The shoppers are already in the store, presumably to buy from their list. Now the store gets a cut of an ad and the profit from the sale it makes. The digital delivery is going to be amazing for A/B testing of ads because they are going to have near immediate feedback. It's pretty clever in a dystopian hellscape kind of way.
Counterpoint: all else being equal, I'd rather not have these because I think they'd be annoying, so if one of my local grocery stores were to install them I would then give more of my business to the other (largely interchangeable) ones going forward.
You're right that I wouldn't rage quit and leave without doing my shopping the first time I saw these, but I also might not be back. Sure, I'd learn to live with it if every grocery store were to get on board, but in that scenario not having them would become a major competitive advantage.
Some people really care about pricing, others don't.
There are 'bargin' stores in my area, and higher end stores. The higher end stores have lots more bio stuff to buy, and other fancy goods, but also stock major brands of everything else.
Even though the product is the same, the pricing is 15% average more expensive for those common products. I suspect they get away with it, because you're already there, and I never see a full shopping cart there.
The also have baggers. The bargin store does not.
My point? The bargin store might shave even more off, with enough ads. And those people buying full carts?
Might be even happier with the savings.
I think as with many things, those struggling with money can't care one iota (not don't, but can't), and just do what saves the most, no matter the cost to society, or themselves.
Makes sense. As I said, all else being equal I'd rather not have these. Presented with a situation like Kindle devices, in which the ad-supported item is cheaper, the choice is a little harder.
Thinking more about the product, there's probably also a long-term vision wherein it becomes more useful than it is today. e.g. maybe it automatically handles tracking quantities and greys out the item photo when it's out (and alerts them to restock), shows prices in a more user-friendly way than regular shelves, makes promotions more prominent (but hopefully not too obnoxious), slightly reduces labor costs (by automatically updating prices), and allows various user interactivity such as clicking an item to see metadata like nutrition and ingredients. It's easy to make fun of something at an early stage when we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg, but 10 years from now this may become a repeat of the infamous Dropbox thread.
You can buy eink shelf labels that have radios in them for the self updating pricing and promotional pricing features. Not sure if they make ones that can handle being in fridge/freezer though (condensation is huge problem in those environments).
I've heard of these, but never seen them in use (Quebec). Probably due to risks, as local law says (when using barcodes, without prices on each prooduct):
Rules of the Accurate Pricing Policy
If the pricing error involves a product that costs $10 or less, the product is given to the customer free of charge.
If the pricing error involves a product that costs more than $10, the merchant must sell the item at the advertised price and give the consumer a $10 discount.
If the same pricing error occurs for identical products during the same transaction, the merchant must sell each product at the advertised price, but the $10 discount only applies to one product.
Mistaken updates, or hacking, could be quite costly. Maybe this risk is just perception, but...
We've grown up and shopped in a time without these. But the long game is different. If these become ubiquitous or even just common, I'd bet few people care after a couple generations. For example, imagine how ugly telephone poles were to people when first built. But I, having grown up with them everywhere, don't even notice them. They're background noise.
Of course, I'm not thinking this ad-glass company is really playing a long game. They've just happened to move a piece earlier than most.
"The shoppers are already in the store, presumably to buy from their list. "
This isn't really how it works.
If it worked that way then lighting, music, display organization, cleanliness, shelf space, brand, packaging etc. 'would not matter'.
All of those things matter, immensely, at any real scale.
The kinds of comments I'm seeing here are a little bit uncomfortable in this regard, indicate a kind of lack of self-awareness as to consumer (i.e. our own) behaviours.
This is just one of any number of studies [1]
THE EFFECT OF SHELF DISPLAY ON PURCHASING DECISION
"The final results show that, even though the students know that they should act like rational buyers who choose products according to their intrinsic value, when describing how they act in real situations, they admit to behaving differently, in the sense that they are influenced in one way or another by marketing policies ..."
This is not revelatory or controversial, we've known this for a long time.
These 'fancy displays' have a very obvious advantage purely in terms of their clarity and impact, and of course the reduce pain of having to constantly tweak tags and pricing.
Distracting advertising and any kind of privacy invasion would be a drawback obviously. As would possibly the cost.
But this looks like a really obvious opportunity to test for retail.
My worry would be not so much any of the stated issues here, but that there would be a new kind of war for retail space and that brands would bid on the size of their placements on the screen, as opposed to their slot on the shelf. Just ugly and unnecessary operational overhead.
I suspect the downvotes are because your comment could be shortened to “My worry here is that this will inconvenience the marketing drones, distracting them from maximizing our suffering as they burn the planet down”.
I don't think my comment could be shortened to that because the primary thrust points to the nature of how people react to in-store presentation and how that affects us.
Almost all of the commentary on this board is missing 'the most obvious points' from a consumer retail perspective.
Issues such as privacy, invasive advertising are obviously relevant, but if we are 'thinking retail' this is going to be about shopping experience and operational overhead.
In terms of impact, experience, clarity and reducing labour input costs - it really has so many upsides.
Far from being a 'bad joke' ... just the opposite it's a pretty neat concept. This is not fodder, it's very possibly the future.
I must be one of the few people who actually do know what they want when they go into the store. I want juice, eggs, butter, milk and cheese. Or I need cat food. That’s what I get. I often have wander about the store, but it is extremely rare that I get something other than what I have chosen to get.
