We Had 400 People Shop For Groceries. What We Found Will Shock You.

[IronLionZion]

Price discrimination sounds sketchy as hell. Algorithms and AI raising prices based on consumer.

I thought I was being slick by using Instacart to compare prices for local stores before heading out to buy stuff. I don't actually buy anything through Instacart.

Wealthy corporations and tech companies would like us to blame impoverished immigrants.

[marble falls]

1. The poor pay more for food and the rest of us. And get lower quality. IF they even have local food stores.

[ColoringFool]

25. But the video article wasn't about this.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Walk away, substitute, have a larder of sale items

Those are the strategies I use. I don't use online shopping, nor apps in the store (but exploring some sale incentives).

It pains me to see bewildered shoppers in every store. Parsing how to spend their budgets. Especially old people.

I would argue this is a form of abuse. Prices are based on the ability to deceive, distract, confuse us, not strictly on the costs involved in contracting for and delivering items to the grocery shelves.

[Auggie]

19. +1

[homegirl]

22. Best investment

to control food costs.

A FOOD SAVER , removes air, seals items and freezes for future use. On sale, load up, portion and freeze. A $20.00 investment, saves hundreds!

Great for leftovers. Reheat in the bag in boiling water. Don't even have to clean the pot!

[ColoringFool]

26. But the video wasn't about Pricing vs. Production Costs.

[Brainstormy]

3. DOOR DASH

Is starting to do this as well

[ColoringFool]

27. To Do What?

[markodochartaigh]

4. Another way that Republicans want to take the majority of the population

back to a time few people today remember. A time when almost all of the food that we ate came from 10-50 pound bags of potatoes, onions, beans, rice, flour, masa, and cornmeal. A time when elderly unmarried or widowed women lived with family members with children and cooked the food and mended the clothes. At least we have microwaves and crockpots and rice cookers with timers. Letting a pot of potatoes, beans, or rice boil dry gives that charcoal taste to the whole pot.

[IronLionZion]

5. I use my instant pot a lot in winter. Great for potatoes. Slow cooker too

I have relatives who swear by using a big heavy dutch oven cooking for hours on the stove/oven for a deeper flavor. I never got into that yet.

[ColoringFool]

29. I Don't See The Connection To The Video Content.

[Sympthsical]

6. Solid journalism

Instacart, DoorDash, etc. are scams. The prices absolutely fluctuate, and oftentimes it's completely unreasonable.

I remember I had a coupon from Instacart. Spend $100 and get $40 back at Costco. My Costco is down the street. We shop there once or twice a week. I know the price of everything we regularly buy in the store. Once I loaded the cart, that $40 made no difference. The mark up wiped out any advantage. I closed the app and just went to the store.

I do not understand people who use DoorDash and things regularly. I have friends who just throw money at it without blinking. A $15 order at Taco Bell can inflate as high as $30 by the time all is said and done. There's convenience and delivery fees, and then there's whatever that is.

We keep our stuff simple. Some choice things from Trader Joe's, Costco for staples, then Safeway for various smaller things whenever they're on sale in the store app. The JustForU deals are fantastic much of the time. Got a bunch of avocados for 89 cents a pop the other day.

[karin_sj]

18. I love Trader Joe's!

They have some items that I will never buy anywhere else. I have been spoiled by their three seed sourdough bread and won't buy bread anywhere else, and it's only $3.99. It is so good. Trouble is, sometimes their products disappear and never come back. My sister makes her own sourdough bread, which consists of just flour and water. It's delicious, but it seems to be a big effort.

[NJCher]

40. TJs has

A macha salsa w/seeds like sesame, pepita, etc that they charge $4.99 for. Amazon, same product, wants $9.99 or $$10.99.

[ColoringFool]

30. Prices Are Allowed To "Fluctuate." Happens All The Time. The VIDEO Was....

About trying to discover how or if stores (usually major chains) targeted (no pun intended) INDIVIDUALS per their purchases.

[Sympthsical]

33. I know, I watched the video

And I'm adding onto the thought by mentioning other tech experiences where they try to squeeze people.

I've had instances where I've seen prices change, up and down, same day, only to change again by the next day.

There are price changes and then there's whatever they're managing.

[durablend]

7. As others stated

This only applies to online shopping through third parties, and not pricing at B&M (when you're actually at the store).

Though B&M sort of has AI running amuk pricing based on the area and other factors.

[IronLionZion]

12. Loyalty programs do something similar with customer data

but they would aggregate it for a local area. So one town might have different prices than another town for the same products. That has been going on for many years.

[erronis]

23. Surveillance Pricing. That's what some B&M stores do when you are in the store.

They keep track of what you have bought, what you are interested in. They can actively change the price (if it is displayed electronically.) And, of course, the price at check-out may not be the same as what you saw on the shelf.

Cory Doctorow writes about this frequently. For example:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/24/price-discrimination/

Dollar General and others of their ilk frequently charge more at the register than the marked price.

[Ms. Toad]

28. In virtually all circumstances, you have the legal right to purchase the item at the marked price.

That's one of the reasons I use self-checkout. If I am charged something other than the shelf price, I notice it immediately - and it can be corrected before I leave the store.

It's does take a lot of effort to enforce, because you have to be more attentive at the checkout than most of us are. If a deal seems too good to be true, I often take a picture of the shelf tag.

The remedy varies from state to state. In some states, your right ends at getting the shelf price. In other states the remedy is larger (e.g. double the price difference, or a fixed amount extra.)

[ShazzieB]

36. I wish I could remember the price of every single item. That must be a huge help!

I have a pretty good memory (used to be excellent, when I was younger) for verbal info, but numbers just will not stick to my brain. I can't remember what a frequently purchased item cost the last time I bought it, either. I may have a vague sense that something is getting more expensive, but that's as far as it goes.

I think I have some kind of learning disability in that area. In school, math was always my Achilles heel. I didn't have any trouble understanding the concepts but would make errors in computation, especially things like long division or adding long columns of numbers. Basically, the more steps there were, the more likely I was to make a tiny error somewhere along the way that threw the whole thing off. Double checking every answer helped, but it was so tedious that I didn't always have the patience. (Calculators didn't exist back then, unfortunately.)

Sorry for the digression. I'm just in awe of the ability to remember the cost of every single item! Even if I wrote them all down as I put things in the cart, I would probably get some of them wrong. I would have to photograph the shelf label of every item.

[ShazzieB]

31. What's B&M?

Just curious. I never heard of that one, and Google was no help.

[erronis]

32. Sorry - I was following the poster's lead. Bricks and Mortar (versus online)

[MichMan]

35. I've never seen electronic prices at grocery stores

Unless everyone has a microchip implanted, how would an electronic price know who it was walking up to it? "Hey, here comes MichMan. He just got his SS check, so let's raise the price on him"

In my state the prices are marked on the shelf under each item with a small paper tag. In order to change the price, someone physically would need to change the tag. Sale items have a larger yellow tag adhered over it. Those are applied after midnights on Saturday for the upcoming week. Occasionally, they miss pulling one which means you still get it for the old price if you bring it to their attention.

If you get overcharged at the check out and complain, you get a price adjustment. The state law does allow for a $5 penalty if you insist, but I like the store chain and am fine with the adjustment if that ever happens. The scanners are very accurate with the marked prices. In almost every instance I thought I didn't get the sale price, I didn't read the tag correctly. They do have self scanners throughout the store, so you can verify prices of any items before getting to the checkouts.

The psychology with sales prices I find interesting. Something like a can of Baked Beans that sells for $1.69 will have a big yellow sale tag next to it with a price like $1.60. Only 9 cents off, but the shelf will be emptied out as people react to the yellow tag with the words "Sale" on it in big letters. I really love the store (Meijer) but I do get frustrated by some of their sale promotions. They are big on promotions like "Three for $12" or "Buy 5. get $1 off each" Any lesser quantities are full price. Hell, who needs to buy 5 bags of Fritos?

Their loyalty program is quite good. Beside accruing points every purchase that you can eventually add up and use for $1 off per gallon at their gas station, they also send you coupons monthly that are actually for things you have bought before.

[thesquanderer]

8. Instacart has discontinued the practice

https://gizmodo.com/instacart-says-it-is-pulling-the-plug-on-its-ai-powered-price-tests-2000702649

[IronLionZion]

9. Because of this investigative report

[JustKay]

15. Corps don't give up cash cows easily

It's easy to issue a press release that says we won't do that anymore (wink, wink). But the truth is, money speaks. If it made/makes them millions of dollars, they're not going to walk away from that because of one news release. They will rename it, repackage it, remarket it, whatever they have to do to hold onto their cash cow.
Kay

[UpInArms]

10. That is disgusting

I hate the constant data mining and spying

[sinkingfeeling]

11. I no longer live in the US, but if I were there, I would be discusing these AI algorithms with my state rep,

governor, and US Congressman.

[Srkdqltr]

13. I think it's wonderful that you all can do all this indepth stuff with prices.

I just order from Meijer through insta cart and they bring it all to my door.
I use the same things all the time.
I don't have to go out, walk across a parking lot, go through a store, carry groceries to the car, load them in than out at home. Deal with icky people.
All I do is order , put my wagon at the bottom of the ramp. Delivery person brings the wagon to the door, I wheel it into the kitchen. Put stuff away. Done.
Im not all special like you guys.

[TBF]

20. If you are chronically ill or disabled it makes a lot of sense -

During the pandemic, before the vaccines were released, either my daughter would get our groceries or we'd order. Eventually the Moderna shots did work with my crazy lack of immune system, and I was able to go out again. Now I avoid the extra fees and try to buy what I can at Costco (things like their meatballs or chicken tenders can be easily frozen & made a little at the time in the air fryer).

[Fil1957]

14. Isn't that illegal?

[IronLionZion]

37. Which law applies to this?

[Farmer-Rick]

16. The corporations do similar pricing with utilities costs

They are allowed to use what they call "surge" pricing. When everyone needs more electricity they charge more. I understand that the EU calculates electricity costs every 15 minutes. If you buy it when you need it most, that 15 minutes of electricity can be up to 50% higher than if you buy it when you don't really need it.

They do similar surge pricing with gas and water. Our elected government allows this. Why?

[popsdenver]

21. WHY????????

We in Colorado have the Public Utilities Commission which was originally put in place to protect the public from price gouging by the utility companies, which had a monopoly............
Then the Public Utility Commissioners, here in Colorado, all leaned hard towards not protecting the public, but letting the utility companies run wild, with constant increases in rates, and allowing the deferment of maintenance to drop even more profits to the bottom line. The utility companies Wishes, were the PUC's command.....

Xcel, (our electrical and gas supplier), Denver Water, Denver Waste Water, and Century Link Telephone have slowly become massive "FOR PROFIT" corporations instead of Regulated Public Utilities.....

[IronLionZion]

38. Because there is money to be made

if you don't pay, they'll just cut off your utilities. They'll happily add nonsensical fees in some markets.

[AllaN01Bear]

17. i used to be able to use $100.00 per week for operatig capital, ot any more.:(

[2naSalit]

24. Fuck it...

I'll just go back to making all my purchases with cash.

I suspect this is one of the reasons some would do away with cash altogether.

[FakeNoose]

34. It always pays to shop IN THE STORE rather than online

The message from this story is that AI drives the price up whenever it can. Some people are shown one price, while others are shown a different price -- for the same item. This is because the price-bots have become sophisticated enough to know how much you can afford, and possibly even how much you're willing to spend.

But when I go to the grocery store and I see items that are MARKED DOWN for quick sale, I grab stuff quickly that would never be shown or suggested to the cellphone shoppers. Why is that? Because the marked-down items are only going to be there for less than a day, and then they're gone. The replacements will be higher priced of course - or maybe they will be discontinued altogether.

Certain stores are colloquially known as "ghetto stores" - not because of racism, but because the regular customers may be low income and may be lacking a car or easy transportation. If they live nearby they're going to shop more often, perhaps buy less per visit, and carry the groceries home themselves. Stores know that these "ghetto" customers have fewer options than those in the suburbs.

These issues are all related - where there is COMPETITION the prices are LOWER than where competition is minimal.

[IronLionZion]

39. Yup, and there are often savings by buying bulk large quantities

suburban types loves the warehouse stores for that. Buying small quantities of things costs more.