a product for $5 on Thursday and on Friday it went on sale for $4 and you went to return it, you wouldn't get $4, you'd get $5 however you couldn't return it without a receipt. No receipt no return. You will get the price that you paid
Load More Replies... Traveling Lady Railfan 2 weeks ago
Cost Plus 10%, if it is very clearly explain to you, is not offensive to me. That's actually a very small markup, 10%. And very easy to figure out mathematically. But the dynamic pricing? I would never go for that.
CK 2 weeks ago
No, it's not this way with any industry, because the norm is that the price tag constitutes an offer of sale for a reasonable time frame.
Load More Replies... You May Like 45 People Share Which Frugal Choices Are Absolutely Worth It And Which Are A Waste Of Time Ironic And Sad Posts From People Who Are Done With Consumerism (New Pics) 50 Funny Memes Mocking The Absurdity Of Today's Economy, Shared By This Instagram Account
Mantas Kačerauskas
Greta Jaruševičiūtė
Ilona Baliūnaitė
Related on Bored Panda
47
64