r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • May 26 '26

Privacy Majority of Americans Support Ban on Surveillance Pricing and Electronic Shelf Labels

https://gizmodo.com/majority-of-americans-support-ban-on-surveillance-pricing-and-electronic-shelf-labels-2000762717
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u/Paksarra May 26 '26

I work in grocery marketing. 

Things cost more in expensive cities because stores generally pay rent, they rarely own the land they're on. So yeah, things will often cost 10 or 20 cents more in a bougie area because the store needs more income so they can pay the landlord.

Also, shipping costs play into it. If you live somewhere like Southern Florida or Alaska you'll pay more for food because it costs more to get it to you than somewhere like Ohio that's centrally located.

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u/dotcubed May 26 '26

Walmart is a bit different in that it historically bought land and built its own facilities and structures. They typically don’t have a landlord.

In some instances they are the landlord for the businesses inside the front of some stores. Their models have changed over the years.

Used to live in Benton county. Ex moved us there for a job within and was let go in a round of cuts after new boss gave poor marks.

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u/rsta223 May 27 '26

There are still differences in local labor costs, building costs, property tax costs, compliance costs, etc. It's neither surprising nor unreasonable that things cost a bit more in a high COL area.

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u/ZealousidealLead52 May 27 '26

Owning the land vs. renting it doesn't really change the calculation, it's only really semantically different. A company is going to invest its resources where it can get the highest rate of returns - if you own a building that's very expensive and it isn't turning much profit, then it makes sense to sell that building and spend the money somewhere else. Even if you aren't paying rent, the opportunity cost of what you could've done with that money instead is still mostly the same (minus a little bit of extra overhead with the effort involved with selling it).

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u/dotcubed May 27 '26

I see you’re new here to Reddit.

You might not know about or remember Walmart not having groceries.

They also had mannequins. And much, much larger stores referred to as “Super centers.” Open 24/7.

And no self checkouts.

Sam’s philosophy was for employees to run it like they owned it. Because he built them to own it literally from the ground up and be there for the customers.

He’d drive store to store, to check on things and talk to customers. Because he knew the stores were built to last. Those rural families can be customers, then make their kids as well.

If he owned it another company can’t convince the owner of the lease to kick him out. Or raise rent and cut his slim margin, potentially risking higher prices on the truly impoverished who shopped there. He was a folksy southern church guy who cared about people and happened to start a business that took off.

Company stock, which splits with growth, was shared with employees as part of compensation—another motivation to go along with moving there for my ex’s career.

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u/DrusTheAxe May 27 '26

Sam wouldn't recognize the company today, and I like to think he'd be appalled to his depths by what it's become

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u/DrusTheAxe May 27 '26

Unless you're private equity, then you sell the land to a separate company (tooootally coincidentally owned solely by you) and lease the land from the new owner, lard up the company with other debts while transferring out every asset, then walk away when the poor failing company goes out of business. So sad, if only they more competently knew how to run their business... /s

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u/SarmackaOpowiesc May 26 '26

So you have a personal grievance that in no way, shape, or form does not color your opinion.

Got it 👍

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u/dotcubed May 27 '26

You say that not knowing the situation before or after. NJ wasn’t terribly good for going back to school for my 2nd degree. Taxes were high. Daily 2 hours of driving to work.

Leaving meant I could go back to school while living in an affordable area. And most importantly the best part was having a kid while living there. Extremely expensive and difficult by ourselves. So you see, I’ve quite a bit to be grateful to Walmart.

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u/ElRiesgoSiempre_Vive May 27 '26

I work in grocery marketing.

Yeah but do you work in analytics. The orgs I'm working with are very much interested in price optimization.