US economic anxieties on display in battle over digital store labels

{"text":[[{"start":8.25,"text":"The spread of electronic price displays on grocery store shelves is encountering resistance in the US, fuelled by public anger over rising food prices and the fear of lost retail jobs. "}],[{"start":19.7,"text":"Electronic shelf labels are displays that show products, quantities and prices inside stores. Retailers say they are an innocuous tool to save countless hours spent replacing paper labels when prices change. "}],[{"start":32.45,"text":"Their opponents charge they are insidious, threatening to bring the kind of dynamic pricing common at airlines or ride-hailing services to grocery stores, or even spy on customers. "}],[{"start":43.2,"text":"New Jersey, with 9.5mn people, became the first state to put a halt to the labels this week when Governor Mikie Sherrill signed a bill that bans “surveillance pricing”, or the use of personal data to charge different prices to different people based on their perceived willingness to pay. "}],[{"start":60.650000000000006,"text":"The legislation also pauses new installations of electronic shelf labels for a year. "}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":65.95,"text":"“Surveillance pricing weaponises your data against you,” Sherrill, a Democrat, said at a ceremony at a neighbourhood grocery in Newark, New Jersey’s largest city. "}],[{"start":76.05,"text":"A powerful backer of the bill was the United Food & Commercial Workers union, which represents 100,000 workers and retirees in the state and endorsed Sherrill’s campaign for governor last year. Union officials’ prominent presence at the bill signing underlined another impetus for the legislation: that electronic shelf labels threaten to shrink supermarket payrolls. "}],[{"start":97.8,"text":"Ademola Oyefeso, a vice-president at the union, invoked his elderly mother. "}],[{"start":102.89999999999999,"text":"“The moratorium on electronic shelf labels does two things. It protects her from having to decide what hour she needs to go shopping because they might change it in the hour,” he said. “And it also protects good union jobs.” "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":117.85,"text":"New Jersey’s Fair Price Protection Act comes as inflation erodes consumers’ spending power and affordability rises up the political agenda. "}],[{"start":127,"text":"Grocers are also in a bind, with their sales unit volumes down by 2 per cent year-on-year as consumers retrench in the face of higher food and petrol prices and federal cuts to nutrition subsidies for the poor, consultancy Bain said. "}],[{"start":141.1,"text":"Albertsons, one of the largest US supermarket chains, this week cited pressure on low-income consumers, soft grocery sales volumes and the “potential for additional affordability pressure from supplier cost increases” as it slashed its sales and profit outlook, a move that drove its shares down more than 20 per cent. "}],[{"start":160.04999999999998,"text":"Supermarket workers’ unions are trying to protect jobs as retail behemoths such as Walmart, Costco and Amazon encroach on their employers’ turf. "}],[{"start":169.39999999999998,"text":"Burt Flickinger III of Strategic Resource Group, a retail consultant who has worked on assignments for both grocery chains and labour unions, said that it costs up to $400,000 for a typical grocery store to install electronic shelf labels, but the investment can pay off within two years as less labour is needed. "}],[{"start":188.99999999999997,"text":"Employees would be reassigned at unionised stores, but headcount would eventually decline through attrition, with negative implications for the finances of union-backed pension schemes, Flickinger said. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":201.59999999999997,"text":"He called dynamic pricing a “red herring and a non-factor” because “none of the grocers would ever get away with it” and want to protect their reputations. "}],[{"start":211.04999999999995,"text":"The shelf labels’ biggest vendor is retail tech company Vusion of France, which says 650mn of its electronic labels are already deployed in 62 countries at retailers including Carrefour in France and Co-operative Group in the UK. "}],[{"start":227.54999999999995,"text":"The labels lack cameras, sensors or computing power needed to adjust prices based on the identity of a shopper walking a store aisle, Jessica Vittorio, a Vusion senior vice-president, testified before a New Jersey legislative committee hearing in May. "}],[{"start":241.74999999999994,"text":"“There are functional and technical design realities that make the narrative about how this technology is being used, and the nefarious things that it’s going to do to consumers, wholly outside the realm of reality,” she said."}],[{"start":253.89999999999995,"text":"Walmart, the largest US retailer, plans to have electronic labels installed in every store by the end of the year, and all 62 of its stores in New Jersey already use them. The labels also have lights to show workers where to restock low inventories or find items to pick for online shoppers, managers said at a demonstration of the technology last month. "}],[{"start":275.49999999999994,"text":"Walmart executives have said they only change prices when stores are closed and have neither the desire nor the means to charge different customers different prices. "}],[{"start":285.6499999999999,"text":"“We want to be consistent. We want to build trust with our customers. We’re proud of our prices,” said Kieran Shanahan, who recently stepped down as chief operating officer of Walmart US."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":296.5999999999999,"text":"The UFCW said it endorsed legislation to restrict electronic labels in a dozen states this year, but only New Jersey’s has passed to date. "}],[{"start":306.7999999999999,"text":"Sherrill said that the moratorium would be used to study the potential effects of the technology. "}],[{"start":312.1499999999999,"text":"“These electronic shelf labels allow grocery store owners or others to change prices with a couple of keystrokes. And the concern here is to make sure we have rules in place so they do not utilise surveillance pricing,” she said. "}],[{"start":324.44999999999993,"text":"John Holub, president of the New Jersey Retail Merchants Association, derided the moratorium. "}],[{"start":330.8999999999999,"text":"“We’re going to waste everybody’s time and do a study, which I can say right now should tell you that an ESL is an electronic sign and nothing more than an electronic sign,” he said."}],[{"start":348.9999999999999,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1785127020_4612.mp3"}