Everyone enjoys the personal touch when they are out and about. From a swan made of towels placed on your bed in a hotel room, to a biscuit with your initial iced on top in a café. But are personalised price tags in shops taking things too far?
Electronic price tags are currently being trialled in B&Q, which tailors a price depending on the customer. If a customer is a regular, they will be rewarded with offers and discounts which will display on the item in front of them. But how exactly does the price tag know who the customer is?
The price tags use a Wi-Fi connection to recognise customers’ identity from their mobile phone chip and looks into their previous spending habits. It then uses this information to make a unique price for an item based on the individual. But is this ‘big brother’ technology really what shoppers want? Don’t get me wrong everyone loves a discount, but are personalised price tags an invasion of privacy?
Also imagine the conflict these high-tech price tags could cause for staff at retail stores. If one customer was offered a product for say £45 and another customer saw the offer but when they approached the item, the price had risen to £52 – it could cause major issues for staff having to explain how the technology works and could upset more customers than it intended to make happy.
Do you think personalised price tags are the future of the high street? Or do you feel that they will do more harm than good?
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