Walmart’s Digital Price Tags Face Pushback From Lawmakers

However, the retail giant’s effort is happening as lawmakers have begun to criticize digital shelf labels (DSLs), CNBC reported Saturday (March 21). 

Their argument, the report said, is that DSLs are a gateway to surge pricing, or dynamic pricing, which refers to the practice of raising prices at times of high demand. 

Among the legislators leading the charge is Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., who is pushing to ban dynamic pricing, with a focus on DSLs.

“With food costs rising each month, it’s more important than ever that any new technologies implemented in grocery stores are helping to lower costs, not raise them,” the senator said in a statement to CNBC. 

“That is why I’ve introduced the Stop Price Gouging in Grocery Stores Act, legislation that is intended as a preventative measure to put common-sense guardrails in place at large retail stores and protect consumers.” 

The guardrails include a ban on DSLs in any grocery store larger than 10,000 square feet, which CNBC notes would cover essentially every Walmart location.

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle, D-Ore., is sponsoring legislation in the House that would outlaw DSLs, the report added.

“There needs to be laws and enforcement to protect consumers — and until then, I’d like to see them banned outright,” Hoyle said. 

Although there is no evidence of digital shelf labeling being connected to surge pricing yet, Hoyle said that in her opinion, it’s a question of when, not if.

Walmart has stressed that the company does not engage in surge pricing.

Sean Turner, chief technology officer of retail technology and media platform Swiftly, told CNBC that while questions about dynamic pricing are natural, the true issue is store-level efficiency.  

“Digital shelf labels solve some very real operational headaches,” he said. “They cut down on manual price changes, reduce checkout discrepancies, and make it easier to keep in-store and digital promotions aligned.”

Walmart began introducing its digital shelf labels in 2024. The DSLs replace paper price tags on shelves and let employees update prices at the shelf via mobile app.

As PYMNTS wrote earlier this month, DSLs are part of “an emerging new model for retail that’s being built around operational resilience, infrastructure maturity, AI-enabled employees and digitally connected stores.”

DSLs, that report added, “fundamentally change” the way stores operate, allowing for real-time price updates across thousands of products simultaneously. They also let retailers  synchronize pricing between online and in-store environments, instantly run targeted promotions instantly, and reduce the labor needed for manual price changes.