Key Points
Walmart is rolling out digital shelf labels and expects the technology to be in all U.S. stores by year’s end. Kroger also has begun experimenting with the technology.
The nation’s largest retailer says the digital price tags help associates do their jobs better and stresses that prices on items will be exactly the same for every consumer in every store.
Some legislators are wary of the technology’s potential to be used in dynamic pricing models that disadvantage consumers, with Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) introducing a bill to ban it.
Does anyone who has been to a store where something like this has been implemented know if this is at least likely to help with accessibility such as say a button to make it read the price labels, maybe larger font options and or a QR code to scan or various other options like that etc?
I know this would likely vary by manufacturer of these digital price labels. But if they are going to be switching to them I would hope that at least a side benefit would be increased accessibility for customers with disabilities.
I did see a post on reddit talking about how the OP actually found them harder to read but that obviously depends on the person.
I saw something about how there will be an LED light that will light up to help store employees find items faster for tasks such as online ordering. I wonder if this will be something customers can use too?
https://aira.io/walmart-us-wide/#%3A~%3Atext=Walmart+today+officially+announced+they%2Cblack+pants%2C+and+purple+shirt.
I know Walmart recently launched free Aira access using a geofence. It is a visual interpreting service which uses your phones camera so that someone can help you shop if you have a visual disability. But it would be nice if these digital price tags had some extra options too for people who don’t want to download that app or maybe cannot very easily because they have a phone such as a GNU/Linux phone where idk what the status is of Android compatibility layers or maybe even a dumbphone if they are someone who prefers that or are older for example.
It would just be nice if we at least got an accessibility benefit out of these digital tags too.
We have had them for a while and honestly they are harder to read. If they are like what we have which is like a mini kindle, darker grey font on a light grey background. So if you arent looking at the correct abgle they are harder to read. In the beginning in supermarkets if something was on special they would reduce the font to put the extra information on it such as normal price and savibg etc. They thankfully now have different colour borders or paper tags for specials making them easier to see. If they were twice the size I would be happier.