Opinion: Dynamic pricing will ruin the shopping experience

Shopping once meant seeing a price, and knowing that a person buying the same item would spend the same amount of money as another customer. Now, with dynamic pricing entering the scene, that certainty is disappearing. 

Dynamic pricing is a strategy where businesses change the prices of their items based on factors like demand, inventory, time, customer data and location. While many companies argue that dynamic pricing may increase efficiency, it presents an unfair shopping environment, and seeds distrust in its customers.

The use of dynamic pricing isn't a new concept, but it has been revitalised the last few years. It began in the 1980s as a way to regulate the airline industry by changing prices of plane tickets according to seasons, holidays and generally busy time periods, but it's grown past its more innocent beginnings.

Dynamic pricing has transitioned from airlines to everyday retail. Many online companies have begun to adjust prices in real-time, maximizing their profit while also pleasing investors looking for new strategies to increase the value of their stocks. Even in-person stores, like Walmart and Michaels, are adopting digital price tags so that they can adjust their prices instantly based on data collected on the product and the buyer themselves. 

The first time I encountered dynamic pricing was while buying fast food on DoorDash. I was ordering on my phone and my friend was ordering on hers. Right before we clicked the order button, I asked her how much she was spending, and we figured out that even though we were ordering the exact same thing from the exact same location on the exact same app, my food was 4 dollars cheaper than hers. We went though, and almost every meal on her account was 2-4 dollars more than the price on my account. What started as a small transaction became a moment of suspicion. 

Now, I have a hard time trusting the prices shown on my screen, and I begin to question if it would be cheaper for someone else. When we encountered this issue, we weren't even aware that Door Dash used such drastic dynamic pricing strategies, and most of the time the average buyer won't know either.

When retailers don't provide set price tags for their items, many customers will buy them without even knowing they are paying more than they should for the product, which is exactly what the companies want. There is an advantage to uneducated buyers who won't even know to complain. Most companies don’t disclose that their prices will fluctuate, and many use Artificial Intelligence as a way to analyze exactly how much to charge.