I had an economics professor in college who predicted Americans would someday face individualized prices when buying groceries.
After all, he reasoned, every person has their own discrete demand curve, so why shouldn’t different people pay more for the same items at the same store? If I’m willing to pay $3 for that can of soup and you’re willing to pay $3.25, why shouldn’t the store be able to charge us our respective prices?
Well, he was right that companies would pursue this. But it won’t be coming to Maryland supermarkets and delivery services anytime soon. The state is on track to be the first to restrict certain grocery stores from using so-called “dynamic pricing” to charge some customers higher prices based on their personal data.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, whose name often appears on lists of potential future presidential candidates, proposed the legislation and is expected to sign it soon.
This raises the question of just how much consumers in our market economy really like the free market. After all, basic economic theory teaches that price is set at the intersection of supply and demand. But corporations would love to know your pain point and charge you – and only consumers exactly like you – the most they can.
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What’s Covered?
The restrictions would apply to merchants occupying at least 15,000 square feet and selling food meant to be eaten off site. So, a supermarket, but not a corner store, a sit-down restaurant or a non-food retailer.
The law would also apply to third-party food delivery services like DoorDash.
The affected businesses would not be able to use personal characteristics like sex, ethnicity or gender identity to charge higher prices.
The legislation explicitly calls out “higher” prices. Does that mean charging a large number of consumers lower prices (tantamount to charging a small number a higher price) would be allowable? Maybe that’s a little too philosophical.
What’s Not Covered?
Quite a long list, so strap in. Here are the main exemptions:
- Promotions or loyalty program benefits “related to retention of existing customers”
- Price differences based on availability or objective costs like shipping costs or a location’s taxes
- Price differences based on supply and demand associated with different locations
- Discounts through a voluntary loyalty, membership or reward program
- Discounts offered in exchange for use of consumers’ personal data
- Price corrections resulting from pricing errors
What’s Walmart’s Role?
Some of the support for the bill appears to derive from concerns about Walmart moving to digital price tags, which means in theory that the nation’s largest retailer could instantly change what you pay for a product.
Delegate Lorig Charkoudian, vice chair of the Maryland House of Delegates’ Economic Matters Committee, told WAMU, “What this technology allows them to do ultimately is to figure out who’s standing in front of that screen and change the price based on who you are. And that’s really the thing that we’re trying to get ahead of with this legislation.”
A Walmart spokeswoman told CNBC that the labels “are just a modern tool to help our associates do their jobs better, but the price you see is the same for everyone in any given store.”
Part of a Trend
This is not the first time we’ve looked at new ways businesses could use consumers’ personal data in their pricing strategy.
In July 2025, we noted that a group of Democratic senators had written to Delta to ask what sort of personal data the airline planned to use, or not use, in its AI-driven pricing. In their letter, the senators “alluded to a hypothetical scenario in which an airline charges more for a passenger because the company knows they just had a death in the family and need to fly cross-country.”
In a lengthy statement, Delta spokeswoman Lisa Hanna told us at the time that AI “is NOT used to target customers by using their personal data.” But it also acknowledged that one factor influencing price-setting is “customer demand and purchasing behavior.”
Final Thought
Thirty-five years ago, supermarkets did not have the technology to charge individual prices. Today, it seems unlikely that regulators will let them, for the simple reason that consumers will rage at being charged the highest price they are willing to pay.
