Walmart Watchdog: New Groundwork Analysis Exposes the Doublespeak Behind Walmart’s Pricing Playbook
The retailer that once offered “Everyday Low Prices” is building technology that can be used to track, probe, and squeeze shoppers
New Report Released After Walmart’s C-Suite Directly Attacks Groundwork’s CEO Lindsay Owens
Walmart has come under recent fire from experts and shoppers alike over its new pricing technology and exploitation of shopper data. In response, CEO John Furner went into cleanup mode, telling customers that the company will “price the product, not the person.” But Walmart’s own investments and patents suggest that the retail giant is building a vast arsenal of tools that can be used to track shoppers and even potentially determine what they pay. A new report from Groundwork, “The Walmart Watchtower: Patents Speak Louder Than Pledges,” exposes the gap between what Furner says publicly and what Walmart is building behind the scenes.
Written by Lindsay Owens and Elizabeth Pancotti, the report digs into Walmart’s patents, privacy disclosures, and technology investments to reveal how the retailer is building the infrastructure that could allow it to deploy personalized pricing at scale. Just last month, Walmart updated its customer privacy policy to give itself further permission to collect everything from income and ethnicity to retinal imagery, license plate numbers, and even the exact spot where a shopper is standing inside a store. And Walmart’s patent portfolio goes even further. Groundwork’s research reveals Walmart has spent years developing technologies that can be used to track shoppers’ daily routines, measure customers’ heart rates and glucose levels, change prices in real-time based on what customers need most, and more.
Last year, Walmart launched “Sparky,” its in-house AI shopping assistant, which can recommend products and even make purchases for shoppers. Now used by roughly half of the Walmart app’s tens of millions of monthly active users, Sparky has been openly touted by Walmart executives for its association with higher-value baskets. Walmart U.S. CEO Dave Guggina told investors in September that “when customers engage with Sparky, their average order value jumps 40%.” The head of Walmart Connect described the information shoppers share with Sparky as “gold” for determining product recommendations.
Groundwork’s latest findings on Walmart fit a broader pattern of companies saying one thing about AI-powered pricing in public, and a different story to investors and the patent office.
Lindsay Owens, author of Gouged: The End of a Fair Price—And What That Means for Your Wallet and President and CEO of Groundwork Collaborative, issued the following statement:
“Corporations don’t spend years building high-tech pricing tools, hiring experts, and filing patents just to let them collect dust. They do it because they see a path to higher profits – one that runs right through everyday consumers’ budgets. Walmart has amassed the most intimate information about its customers and is developing the technology that can be used to put that data to work at checkout. Shoppers will have to decide whether to believe Walmart’s patent applications or its PR statements.”
Walmart’s Shopper Surveillance Machine
- Burner Phone Buster: Walmart has filed a patent for technology that can unmask anonymous cell phone data after a single store visit, then track where shoppers live, how they commute to work, and what restaurants they frequent and use that information to decide who gets a deal.
- Pulse Check: One patent application describes using facial recognition, in-store cameras, Wi-Fi signals, and even heart-rate or glucose data to measure how shoppers react to any given product. The system could then compare those reactions to a shopper’s sleeping baseline to, for example, determine which ice cream flavor is most likely to get their pulse racing.
- Habit Tracker: Walmart submitted a patent application for technology that can monitor a customer’s daily life routines like work, kids’ sports practices, gym classes, and visits to friends or relatives using data from GPS, surveillance cameras, social posts, and traffic cameras.
- Cradle-to-Cart Tracking: A 2024 patent describes using purchases like diapers, baby food, onesies, bottles, and sippy cups to estimate children’s ages and steer families toward different products and price points as they grow.
- Petri Dish Pricing: Walmart patented technology that could run pricing experiments on shoppers to figure out exactly how much they’re willing to pay. The system can “probe” customers with products priced above what they normally spend. If they pay the premium, Walmart learns they can be pushed higher and updates that shopper’s price-sensitivity profile accordingly. Walmart has also tested this kind of price experimentation at scale. In a separate filing, the company said it ran an algorithm across more than 20,000 items over five weeks, with prices swinging by as much as 10% in a day, even as Walmart acknowledged the experiments “can harm the user experience.”
- Coupon for Me, Not for Thee: Walmart has designed a system that can withhold coupons from shoppers it thinks will pay full price. The patent sorts customers by how likely they are to buy without a discount, then reserves coupons for the shoppers Walmart thinks need an extra nudge. If the system predicts a 90% chance you’ll buy, Walmart says a lower price simply “is not needed.”
- Thumbs Up, Price Up: Walmart has filed a patent application for technology that can use a shopper’s social media likes, shares, and posts to determine whether they should get a coupon or simply be shown the product at full price.
- Tuna Tax: According to a 2023 patent, Walmart has developed technology that can change prices based on what’s already in a shopper’s cart when they use the in-app “Scan & Go” tool, which allows customers to ring up items as they place them into their cart. The patent describes it succinctly: “if a customer has tuna fish, they may be offered a different price for mayonnaise.”
- Search, Then Surcharge: Walmart has patented technology that could set the price you see in search results on the retailer’s app or website based on who you are. The system can factor in a shopper’s identity, purchase history, and proximity to a store. In Walmart’s own example, one customer could see $90 while another sees $110 for the same item.
- Penny Pincher Profiles: Walmart has filed a patent applications for technology that can estimate how price-sensitive a shopper is by store aisle, then give bigger discounts to bargain-conscious customers and smaller discounts to those it thinks will pay more.
Even the parking lot and customer-service desk can become part of the pricing system.
- Parking Lot Profiling: One patent application describes the ability to use cameras, license plate readers, and changes in vehicle weight to infer how far a customer drove and how much they bought, then use that information to “extend customized sales and/or offers.”
- Karen Alert: Walmart has applied for a patent for an “appeasement” engine that uses a customer’s “persona” and demographics to decide whether a canceled or delayed order earns a gift card, a discount, or nothing at all.
- Rush Fee: Walmart has applied to patent technology that could charge you more for needing your curbside order quickly. If a customer flags the pickup as urgent, the system could tack on a higher price.
