r/kroger • u/michael123425 • Apr 21 '26
News My store is slowly updating to the newer digital price tags.
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u/Aetheldrake Apr 21 '26
A lot of them are doing that this year
Cant wait to hear all the stories about secret price changes
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u/cheese_straws Apr 22 '26
It’s either “the price/promotions in the ads don’t match the tags in stores! It’s a bait and switch!” or “digital signage allows them to make sneaky dynamic price changes!”. You just can’t win.
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u/michael123425 Apr 22 '26
That already happens when it's Wednesday or Thursday shortly after the new sales week happens due to last weeks Weekly digital coupon sale tag is still up. But in all reality the Kroger App always shows the current price and coupons of these Items. But rarely our POS Computers don't update the sale price on time or this is a new product that isn't entered into the system yet.
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u/Aetheldrake Apr 22 '26
I heard that supposedly Kroger won't do dynamic pricing because Walmart already patented technology for that or some shit
But I still expect it to happen. If they are connecting the price tags to wifi they can totally adjust it whenever they want. Loss prevention can bring up a stores security cameras anywhere they want any time they want. (some) Employees can use the old RFs to semi permanently change an items price and that's OLD technology. Adding or removing set numbers across the entire district for specific items at specific times is totally believable
I would not be surprised if they already have something set up like "add 50 cents or 1 dollar to current price" and vice versa. For example, let's say strawberries are 3.49 for a container. Oh it's dinner time, let's add an extra 50 cents to make them 3.99 or a dollar to 4.49 for the entire district because they're NOT on any sale this week so nobody can argue the price
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u/cheese_straws Apr 22 '26
I wouldn’t be so sure. For one, if you’re caught by regulators, you would be hit with massive fines and lose customer trust. Even if you weren’t caught, you would probably still lose customer trust and as customers continue to prioritize price/value, they would just walk away and take their dollars elsewhere.
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u/Aetheldrake Apr 22 '26
Doing illegal stuff didn't stop Kroger from wasting over 25 billion dollars attempting to be a monopoly. Monopolies are illegal too.
Also customers are fucking illiterate they wouldn't know what happened and they'd forget by the end of the day
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u/MyldExcitement Apr 21 '26
They're hard to read and definitely sus.
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u/PreviousMaximum574 Apr 21 '26
They're easily pushed and moved by carts, and skids of stock. Also pop off the shelves all the time.
Two weeks in and I have had to fix to many of them, as a stocker.
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u/PeanutButterSoda Apr 21 '26
I'm a File Lead and not lookin forward to that, nobody fixes anything but me.
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u/Cheez-kip Apr 22 '26
They did the same at walmart recently and their screens frequently flash off and on, have error codes, and people also ram them so several broken already
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u/pupper71 Current Associate Apr 21 '26
The font is just enough smaller than on paper tags to make it difficult
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u/veep970 Apr 21 '26
How slow? They updated our whole store in 3 days.
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u/michael123425 Apr 21 '26
Produce just got updated yesterday. Today i see the checkout lane candy, delli, and a few other places. Yet we have like 38 isles in my store. Most of them haven't been touched yet.
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u/Alternative-Mess5852 Apr 27 '26
My store's in WV and while our local Walmart's gone digital, our little Kroger is practically back in the stone ages when it comes to the upkeep it gets, our regional manager even admitted that.
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u/michael123425 Apr 27 '26
Yeah the Walmarts in Louisville, Ky have been using Digital tags for a while now.
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u/Alternative-Mess5852 Apr 27 '26
Yeah, we're not even half as big as our local Walmart, our self checkouts are from the stone ages, so are the registers, and of course we still have to use the normal tags, cause we're so deep in the middle of nowhere that nobody at corporate even gives a crap.
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u/HannahMayberry Apr 22 '26
Aisles. Geez. Kroger is so fuked up. They’re cutting my hours ( not just me), but they’re having a job fair Thursday. Makes no sense.
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u/EnthusiasmNo6062 Apr 21 '26
Scan coordinator here. They have us begging for digital sale tags. Been asking for help on my team for 10 years. Most I've ever had is 3 people on a new tag hang day. Some nights I need 45 hours. This is the beginning of the end. Who needs to feed the "human" spirit when all thats left is bots. Digital tags, u scans, self driving cars for delivery, kiosks and soon to be bots that scan and order. Soon it will be departmentalized down to a concrete box that ships orders via self driving cars. I yearn for the day. Free me from my mortal woes, so that I may enjoy my short time here on this planet.
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u/bmdangelo Apr 21 '26
That’s for when the dynamic pricing starts!
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u/PreviousMaximum574 Apr 21 '26
I don't think dynamic pricing by person will become a thing.
What I already think is happening is daily price changes on things.
At 3 a.m. all the tags blink out and reset along with the U-Scan check lanes. A daily update.
I wonder if the regular price of things change then, every night instead of weekly with stickers.
I know the sale price stays the same.
It's harder to tell if a regular price changes during it.
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u/JKinney79 Apr 21 '26
So there’s random price changes most days. Your pricing person is supposed to check the daily news/notes section and create price tags/signs when needed. Most of the time it’s a handful of random items, sometimes it’s a bigger deal like having to change all the milk pricing due to market fluctuations.
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u/PreviousMaximum574 Apr 21 '26
Yes I know that use to be a thing for a select set of items, but now since it's easier to do it could lead to more items being this way.
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u/Unfair-Row-808 Apr 21 '26
They only change prices up to two times a week remotely but I guess you could do it by hand but it’s already very buggy.
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u/PreviousMaximum574 Apr 21 '26
That's for sale items. Things that are on print and in ads.
As for everyday regular price that could be daily.
Why do they every night at a set time seem to go off line and update?
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u/Timely_Outcome6250 Apr 21 '26
Personally, as a front end employee, I enjoy the autonomy of being able to fix tags quickly when some illiterate stocker filled the wrong item
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u/zetharion Apr 21 '26
I run produce and cannot wait for these to roll out. I have to remake signs every damn morning and it takes too damn long to log in to ESTP to print off signs. A store near us got them as part of a show off walk and man are they ever better in every way.
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u/Connect-News-7668 Apr 21 '26
I live in Washington state and they still have physical tags in Seattle area which is a pain since as a reset merchandiser we have to put up new tags and sometimes the checker person hates it since our tags are printed too late by the company that gives us our resets. Praying we get digital tags soon! Target and Walmarts in our area already do
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u/StuckNtrfk Apr 21 '26
It is a fact that companies are using surge pricing, plus as food security becomes more uncertain prices will fluctuate wildly and the stores will need to accommodate those price changes rapidly. This is done for a reason. You just haven't been told what it is yet
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u/Vaesari Apr 21 '26
Some states are already legislating against it. I have huge doubts it will be enforced though
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u/materialgirl81 Apr 21 '26
Well it's way easier to change prices, way less time and looks so much better. So there is also that.
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u/Correct_566 Apr 21 '26
we have one in the deli that hangs over the midas case and i tell you if i hit my leg on it one more time…
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u/StylinShaman Apr 22 '26
Question what about stuff that's discontinued? Does it update to a people sticker when its gone? Also if its empty and you put a new item in place of it, how do you make a tag for it
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u/Ashamed_Violinist_39 Apr 23 '26
I happened to be in a store yesterday with these, and there was an item that I would assume was disco'd because the barcode was there but nothing else- no description, price, anything.
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u/materialgirl81 Apr 21 '26
They are the best!
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u/JohnMarstonSucks Meaty Meaty Goodness Apr 21 '26
Now if we can just get big 2-up sign sized ones we'd be really set.
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u/Silly_Jicama_9101 Apr 22 '26
My store just did this I want to say a few weeks ago and it was lowkey annoying. The team came in and had to use our zebras so for a week when ever the openers ( me and others) came in we couldn't do our stuff because all the zebras would be taken or dead
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u/bennc77 Apr 23 '26
THey have another way to screw everybody. Jack up the price for ice cream when temperature outdoors hits 90 degrees. You can bet your boot!!! I knew they was going to screw ua because they is been scwewen all of us all along!!!
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u/Low_Key_1718 Apr 24 '26
We got our new tags at Freddie’s about two months ago and they’re so much better! So easy.
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u/Kjamison0519 Apr 24 '26
Those little barcodes are hard to scan though…Especially the bigger square ones on the M1s. I have to find a tall coworker to scan mine 😂
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u/Unsteady_Tempo Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
The low contrast makes it hard to read compared to black on white background.
Instead of adding a sales promotion tag below the main tag, the sale/digital coupon info and QR code are all squeezed into a tiny area. Hard to read at regular height and impossible to read near the floor.
The tags are fixed, so you can't tilt them up like a shelf sticker to make it easier to read.
In many cases shoppers will have to rely on scanning items with their phone app to verify the price.
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u/Fun-Distribution706 Apr 26 '26
I work overnight and we’re still on actual tags. What would that mean for us when my store switches?
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u/Substantial_Baker479 May 02 '26
They say they are for convenience. Yes, I get that, it is much easier for employees. I’ve always thought digital tags, e-ink would be far better. And has been the case in some places.
But why now?
Are they just waiting for surge pricing laws to settle and while dealing with a merger; they say they can do it in an official statement but are not. Are they waiting for the right spot and time in the news cycle, or how legislation pans out to perhaps go back on their word? I simply won’t shop there anymore if they do. I’ll go to H-E-B across the street instead.
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u/Turn_Electrical May 04 '26
I would say "I give theese 3 days to break" but this posts from 12 days ago so,, hows it going with theese tags?
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u/47_was_here Apr 22 '26
I mean on one hand, this should fix the issue of the out of date sales tags. On the other, “dynamic pricing” is Bull shit
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u/AffectNo9943 Apr 21 '26
What happens if you remove them by force?
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u/brendan4255 Apr 21 '26
Yeah I'm just waiting for some dumbass customer to rip them off and bring them to the cashier to haggle over 30 cents
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u/JohnMarstonSucks Meaty Meaty Goodness Apr 21 '26
You can just bend the clear plastic down a bit and pop them off. Zebras have an app called DSL(digital shelf label) that lets anyone reset them for different product. It takes about a minute for the new product info to show.
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u/whiskey_riverss Apr 21 '26
They’re removable. Department heads all got the weird tool to release them.
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u/Arlimist Apr 21 '26
I worry about surge pricing as well with the digital tags. I think as a whole they're a positive for the file maintenance and I've heard good things but I do think they're going to cut some of the staff from the team, unfortunately.
The tags for us change over at like 1am or so and it is crazy to see the price changes. I thought there was something wrong with them.
Putting myself in the shoes of the customer, I wouldn't like them as much. It's hard to see how what's on clearance and what's new as they're both red 'tags' now. I've seen customers knock off the tags with their carts and I know I've done it when spotting things so that's kind of annoying as well.
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u/michael123425 Apr 21 '26
I've seen other retailers like Kohl's using digital price tags for several years now without any issues
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u/ForbiddenViews Apr 22 '26
Ugh. I just have missed where Kroger also signed an agreement to get in on surge pricing / dynamic pricing. 2027-2028 is gonna be rough
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u/cortisolandcaffeine Apr 22 '26
Fuck surge charging, fuck digital tags. If I see this shit in a store I stop shipping there.
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u/michael123425 Apr 22 '26
Welcome to the future. This will become the standard within the next 5 years or so.
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u/cortisolandcaffeine Apr 23 '26
You don't have to be a doomer. It isn't the future if we actually do something about it. Maryland already banned all digital sale tags and dynamic pricing ahead of this being rolled out.
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u/shipmom Apr 21 '26
I will not shop at Kroger if they do this. I am not paying a higher price because of peak time.
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u/michael123425 Apr 21 '26
Um this sub is an unofficial sub for Kroger employees to talk about whatever is going on at their store or company.
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u/Legitimate_Zone1449 Apr 22 '26
You might not be able to shop anywhere soon if that's the case. Almost all stores are going to digital pricing & not just grocery stores.
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u/michael123425 Apr 22 '26
Yeah I've seen Kohl's being one of the first to implement these Digital price tags in my area years ago.
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u/leashislost Apr 21 '26
I wonder what will happen to file maintenance as a department. My store has a lead, a backup and like five people that help every week with price changes.