Setting The Record Straight On Digital Shelf Labels
New Yorkers deserve honest discussion and leadership when it comes to policies that keep their lives affordable and ensure that they’re paying the right price at the register.
That’s why it is critical to set the record straight about digital shelf labels (DSLs) – a retail technology that is improving the customer experience and making workers’ jobs better, but that some state lawmakers want to ban in New York.
DSLs, which are also known as electronic shelf labels, are a price display tool used in grocery stores and pharmacies to accurately display product prices. But supporters of a bill in Albany that would ban DSLs have conflated the technology with the issue of “surveillance pricing” – the practice of using consumers’ personal data to charge different shoppers different prices for the same product.
Put in the simplest terms: DSLs have nothing to do with surveillance pricing. They are not a form of surveillance pricing. They do not collect personal data, they do not track or watch customers, nor do they enable individualized pricing. DSLs simply display the same price to every shopper while curbing pricing mistakes that can lead to confusion at the checkout line and reducing the need for employees to manually change thousands of paper price tags. That’s it.
There is no connection between the use of DSLs and higher prices. Researchers analyzed more than 180 million product-level observations across 114 stores and found virtually no change in pricing behavior following DSL installation. The federal government has deployed DSLs across more than 240 Defense Commissary Agency locations to ensure accurate pricing for U.S. servicemembers. And the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)recognizes DSLs as an effective way to display prices in stores.
These aren’t the hallmarks of a predatory technology. They’re proof that DSLs are a trusted technology – one that’s been used for decades at gas stations and fast-food drive-thrus – that works for consumers.
Research also shows that New Yorkers are struggling with real pricing problems. The state’s comptroller, following a price accuracy audit across 10 counties, found that some shoppers were being charged up to 31% more at the register than the price marked on the shelf. DSLs can help eliminate these types of pricing errors – meaning that shoppers can be assured they are paying the right price at checkout.
Pricing and affordability challenges are top of mind for New Yorkers. That is precisely why trustworthy, data-driven leadership in Albany is essential to resolve them.
Lawmakers in Albany should follow the facts and protect a technology that reduces pricing errors for New York families and improves jobs for retail workers rather that advancing sensationalized and misleading claims about DSLs. The research and the state comptroller’s own audit are clear: DSLs help to protect consumers. State lawmakers should oppose efforts to eliminate them from grocery stores and pharmacies in New York.
Joe Kefauver is a senior adviser to Americans For A Modern Economy, an organization committed to ensuring that local, state and federal policies reflect changing technologies that are reshaping the way consumers, businesses and communities operate in the 21st century economy.
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