What “dynamic pricing” means in a supermarket
Dynamic pricing means the price displayed on the shelf or screen changes through the day, based on demand, time, stock or rules set by the retailer. End-of-day yellow-sticker markdowns are dynamic pricing in its useful form. The version that worries us is upward dynamic pricing — raising the price of milk at 5pm because that’s when most shoppers buy it, or raising the price of bread on a rainy day because fewer people drove to a competitor.
What “personalised pricing” means
Personalised pricing is more invasive. The price displayed depends on who is looking — your loyalty card, your past purchases, sometimes a guess at what you can afford. Online retailers already do this. Bringing it into physical stores needs one of three things: an app at the shelf, a face on a camera, or a logged-in self-checkout. All three are being installed.
Supermarkets do not use, and have no plan to use, dynamic or surge pricing in their stores.
We are taking that promise at face value. The Bill we back turns it into a legal one. It costs the BRC’s members nothing if they meant what they said.
Why essentials are different
For luxuries, dynamic pricing is mostly an annoyance. For essentials, it hits the people who can least afford it. If you are short on money, you cannot drive to the next supermarket, you cannot wait for the price to fall, and you cannot bulk-buy because you have nowhere to put ten loaves of bread. Pricing tools that change the cost of a loaf based on who is buying it land hardest on these households. The University of Bristol estimates that low-income households already pay an average “poverty premium” of around £490 a year. Personalisation makes it worse.
The technology being installed today
- 10.8 million electronic shelf labels across 497 Morrisons stores from early 2026.
- Digital labels across all 2,400 Co-op stores by end-2026.
- Thousands of digital labels across Asda Express; a 2025 live facial recognition trial in five Greater Manchester stores.
- Sainsbury’s “Future Stores” pilots of shelf-edge digital labels.
- Bank of England: 21% of UK firms already use market-responsive pricing tools, expected to rise to 31% within a year.
Why we need to draw the line now
The hardware is going in. The legal protection has just been weakened. The Bank of England thinks personalised, market-responsive pricing will be standard within a year. The supermarkets have already promised they will not do it. We have a short window to write that promise into law before it stops being a promise.
For the detailed evidence with primary sources, see the evidence page and the full briefing.