Will Aldi's New High-Tech Price Tags Really Impact Your Grocery Bill?

Instacart is enhancing consumer experience, but could it eventually affect your grocery prices? The popular grocery technology company recently announced that its Carrot Tag system will be used in more grocery stores, including Aldi, which has notoriously low prices. Carrot tags will connect to stores' existing electronic shelf labels (ESL) to help make personal shopping easier, offer product information, and potentially allow for real-time price changes.

Electronic shelf labels have replaced traditional paper price tags in plenty of grocery stores, as they allow for quicker and easier pricing changes. According to Instacart's news release, its carrot tags are designed to "provide a reliable online ordering experience to their customers by helping e-commerce shoppers locate ordered items, which in turn improves order accuracy."

The system includes a "pick to light" capability, which means the ESL lights up after an Instacart shopper selects an item on the Instacart app, making it easier to locate the item requested. So, how does this affect your grocery bill?

Aldi hasn't directly commented on how the Carrot Tag system may be used to impact the prices of food items, as it is currently only utilizing the "pick to light" feature. However, the official page for Carrot Tags boasts the feature of "price optimization with Eversight," which refers to the technology's ability to instantly change to reflect the most accurate pricing. With this in mind, it's possible that Aldi could utilize the system for dynamic pricing, either for better or worse — for flash sales or surge pricing. But we'll have to wait and see if the new price tag system affects how cheap Aldi is.

Though Aldi hasn't commented on utilizing the price optimization feature to increase its prices, it has highlighted the system's efficiency. In a statement on Instacart's news release, Aldi Vice President Scott Patton said, "We see the value Carrot Tags offer as they help Instacart shoppers to be more independent when fulfilling online orders, allowing our associates to focus on store operations and providing excellent customer service. Our business model is based on efficiency and Instacart's enterprise technologies are just another way for us to enhance the customer experience while reducing costs and passing along savings to customers."

Patton indicates that shoppers may have easier access to employees for questions. It may also mean more employees available to work at the register, which could mean shorter wait times at the checkout aisle. And while we wait to find out if and how the Carrot Tag system affects the chain's pricing — including the items that are cheaper at Aldi — you can learn how to read price labels for smart shopping practices, whether electronic or not.