Home Depot IT chief says its digital price tags won't give consumers different prices

Buying a screwdriver at Home Depot?

Well, you and your next-door neighbor have to be paying the identical cost for the identical merchandise on the identical day.

Angie Brown, the residence betterment retailer's administrator vice chairman and chief data officer, told Business Insider that it's exploring a larger rollout of its digital rack labels, or ESLs — the small digital placards that ample retailers have been using to substitute document cost tags.

When asked if those wireless-updatable tags could current dynamic pricing, Brown responded, "Absolutely not."

Instead, The Home Depot uses those tags to accurately communicate customers whenever their shop expects the next shipment of a particular product, Brown said.

"We affection being capable to display you on the sign, 'You can get this as shortly as the next day,'" she said. "And we desire that to be right."

Why those small rack digital labels have caused so much worry

Several important brands — including Walmart, Kroger, Best Buy, and Whole Foods — have rolled out digital rack labels in their stores.

Consumers have scrutinized the rollout amid fears that stores could quickly lift prices during occupied buying periods or use client data to display distinct prices to distinct shoppers.

Some province lawmakers have responded to that anxiety, too. New Jersey passed a yearlong moratorium on new implementation of the tech. Maryland passed legislation requiring market stores to keep electronically displayed prices unchanged for a complete endeavor day.

Concerns have prompted retailers to get onward of energetic pricing concerns: Walmart's CEO, John Furner, for example, wrote a memo in September to customers and employees, explicitly stating that the innovation wouldn't be used to modify prices.

"We don't set distinct prices according to who you are or the period of day, and we won't," he wrote. "We cost the product, not the person."

Target additionally shared a akin statement this month, saying that the business "does not use individual data to lift prices."

Electronic signs in Home Depot

Home Depot has been evaluation the innovation for years. In its 2020 annual report, the retailer stated it had initially used digital shelf-label capabilities in the appliances division before trying them in additional merchandising departments.

Brown stated Home Depot sees the labels as a tool for shop operations, not a new pricing strategy.

As stores increasingly twice as fulfillment hubs for shipment workers and pickup orders, she said, ESLs can ray up to assistance gig workers and workforce quickly find a merchandise — an update that Walmart rolled out in its stores before this month.

She additionally stated the business is not using the innovation in its storyline department.

There are two crucial caveats.

First, Home Depot sells multiple commodities, specified as construction materials and storyline goods. Brown stated the ESLs volition indicate the idiosyncratic commodity markets.

Second, Home Depot's Pro customers can obtain bulk discounts whenever they cross purchasing thresholds. Brown stated those prices are set by transparent rules, not by a shopper's individual data.

Still, for everyone alternatively strolling through a Home Depot aisle, she said, the commitment is simpler: The cost one client sees have to be the identical cost another client sees.

"Those are the use cases we're curious in, not in changing cost additional frequently since we have digital rack labels," she said. "We've never talked concerning changing our pricing scheme if we were to rotate out ESLs."