WALMART shoppers have slammed a major change to the retailer’s price labels – calling the new system “inconvenient” and “impossible”.
The backlash comes as the retail giant is rolling out electronic shelf labels to 2,300 stores by 2026.
Walmart says the move will boost efficiency and give employees more time to assist customers.
But responses to the new technology have been varied.
Posting on a Walmart group on the social media platform Reddit, a user wrote: “I already dislike these new digital labels – I can’t see the last 4 digits on the higher shelves!”
They added: “That stupid guard blocks the bottom row of text!
“Even if it didn’t, the text is so damn small how am I supposed to read it?! It’s so inconvenient.
“The pic is taken from my eye level, I’m an average height (5’6”), so it’s not like I’m just short.”
A frustrated shopper shared a photo of the digital price labels, circling them with a white pen in the image and writing the word “impossible”.
Another user agreed, posting in the comments: “I hate these things. Can’t read the high ones because of the angle.
“Can’t read the bottom ones because customers can’t drive a shopping cart in a straight line and destroy them walking down aisles.”
But another user insisted the new change has one major positive feature.
They wrote: “Only thing that’s good about the digital labels is being able to finding items.
“Being able to flash location through the app makes it easier to find exact location on shelf.
“Makes it super easy stocking especially if it’s not your normal area.”
As The Sun previously reported, Walmart and Kroger‘s new electronic label systems allows them to change prices in real-time – a practice known as dynamic pricing.
This flexible pricing model lets stores instantly adjust costs to match competitors and respond to market demand.
Many shoppers worry this could lead to “surge pricing”, where items become more expensive during times of high demand.
They fear that prices for essential goods could fluctuate, leaving them with no choice but to pay more.
These concerns are fueled by examples from other countries, such as Norway‘s REMA 1000 grocery chain, which reportedly uses similar technology to change a single product’s price up to 100 times a day.
The chain’s head of pricing, Partap Sandhu, said: “We lower the prices maybe 10 cents and then our competitors do the same, and it kind of gets to [be] a race to the bottom.”
It comes as Walmart is undergoing a widespread internal shakeup, as recently revealed by a leaked memo.
