In a strongly worded letter released Friday, the chief executive pushed back against speculation regarding the retailer’s modernization efforts, specifically addressing how prices are determined across its massive network of stores.
“We don’t set different prices based on who you are or the time of day, and we won’t,” Furner said in the letter. “Your income, shopping history, urgency or what we think you could pay won’t change the price. And whether you’re buying groceries or electronics on a hot afternoon or in a sudden rush for an item, it’s never a reason to charge you more.”
The executive also addressed scrutiny surrounding the company’s proprietary generative AI shopping agent, Sparky, noting that Walmart will not use sensitive information shared with Sparky to artificially inflate prices or deliberately hide lower-priced alternatives from customers navigating the platform.
Furner previously touted the commercial momentum and sales conversion rates that Sparky is driving during an August earnings call. At the time, he highlighted that the number of customers actively using Sparky is up 70% compared to the previous year, and noted that shoppers who utilize the AI assistant spend roughly 40% more per order than traditional shoppers who browse without the tool.
However, these technological integrations have not come without scrutiny. One of the company’s own technology patents leaves the door wide open to personalized pricing and dynamic adjustments, according to consumer advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative.
Walmart was granted a patent in 2023 for the remote controlling of electronic shelf labels, a development that Groundwork Collaborative has highlighted as evidence of potential future pricing strategies. The patent documentation outlines that electronic labels and displayed prices may be changed in a dynamic manner, allowing the retailer to automatically adjust the price of items based on contextual variables, such as what products a customer already has physically or digitally present in their cart.
“If a customer has tuna fish, they may be offered a different price for mayonnaise,” the patent says as a direct example of this store capability.
Additionally, the patent explicitly allows for pricing to be dynamically altered in real time based on fluctuating supply and demand metrics for a given product category.
These revelations have intensified skepticism from consumer watchdog groups who question why a multi-national retailer would invest heavily in capabilities it claims it has no intention of utilizing.
“Walmart wouldn’t spend the time, effort, and money to develop and deploy these technologies unless it padded their profits,” Lindsay Owens, Groundwork Collaborative president and executive director, said in a statement Friday. “If Walmart is serious about its commitments to shoppers, it should pull the patent filings, clawback the electronic shelf labels, and make Sparky work for customers, not for Walmart.”
Walmart did not respond to inquiries regarding why the company chose to patent the technological ability to dynamically change pricing based on the specific contents of a shopper’s cart if it has no plans to implement the capability in its physical stores.
Beyond digital shelf tags and shopping assistants, the Groundwork Collaborative also called attention to Walmart’s acquisition of television manufacturer Vizio in 2024 as another significant vector for consumer data collection and targeted engagement.
The integration of the Vizio business ecosystem could eventually work in tandem with Sparky to expand the retailer’s reach into consumers’ living rooms, according to comments made by Walmart U.S. CEO and President David Guggina at the Goldman Sachs Global Consumer and Retail Conference earlier this month.
“The average customer in the U.S. keeps their TV for about 7 years,” Guggina said during the conference panel. “So this allows us to put more devices into customers’ homes and engage with them in new and differentiated ways, through advertising, you can imagine maybe Sparky coming to life on your TV in a home in the future and helping you shop and navigate different applications on the TV.”