June 25, 2008
Price Stickers Only Good for Decorating Foreheads
Digital price tags photographed by dmje on Flickr
Among the many Massachusetts insanities that exist, stickering every goddamn item in the grocery store probably ranks lower than not selling beer in 7-Eleven or giving all your streets the same name. Still, there seems no need to affix a tiny sticker to individual items that already have bar codes programmed to ring up the right price. And don't even get us started on the wastefulness of re-stickering items that change price. The ever-vigilant Consumerist reports that the Massachusetts state legislature has emerged from the Stone Age to propose that, in the UPC Age, maybe we don't actually need little stickers everywhere. Consumer groups are all up in arms about the proposal, apparently convinced that high-tech standardized barcodes are somehow less adept at representing proper pricing than disgruntled price-stickering teens making minimum wage. Riiight. Personally, we think Massachusetts should get on the France bandwagon and just go straight for digital price tags. We are supposed to be a leaders in science and technology, after all.
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I dunno about you, but I can't read a barcode. Maybe I need to get the Borg laser scanner attachment or something.
Sometimes I wonder if Gothamist writers are just dicks. As someone who now lives in a state where they don't make it a common practice to put the PRICES ON THE THINGS THEY SELL, it's murder trying to find the fucking tag on the little shelf edge that matches thing thing you're buying -- IF its even there.
Sure, you can go six aisles away and be a slave to the all-knowing price checker -- IF the store you're in even bothers with such things -- and trot back six aisles to put the overpriced crap back on the shelf (or, like everyone else, just leave it there where it doesn't belong). You can ask a stock-chode what the price is, but they never have any fucking idea. They barely know the name of the store they're in, despite being literally printed on their chest.
Usually, though, you end up having no clue how much you're going to be paying until the checker runs it along. And then you're on the hook. You can protest and ask the checker to delete the item; after an annoyed sigh and dirty looks from everyone behind you.
Really. Putting the PRICE ON WHAT YOU SELL is not an antiquated idea. It's what we call good business.
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Convenience stores are usually the worst culprits. So annoying to have to ask: "How much is this? How about this one? This one?"
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This wouldn't bother me as long as the law required the price was (1)clearly marked on the shelf and (2)price scanners were at the end of each aisle.
When I go to Shaw's and pick up some tortillas, there aren't price tags on each bag. So sometimes I end up with the one that isn't on sale.
~r
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If you live paycheck-to-paycheck and have to count your pennies in the grocery store, it is important to know what stuff costs before you get to the check-out line. A lot of places don’t have barcode readers, and don’t have the staff available to give you the prices. And as for those “disgruntled price-stickering teens making minimum wage”: 1) you have to start building your resume somewhere, 2)all the more motivation to go do something better with your life, 3)the disgruntled teens will hopefully realize that they need to vote and change the system to increase minimum wage,