Dynamic Pricing, a New and Improved Euphemism for Price Gouging

But wait, there's more!

Retail juggernauts Wal-Mart and Kroger recently introduced ‘dynamic pricing’ at many of their stores. Dynamic pricing allows retailers to contemporaneously change prices in response to changing market conditions. This feat of economic duplicity is made possible by the use of digital price tags instead of printed ones. “With just a few keystrokes, we can raise the price of essentials like toilet paper and Cheerios in order to gouge our customers without them knowing it,” stated a spokesperson for Wal-Mart.

By the time one Kroger customer arrived at the checkout kiosk, the price of his Oreos had risen from $3.99 to $4.29. “Your price sticker says they are $3.99,” complained the man. When he went back to check the price, Oreos were priced at $4.59. He immediately went back to the checkout kiosk happy that he was getting the Oreos at a $0.30 discount.

Elon Musk took dynamic pricing one step further by introducing ‘dynamic cart pricing’. His system employs GPS to automatically raise the prices of items in the cart the closer the shopper gets to the checkout kiosk. “Why employ people to use a keyboard to raise prices when technology can do it without human intervention?”, mused Musk.