AI - Why food discount stickers may be a thing of the past

That daily ritual of pocketing a yellow sticker saving could soon be coming to an end. That’s because supermarkets are adopting dynamic pricing, controlled by artificial intelligence (AI) software.

It involves digital price tags that are displayed either on the shelf below the food items, or on high-tech stickers attached the product itself. These prices are automatically, and wirelessly, updated by the AI when a particular item approaches its sell by date.

The AI also examines how much stock the store is holding of that item and demand for it at the same time in previous years.

So there is no need for members of staff to walk around the fresh food aisles with a sticker gun towards the end of the day.

So, massive savings in manpower and less waste … but there are downsides, too.

1 Like

That’s clever, so the price gradually goes down as the product gets older?

But surely, they’ll still get stuck with things the day before their sell by date and will people notice they’ve been dramatically reduced without the yellow stickers?

Thank goodness, :+1:

I’m not sure they do that here. I’ve seen people on game shows in the UK say that’s their job, to mark down the price through the day.

There might be sales but not on an hourly basis that I recall.