Grocery stores' instant price-changing technology raises surveillance concerns for Montreal shoppers

Electronic shelf labels are replacing paper price tags at many Montreal grocery stores, allowing retailers to adjust prices across a store within seconds using wireless technology.

The shift brings efficiency gains — stores can instantly discount food nearing expiry to cut waste, and labour time spent changing stickers disappears. But it also opens the door to practices that concern researchers and consumer advocates.

Dynamic pricing, where prices fluctuate based on supply and demand, already powers airlines, ride-sharing companies and ticket retailers. Grocery stores could use the same model, raising prices on ice cream on hot summer days or adjusting based on real-time inventory levels.

More troubling to experts is "surveillance pricing" — using personal data to determine how much individual customers pay. "Surveillance pricing is very much about customizing a pricing strategy based on personal algorithms, individual digital profiles. So depending on where you live, how much you make, how many cars you own, who you know, that's really what surveillance pricing is," said Sylvain Charlebois, director of Dalhousie University's Agri-Food Analytics Lab.

The technology could erode price anchors that let shoppers comparison shop across stores. "Where will the transparency come from? How many times per day could a digital shelf label be advertised?" asked Vass Bednar, managing director of the Canadian Shield Institute.

Loblaw, Sobeys and Metro all said they have no plans to use surveillance pricing. But Charlebois cautioned that grocery margins are thin — "any way to increase margins would be welcome. But sometimes ethical lines are crossed, and we saw that with bread a few years ago," he said, referencing a price-fixing scandal involving major Canadian grocers.

The technology itself is ethically neutral. How stores deploy it remains an open question.