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Walmart really want you to trust them.
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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These devices are used in basically every big store in the UK and much/most of Europe.
Unless they're using some super expensive version, they still have to manually be changed, one by one, just by touching a device to it. So the difference in pricing change speed isn't significant.
That doesn't make sense. The devices used in European stores in the last 10+ years are all wireless. And super cheap (BLE wireless, two color, are sub 10€ for end consumer not buying in bulk, so I bet they get them for like one or two monies a pop).
It would not make financial sense to not have them wirelessly updated bcs that way it wouldn't solve anything (the same labour & speed as regular paper labels, with wireless ones you take that job from someone).
(There do exist NFC only ones, which don't even seem chapter, but I assume that is for boutique shops with a few labels. The benefit is that you don't need a system or a database, just write the price via a phone app. And they cost the same bcs there isn't much demand.)
I've never seen a worker change the display manually, but I have seen a worker place a blank one on the rack. And I have seen them all update in sequence without anyone touching them (with the "newer" three-color ones the refreshes are more obvious).
My shopping day aligns with a stocking/price update day at a nearby store. Somebody with a basket of price tags and a handheld has to walk the aisles, adjust the position of the tags on the shelf to match the product facings, and touch the handheld to the price tags. I also see the price tags knocked off the shelves and sitting on the floor fairly often.
I get the reduction in paper waste but a negative for the customers is that with each delivery, the prices of items can change. So the same box of cereal you buy every week now has a lower labor cost to adjust the price by 1~5% every two to four days. (With paper printed tags, you might wait for a price increase/decrease of a certain percent before taking the time to change the price on the shelf which might take months.)
Now, in the USA there's a silly "pricing to the 9's" thing. So in some cases, a small change in the cost of the goods could mean a price jump higher that the few cents per item the store is paying as stuff has its prices "rounded up" to the nearest 9 cents. So an adjusted cost of a box of cereal with its retail markup moves from 5.99$ to 6.09$ instead of 6.01$.
Paper waste (even with plastics & toxic pigments) is nothing compared to unrecyclable e-waste (batteries included).
The current implementation of such tags is also perhaps a bit silly - forcing new tech to replace paper a process 1:1 is usually the initial awkward phase of a digitalisation process (instead of revising the whole system, eg smarter e-paper shelves).
Also - oh, touch the tags to tag them so the (BLE) system knows what product they represent. Yes, that is prob always the case with the initial (re)placing, especially with non-permanent items. The shelves restocking process basically (non-discount stores prob have a bit less of that).
You have to manually set what product the sign is attached to though and these signs get knocked off and broken all the time. They're still probably saving labor over printed labels though
I have only ever seen workers change the display manually. Perhaps there's a mix therein.
It's not that much more expensive to buy networked e labels. Many of the e labels have Bluetooth support, and you connect them to an IP network via a gateway for maybe $200. Of course you need multiple since ble is low range but still. That's easily worth is for the savings labor cost and of course also opens doors for dynamic pricing.