Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

I worked for Fry’s Marketplace for thirteen years, and during that time I learned something about grocery shoppers with absolute certainty:

People do not like change.

Even the most subtle change, customers will notice. During an aisle reset, we might move someone’s favorite item up or down two shelves. It was still there. Same product. Same aisle. Maybe three feet from where it had been the week before.

“Why are you guys always moving things around?”

We heard it all the time.

So perhaps I should have recognized what was happening when I recently walked into my local Fry’s and noticed electronic shelf labels, or ESLs, replacing the familiar paper price tags.

I didn’t like them.

A paper price tag seems permanent, at least until somebody physically replaces it. An electronic price can presumably be changed with a few keystrokes. My mind immediately went to dynamic pricing. Airlines and hotels have conditioned us to accept prices that change with demand. Could a gallon of milk eventually cost one price on Tuesday morning and another during the after-work rush?

Suddenly, I felt like I was in competition with my grocery store.

But then I realized I was doing exactly what all those customers had done when we moved their favorite cereal two shelves higher.

Something changed, and I didn’t like it.

That is a reaction. It is not yet an argument.

The Case for Fry’s

I know firsthand how much work those little paper price tags required.

When I worked for Fry’s, a crew of four people would arrive on Tuesday evening and work overnight changing price stickers throughout the store. It could take those four employees about ten hours to complete the job.

When you do the math, that is roughly forty labor hours devoted to changing little pieces of paper.

Electronic shelf labels can eliminate much of that work. They also reduce the materials required for physical price changes and allow stores to update prices more efficiently. Research published in Management Science examining ESL adoption at a grocery retailer found benefits extending beyond the direct savings in labor. The researchers found increased gross margins associated with increased quantities sold and lower prices per unit sold.

Efficiency matters in the grocery business because grocery stores operate on remarkably thin margins. According to FMI, the average net profit for food retailers in 2025 was just 2.1 percent. A business operating on a margin that narrow has a strong incentive to eliminate unnecessary operating costs.

That brings me to another change coming to my Fry’s.

I recently ran into a manager I worked with, and we began talking about how expensive Phoenix has become. I mentioned that, for all the ill will sometimes directed toward grocery stores over food prices, Fry’s actually gives shoppers quite a few opportunities to reduce their grocery bills.

Fry’s offers weekly promotions, digital coupons and deals, fuel rewards and other discounts. The savings do require some participation from the shopper. You may have to look at the weekly ad, clip a digital coupon or use a Shopper’s Card.

In other words, Fry’s gives me opportunities to save money, but I have to harvest those savings.

During that conversation, my former manager told me that Fry’s was also installing monitors in the aisles to display advertising.

My first thought could have been: Great. Another screen showing me commercials.

Instead, I find myself defending those, too.

A shopper standing in a grocery aisle is only feet away from making a purchasing decision. That makes the shopper’s attention valuable to advertisers. If Fry’s can turn that attention into another source of revenue, I have difficulty arguing that it should not.

If Fry’s is willing to find ways to help me lower my grocery bill, I am willing to let Fry’s find reasonable ways to lower its operating costs and generate additional revenue.

The Strongest Objection

There is, however, a legitimate challenge to my argument.

Electronic shelf labels make changing prices easier. Much easier.

The same technology that eliminates forty hours of labor changing paper tags also removes much of the friction that once prevented a retailer from changing thousands of prices quickly.

Could that capability eventually be used for real-time dynamic pricing?

Yes.

That possibility deserves scrutiny. Consumers should be concerned if a grocery store begins exploiting predictable periods of high demand by rapidly increasing the prices of ordinary necessities.

But there is an important distinction between what a technology can do and how a business actually uses it.

Capability is not conduct.

I have no evidence that my Fry’s is using its electronic shelf labels for real-time dynamic pricing. A recent study examining transaction data from a U.S. grocery retailer that introduced ESLs in more than 100 stores likewise found virtually no surge pricing either before or after adoption.

It would therefore be difficult for me to condemn Fry’s for something the technology might someday allow it to do.

There is another constraint on Fry’s that has nothing to do with technology: trust.

Grocery shopping creates an unusually repetitive relationship between a business and its customers. I might buy an airline ticket a few times a year. I walk into a grocery store every week.

And after thirteen years working in one, I can assure you that shoppers notice things.

Remember the product moved two shelves?

Imagine what happens if customers become convinced their grocer is manipulating the price of milk, eggs or bread depending upon when they walk through the door.

Whatever short-term financial advantage a grocer might gain would have to be weighed against damaging the trust of customers whose business it needs week after week.

That does not mean Fry’s deserves unlimited trust. It means my judgment should be based on its conduct.

I Still Have a Choice

There is something easy to overlook when discussing increasingly sophisticated technology used by large corporations.

I have agency, too.

Fry’s can choose which technologies to deploy. It can decide how to price its products. It can sell advertising space in its aisles. It can offer digital coupons, fuel points and loyalty programs.

And I can decide whether the resulting bargain remains acceptable to me.

I can use the coupons. I can ignore the commercials. I can compare prices. I can shop somewhere else.

Ultimately, I choose who is worthy of my spending.

That is why my defense of Fry’s is conditional.

If electronic shelf labels are being used to reduce operating costs and improve efficiency, I can support them. If aisle monitors generate advertising revenue that helps a low-margin business remain competitive, I can live with another screen in my life.

If Fry’s eventually uses those same technologies in ways that I believe exploit its customers, I reserve the right to change my argument—and where I spend my money.

Distance runners have an expression: get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Discomfort does not always signal that something is wrong. Sometimes it simply means we are adapting to a new demand.

Technology increasingly asks the same thing of us.

Electronic shelf labels made me uncomfortable when I first saw them. Aisle monitors may make other shoppers uncomfortable. Smart glasses, artificial intelligence and whatever comes next will undoubtedly make us uncomfortable in ways we have not anticipated.

That discomfort should make us curious. It should make us vigilant. It should make us ask questions.

But discomfort, by itself, is not an argument against change.

Technology is not necessarily the threat. How we choose to use technology can be.

For now, I am willing to watch how Fry’s uses these new tools, judge the company by its conduct, and make my own decisions accordingly.

I may even have to take some advice from all those years of distance running.

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Sources & Further Reading

FMI — “Food Industry Facts.”
FMI reports that the average net profit for food retailers in 2025 was 2.1 percent.

Fry’s Food Stores — “Sales, Deals & Promotions” and “Mobile App.”
Fry’s describes its weekly deals, digital coupons, personalized savings, Shopper’s Card benefits and fuel-points program.

Stamatopoulos, Ioannis; Bassamboo, Achal; and Moreno, Antonio — “The Effects of Menu Costs on Retail Performance: Evidence from Adoption of the Electronic Shelf Label Technology.” Management Science, Vol. 67, No. 1, 2021.
The study examines the effects of ESL adoption at a grocery retailer and finds increased gross margins associated with increased quantities sold and lower prices per unit sold.

Stamatopoulos, Ioannis; Sanders, Robert Evan; and Bray, Robert — “Electronic Shelf Labels Have Not Led to Surge Pricing in US Grocery Retail, Despite Regulator Concerns.” 2025; revised 2026.
Using transaction data from a U.S. grocery retailer that introduced ESLs across more than 100 stores, the researchers found virtually no surge pricing before or after ESL adoption.