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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

Are there no prices on the shelves in an Amazon Go store? Surely people want to know the price before they buy an item? Not having a checkout doesn't change that does it?

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Yes there are prices on the shelves.

https://www.recode.net/2018/1/21/16913984/what-does-photos-a...

So what is losteverything talking about? How do they charge people different prices if the prices are printed right there on paper?

Not this specifically, but with a totally electronic system and no point of sale to anchor there is large opportunity to easily and programatically have dynamic pricing at the known individual level. Supply, time of day, whatever can be instantly baked into a pricing system.

And why not? No humans needed to change pricing. Plus i would think you could scan to get "your" price. Prime member $x. Etc..

I hope i did not imply this was happening now..

Aaaah... you said

> I wish there was a mention that 5 people can buy the same milk and all can each pay a different price (and none know what the other paid either)

And the answer why it isn't mentioned in the article is... because it's not a thing that's happening.

Yep. The author gives reasons for Amazon's decisions. I wanted a pricing discussion. My bad

It's hard to do that in a physical store since everyone can see the same price display. I doubt many people would be happy in a store where they need to look up every single price on their mobile device.

Kohl's seems to be doing pretty well with that system. They print a high price on the tags, then discount it by rack, and mail out 30% off coupons with short expiration dates to some of their rewards card holders every month.

I wonder too. I assume they are electronic. So snowstorm- raise milk and bread.

So the prices change based on who's looking at them? What if two people are looking at them at the same time? How does this work?

How about the one who happens to be looking at it the "closest" (according to the algorithms)? That would pretty much immediately turn into a "I see you can buy it for a lower price, how about I pay you to buy it for me instead" situation...

I suppose you could use lenticular screens like those used in some cars to avoid driver distraction[0 - old article but you get the point] or for the 3D effect in the Nintendo 3DS. This might be getting a bit silly though...

[0] - https://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2008-12/mercedes-benz-sp...

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