Customers at some area Kroger stores may have noticed that the stores' price tags have gone electronic.
The battery-powered shelf labels look a lot like paper tags that customers are used to seeing, but Kroger can change the prices automatically.
"We don't want the change to be too noticeable to our customers," said Mark Bruce, a spokesman for Kroger's Columbus division.
Kroger has already installed the electronic tags at 20 stores in the Columbus region, which includes the Toledo area, Portsmouth and Wheeling, West Virginia.
Kroger plans to put the electronic labels in 60 more stores by the end of this year. By the end of 2027, every Kroger in the Columbus region should have made the switch.
Bruce characterized the new shelf labels as more efficient for store associates and more accurate for customers.
Company wide, Kroger associates have had to change 1.3 billion paper tags a year at 2,700 stores.
"We are now saving all the time and effort from our store associates that it takes to change those paper tags," Bruce said. "Now we're able to reinvest that time back into the stores and our associates are able to help our customers. They're able to run cash registers and checkout lanes. They're are able to stock shelves."
Critics of electronic labels worry that retailers may raise prices at peak shopping times or tailor pricing to individual customers.
Bruce said Kroger doesn't use "personalized pricing," though the store offers "personalized savings" through coupons. He added that the electronic labels don't have the technology to identify individuals or their shopping habits and that the store doesn't use facial recognition.
He said the tags can do things like flash to help store associates more accurately fill online orders.
"There might be five different types of ranch. If a customer chooses a specific ranch, the pickup technology will have the specific ranch that it needs to pick flash," Bruce said.
He said in the future, the tags should be able to interact with stores' inventory systems, allowing them to automatically mark down items that are nearing their sell-by date. That will add value for customers and help stores sell food, Bruce said.
