An advocacy group says Walmart’s patents and shopping technology raise concerns about personalized pricing.
Walmart’s CEO says the company does not charge different prices based on a shopper’s identity, history, or urgency, and promises it will not do so.
A patent describes ways prices could vary, but it does not establish that Walmart uses those methods.
As ConsumerAffairs reported this week, Walmart’s CEO has issued a letter to customers, pledging not to use surveillance pricing as it transitions to digital shelf tags. But a consumer group claims that’s an exercise in damage control.
In a September 25 statement, Groundwork Collaborative said Walmart’s electronic shelf labels, AI shopping assistant, and patents warrant closer scrutiny. The group’s president and CEO, Lindsay Owens, argues that the retailer has developed tools that could be used to vary prices according to customers’ behavior.
Technology patents questioned
According to the consumer group, the dispute centers partly on a Walmart patent granted in 2023. It describes a system for updating electronic shelf labels and gives an example in which a shopper with tuna in a cart could be offered a different price for mayonnaise.
It also discusses changing a price when supply is low and demand is high. Those examples show what the patent contemplates; they do not show that Walmart has put those pricing methods into use.
Groundwork also points to the performance of Sparky, Walmart’s AI shopping assistant. At a September investor conference, Walmart U.S. President and CEO Dave Guggina said customers who engage with Sparky have an average order value 40% higher. He described the assistant as suggesting items that could help complete a meal or another shopping task. To be clear, the figure does not, by itself, indicate that Sparky changes the prices shoppers pay.
Other companies
In her recently published book Gouged, Owens makes clear that Groundwork is scrutinizing retailers other than Walmart. She argues that technology has made it easier for companies to test what individual customers will pay and to adjust prices with little visibility for shoppers.
The book’s published description points to added fees for event tickets, changing ride-share fares, and software that landlords use to set rents. Owens also raises concerns about driving data being shared with insurers and potentially affecting premiums.
One example comes from Owens’ research with Consumer Reports on Instacart. In tests conducted at the same stores at nearly the same time, shoppers were shown prices for identical grocery items that differed by as much as 23%. Instacart said the differences came from limited pricing tests run for retail partners, disputed describing them as surveillance pricing, and said it ended the tests in December 2025.
Owens also discusses RealPage, whose software recommends apartment rents to landlords. She argues that sharing pricing data through such systems can help keep rents high even when apartments are vacant.
The Justice Department brought an antitrust case against RealPage and reached a proposed settlement in 2025 that would restrict its use of competitors’ sensitive information and certain pricing features.
The settlement resolves the government’s claims, but it should not be read as a court finding that every rent recommendation was unlawful.
Together, the examples illustrate Owens’ broader claim: as technology evolves, consumers may have difficulty judging whether a price reflects ordinary costs and competition when the decisions behind it are hidden in data and software.