Instacart brought its “price test” experiment to an end.
The company announced that it will not permit retailers to use Eversight to test pricing on its app.
Eversight allowed retailers change prices for the same items at the same location at the same time for different shoppers. The system would then evaluate shoppers’ reaction on the different pricing, CNBC explained.
Instacart said in a blog post, “Now, if two families are shopping for the same items, at the same time, from the same store location on Instacart, they see the same prices — period.”
Some called it dynamic pricing, but Instacart said the tests were “not dynamic pricing or surveillance pricing — and were never based on supply or demand, personal data, demographics, or individual shopping behavior.”
Consumer Reports found that the price testing sometimes resulted in a difference of as much as 23 and were found at stores such as Albertsons, Costco, Kroger, Safeway, Sprouts Farmers Market and Target.
Instacart told Consumer Reports at the time of the publication’s investigation that it was working with 10 retailers in “limited, short-term, and randomized tests.”
Click here to read more about CR’s investigation.
Instacart said stores will be able to set their own prices on the platform. But they will not fluctuate.