You're thinking of pricing zones—shoppers in Zone A pay a different price than those in Zone B. This makes sense, for example, if shipping costs are higher in Zone B.

The bill in question is about per-shopper pricing (e.g, you and I pay different prices in the same store). This is something Lyft and Uber do, but it's not really possible in retail.

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amazingamazing 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The article says loyalty programs and https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/H... makes no mention of this store restriction. Just retailer.

It’s unclear to me why transportation demand pricing is allowed but not delivery.

I expect the outcome of this to be prices raised for everyone and then loyalty discounts per group.

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cogman10 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> It’s unclear to me why transportation demand pricing is allowed but not delivery.

I don't think it should be allowed. It's predatory. It allows a company like Uber and Lyft to see things like "Oh, you are going to a hospital, then I'm going to apply a 10% surcharge because you are probably desperate".

It also works against the drivers. Uber/Lyft see things like "This person is logged on for 8 hours, they are desperate, so let's give them lower rates and worse routes."

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alex43578 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Why shouldn’t a company be allowed to price the product differently? For an airline, booking a flight 6 months out, 6 days out, or 6 hours out are different situations.

For Uber/Lyft, booking a ride into the middle of nowhere carries a cost for the driver that isn’t present when booking a ride to the airport.

A flat fee per mile doesn’t make sense. A flat fee per seat doesn’t make sense. Grocery stores already price segment via coupons, sales, and loyalty programs - this is just an extension of that.

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9dev 3 hours ago | parent [-]

That's one thing, but charging two people for the same route differently is what the parent comment was getting at, and I agree with them.

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afc 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You're literally saying "an airline, booking a flight 6 months out, 6 days out, or 6 hours out" is not "charging two people for the same route differently", completely missing the point of alex43578's excellent question.

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9dev an hour ago | parent [-]

I'm not. alex43578 was shifting the goalposts from the point cogman10 was making; I acknowledged what he said, but it was besides the point. An airline charging differently depending on the time ahead of flight is sensible. An airline charging differently depending on the buyer's home address is discrimination.

	▲	alex43578 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		You said "charging two people for the same route differently" is bad: airlines do that constantly and that's why there's dozens of fare changes, fare buckets, sales, codeshares, etc. Regardless, the bigger point is that businesses already have a ton of levers to move for pricing: sales, loyalty programs, and regular price adjustments. None of those are considered discrimination. Why does the buyer's home address fall into this protected class; particularly for any service that involves transport, delivery, etc to that address? There's a clear relevancy of the address to the cost of a service based around that location.

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cogman10 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> This is something Lyft and Uber do, but it's not really possible in retail.

It is possible for retail. For example, you can simply not display the price. You can display a price range. You can use EInk displays which auto-update based on who's approaching the item.

And of course it's infinitely possible in an online store.

One example of how this is being employed is McDonalds trying to push everyone to use the app. They'll give lower prices in app while raising prices on the menu giving a "not using app" tax. That enables them to have flexible per user prices within the app. A store could do the same thing.

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Manuel_D 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

How would that work? The barcode on the item doesn't get rewritten, the checkout counter can't distinguish who picked up which exact item. Even if they did assign unique barcodes to each item, what happens if you take the item off the shelf, and put it in someone else's cart? They'd be charged the wrong price for the item.

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rootlocus 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The store could make it mandatory to swipe your fidelity care before calculating your prices. They already do something similar with specialized promotions.

	▲	Manuel_D an hour ago \| parent [-]
		If we're including promotions or membership discounts, then coupons fit this definition of price discrimination. And those have existed since the 90s at least.

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clintonb an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Your plan fails in a few ways.

Refreshing the content on an electronic shelf label (ESL) takes about 30 seconds, and multiple people can view a product simultaneously. Unless the store is giving everyone AR glasses, people will notice the price discrepancy.

This assumes you have sufficient data to actually recognize a shopper such as facial ID or some form of iBeacon for every single product for which you wish to implement price discrimination. Basic ESLs cost $3 to $12, depending on size and use very little energy. Adding a camera means more energy, so a bigger battery and more cost.

Using in-app discounts is the most likely way to implement this, which I am okay with. Shoppers are willingly trading their data privacy for a discount.

	▲	Gigachad 23 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I think viewing it at as a discount is framing it wrong. It’s more a fee for not using the app, and if you use the app you’ll get charged the highest price McDonald’s has decided you will pay. Should this be legal is a question you could argue both ways, but in my opinion society will be worse off with per customer pricing.
	▲	mschuster91 41 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Using in-app discounts is the most likely way to implement this, which I am okay with. Shoppers are willingly trading their data privacy for a discount. I'm not OK with this. Simple reason, it leaves the wide masses with no other option than to sell their data to survive.

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grogenaut 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

part of the reason I don't go there anymore. I noticed recently taco bell in my area no longer asks about their app, just takes my order.

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NiloCK 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is possible in retail, or will soon be.

Canada's major grocery chain has migrated entirely to LCD price tagging that can receive OTA updates. There are now no paper price labels in the store.

The same chains have extensive camera coverage on the entrance / exits of the store.

So pricing can be an optimization function as fine grained as persons currently in the store.

Cameras on the aisles as well can enforce that individual tags update while nobody is within 15 feet, etc.

It's hard to even talk or think about without without sounding (and becoming!) conspiratorial. Add a little data from our trusted partners and they can jack specific prices according to urgency - eg, floral bouquets when you're en route to a dance recital.

	▲	clintonb an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The electronic shel labels use e-ink. Their refresh time is around 30 seconds. What happens if two shoppers are looking at the same product?
	▲	Paradigma11 an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Since you get a location and time stamped receipt these shenanigans would be completely trivial to detect.
	▲	Gigachad 21 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It’s hard to talk about without sounding conspiratorial because it literally is an unfounded conspiracy. The impracticalities of this scheme are immediately obvious and no evidence of it ever actually being implemented in physical retail exists.