Maryland is on the road to being the first state to abolish dynamic pricing at grocery stores.
Governor Wes Moore has indicated that he will “sign the Protection from Predatory Pricing Act into law after the state legislature passes it, and the rule will take effect on October 1, 2026.” The legislation aims to protect consumers from paying different prices for the same products, as decided by the store’s algorithm.
A Fox News article, penned by Kurt Knutsson, reveals how stores utilize dynamic pricing to decide how much you’ll pay for a product before you even get to the register.
“A store collects data on you as an individual shopper. It looks at how often you browse certain products, what neighborhood you live in and whether a competitor is nearby, what your income and family size appear to be, and your dietary habits. Then it uses all of that to decide how much you specifically are willing to pay and charges you accordingly,” he writes. “One Kroger shopper in Oregon decided to find out exactly what her grocery store knew about her. She submitted a data request under a state privacy law and received a 62-page profile in return. Most of the inferences in that profile were wrong. That’s the part that should make your stomach drop. Retailers are charging people based on guesses, and those guesses are frequently inaccurate.”
This bill comes at a time when many retailers, including Walmart, are introducing digital price tags in their stores, which can be updated instantly to reflect dynamic pricing changes based on the algorithm. As middle-class families try to squeeze more and more value out of every dollar, these arbitrary pricing changes can be the difference between making ends meet that month or having to make additional sacrifices to keep the household running.
“The Protection from Predatory Pricing Act sets some clear ground rules for large grocery retailers. Stores must keep their prices fixed for at least one full business day. That eliminates the possibility of prices spiking by the hour based on demand signals or individual shopper data,” the report explains. “Retailers are also prohibited from using surveillance data, shopping history, ethnicity or income to set different prices for different customers at the same time.”
Online retailers also came under scrutiny for how they charge consumers.
“Consumer Reports ran an investigation into Instacart’s pricing practices last December. Nearly 400 shoppers purchased the same basket of groceries from the same stores at the same time. The price differences were striking. Depending on the product, shoppers were paying up to 23% more than other shoppers for identical items. Across a full year of shopping, those gaps could add up to more than $1,200 per household,” Knutsson wrote. “After the investigation went public, Instacart announced it was ending the program responsible for those discrepancies. That outcome matters. It shows that consumer pressure and public scrutiny can drive real changes, even before a law requires them.”
New Jersey, Colorado, Illinois and California are among the states also looking to curb the use of dynamic pricing by retailers, and New York already has legislation of its own underway.
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Sierra Marlee is a millennial whose hunger for the truth in a world of fake news has led her to write. Marlee also contributes to BizPac Review.
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