"You probably don't need to be told that grocery prices have skyrocketed since the pandemic - up 25% in five years. But the bad news only continues: Retailers are seeing how far they can push the envelope on dynamic pricing. Instacart has been experimenting with selling the same product from the same store at different prices, which a nonprofit determined by enlisting volunteers to add the same items to their cart. Eggs, for example, varied by 20%, from $3.99 to $4.79."
"But why? An Instacart spokesperson said it changes prices to "[help] retail partners understand consumer preferences and identify categories where they should invest in lower prices," a spokesperson tells The New York Times . But one retailer, Target, said that only Instacart determined prices on its platform. Others declined to comment. Different prices for different people isn't a new strategy, points out Yale economist Kevin Williams. Discounts for students or senior citizens and all sorts of loyalty programs have existed for generations."
Grocery prices rose roughly 25% over five years, and retailers are expanding dynamic pricing experiments. Instacart tested selling identical items from the same store at different prices, with eggs varying about 20% between $3.99 and $4.79. Instacart attributes price changes to helping retail partners understand consumer preferences and identify categories for lower prices, while some retailers say Instacart controls platform pricing. Traditional discounts and loyalty programs offer transparent differential pricing, unlike opaque personalized price variations. Major AI companies are collaborating on open technical standards for agentic AI tools while developers address security and app-compromise risks. Dating apps plan to use photo-roll data for model training and may infer political or religious attributes.
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