customers have become a commodity…are you one of them?

customers have become a commodity…

Published by

Aubrey Taylor, Editor

on

July 27, 2026

I went shopping for summer clothes, as mine were worn out from constant wear, washing, dirt, and the humid climate. I visited my local big box store and noticed something strange: new merchandise appeared, but the price tags were blank. The tags had perforations ready for prices, but those numbers were never printed.

Two associates had started to notice as well as new stock arrived. They, too, were frustrated by the lack of pricing, likely due to frequent customer requests. They suspected the company stopped including prices on clothing and other items to push downloads of their store app. It put the burden on customers to scan items for prices instead of having the convenience of the prices clearly labeled on shelf or garment.

Self-service at its best.

Why would that be a problem?

It creates friction for customers, especially those who comparison shop. Finding each item separately prevents easy side-by-side price comparisons. Doing this for every purchase is more hassle than it’s worth. For someone like me, I’d need pen and paper to jot down prices, compare them, and hope I remember which item matches which price.

Additionally, the clothing tags list the item name in 3-point type, which is unreadable for most consumers. In my experience in retail advertising, the smallest printable type allowed is 9-point—still hard to read, unlike a book which was 10-point type. Critical information like contact details or emergency instructions are usually printed in tiny 7-point type or less on labels for such items as spray paints or containers which hold caustic substances. Clearly difficult to read as it is for most consumers, clothing labels, at 3-point type, are nearly illegible¹.

If shoppers must stop, open the app, and scan each item, it’s cumbersome and discourages buying altogether. Without clear signage above clothes or on shelves, the shopping experience becomes frustrating—unless cost isn’t a concern, which is unthinkable in our economic flux today.

And why should the companies care?

I have made it a policy financially over the years not to frequent stores that refuse to display their pricing. It makes me concerned that, like the “Forever Stamps”, they could change their pricing throughout the season whenever they wished.

But even more, I don’t “grab and go” because I know that every penny counts. And I don’t have that many. Wasting them by impulse or imprudent purchases isn’t being wise with all those hard-earned funds. And I believe in stewardship of everything that I own and care for.

So now, to stay within my budget, I have to expend more energy and effort just to buy summer shorts. Since the tags usually indicated a missed difference in cut or features—beyond just the size— I ended up at the register with three different prices for three different styles I didn’t notice because the price was missing on the tags.

I had relied on the scans by the Associates among the few items I thought were similar on the racks.

Surprise!

There was a $2 difference. Had the price been clearly marked on the garment, I could have chosen based on whether I needed the feature I was willing to pay for or just gone with the cheaper option.

For me, that drives me to other stores that still display their pricing, even if it costs more. At least I can more easily stay on track with my budget.

So what’s the push with the apps?

It comes down to marketing.

With an app, the bigger stores can track consumers when they use the app. The company can predetermine the buyer’s interests based on search criteria. If the app user also accesses digital coupons or discount codes, the ultimate purchase is stored in their data for future reference.

Upselling is also a downside to using many of the apps. “Suggestions” or “And customers also bought” or “Customers ended up buying” are terms used to steer the customer toward more profitable products.

Basically, like the big online stores, they gather your purchase data to make suggestions for future searches and suggestions based on your shopping habits.

If customers don’t log out or close apps, they can be geo-tracked outside stores since most digital users leave location services on. If a customer searches for an item online or in an app linked to a competitor, marketing algorithms can detect this. I the customer is nearby a store, they may send targeted texts, emails, or display the product in their app to steer the customer toward their store instead of the competitor’s.

You have become profitable to their bottom line by sharing all your personal data for free.

Doesn’t anyone notice?

While governments and companies criticize China’s data practices, they overlook domestic retailers’ actions. Big online stores often require credit card registration and login, eliminating guest checkout options. Even a popular Chinese site doesn’t require you to store your card, so why does a major US retailer—whose service makes us smile—do otherwise?

But wait…there’s more!

The number of apps these larger stores encourage individuals to download to their phone is growing exponentially. The phone itself has become an unwieldy trap, sharing your personal life, communications, data, location, physical and financial actions, and health. As long as the person keeps adding on more and more apps, nothing on that phone or device is private anymore. The data collected from a user’s research, including their interactions within social media, is often collected and can be used for informational purposes by many companies for sales and advertising.²

Autonomy and personal space has now become a thing of the past.

And with the rapid advances of AI in the mix, those tools now help retailers track the consumer even faster. Have you even been stopped at a self-checkout line because you or the person ahead of you was automatically flagged for a “missed scan”? That’s AI watching through the camera.

Both the government and retailers alike are invading virtually our personal and physical space. We are a number in the machine, much like IBM did for all the people labeled as “subversives” by the Nazi Germans.³

Is anyone is paying attention?

Is this something we really need? Or want?

If that’s the case, then why is there a rise in the demand for Dumb Phones, minimalist apps, and digital detoxing/decluttering?

It seems an increasing number of people are becoming aware of the connection to being chained to a device, and the level of increased stress and depression among the populace. Couple that with the ease in which global hackers have been successfully launching data breaches on the victims of once-trusted companies. Your most personal data – everything you do, say, research, message, email on unsecured apps – is caught in the web by unseen actors.

And the time it takes to hack a site seems to take less time that the reporting of the event 3-6 months after the fact.

Couple that with rising use of AI by both the beneficent and unseemly, it will only escalate as it has with deep Fakes on sites such as YouTube.

And what happens when those apps or sites are hacked? Cleaning up the mess from data breaches was “easier” back in the early 2000’s. It only took months to file the reports, proof of purchases and identity, etc. to sort it all out. Now, it nearly impossible.⁴ Especially vulnerable are the Millennials who think that all transactions through Venmo is far better than carrying cash. Who else has access to all that? Nearly all of your identity is now stored in cloud-based computing platforms.

Is all this worth the loss of our dignity, privacy, independence for the sake of “convenience”? Or have we become just that busy and stressful that we no longer notice – or care?