Walmart CEO John Furner said the company will not use customers’ income, shopping history or urgency to decide what they pay, drawing a clear line as the retailer rolls out more digital shelf labels in its U.S. stores.
In a letter posted Sept. 25, Furner said Walmart “price[s] the product, not the person” and said the company’s long-running Every Day Low Prices model would rule out personalized pricing tied to personal data. The statement addresses concerns that new retail technology could be used to make prices change by shopper instead of by product.
CEO draws a line on pricing and personal data
Furner’s letter, published on Walmart’s corporate site on Sept. 25, says the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company will not set different prices based on “who you are or the time of day.” He wrote that a customer’s income, shopping history, urgency or what Walmart thinks that person could pay “won’t change the price.”
He also said price changes still happen for ordinary retail reasons. Walmart lowers prices when it can pass savings along, Furner wrote, and sometimes raises them because an item costs more to buy or transport. In the same letter, he said digital shelf labels are meant to help stores display the right shelf price more consistently and free workers from swapping paper tags by hand.
Walmart made the pledge as digital shelf labels spread across its U.S. footprint. In a March company post, Walmart said roughly 2,300 Walmart U.S. locations were already using the labels and that it expected the technology to be chain-wide within the next year. The company has also said the labels display prices that have already been approved through Walmart’s centralized pricing process.
For customers, the most direct takeaway is the company’s promise that the same shelf price applies to all shoppers in a given store, regardless of income, purchase history, demand or time of day, according to Walmart’s public statements.
Furner also extended that promise to Sparky, Walmart’s AI shopping assistant. He wrote that Walmart will not use information shared through Sparky or other tools to raise a customer’s price or hide lower-priced options that meet that customer’s needs. The company said customers can choose whether to share additional details for more personalized help, and said shared data will be used to better serve them.
What Walmart has not said is where, store by store, digital shelf labels are installed, or how many locations in any single state or metro area have them now. The company has publicly confirmed the national figure of roughly 2,300 Walmart U.S. locations as of March, but not a local-by-local breakdown in the materials reviewed for this report.
Walmart’s statement landed as public scrutiny around digital pricing tools grows. The Associated Press reported Sept. 27 that some shoppers, consumer advocates and lawmakers have raised concerns about digital shelf labels because they allow stores to change prices instantly from a central computer instead of replacing paper tags by hand.
That pressure has also reached federal regulators. The Federal Trade Commission said last month that personalized pricing can raise consumer protection concerns and warned businesses that they must disclose how personal information is being used to set a price, according to the AP report.
Walmart, for its part, says its system works differently. Company materials say associates review approved price changes through a secure system, typically outside shopping hours, and that the labels are intended to keep shelf prices accurate and aligned with what rings up at checkout. Furner said Walmart’s people will continue to oversee pricing and test the technology against those commitments.