The retailer says it won’t renew a key patent that could leverage scan-and-go tech to personalize prices. It’s one of several that has drawn the attention of activists.

In Walmart’s most direct response yet, the mass retailer’s executive vice president of corporate affairs is asking Groundwork Collaborative President and CEO Lindsay Owens to “correct the record” on alleged mischaracterizations regarding its pricing practices.

“Your recent public statements repeatedly mischaracterize Walmart’s pricing practices and use of technology,” Walmart’s Dan Bartlett said in a Monday letter directed at Owens, who leads the advocacy group. “They leave audiences believing Walmart uses or is preparing to use customers’ personal information or changes in the weather to charge them more. Your account does not accurately describe our practices or our plans.”

The executive reiterated that Walmart does not and will not use digital shelf labels for individual or dynamic pricing.

“The confusion around Walmart’s pricing practices is of its own making,” Owens said in a Monday statement responding to the letter. “Walmart says one thing in its damage-control letters to customers, another to its investors behind closed doors, and a different thing entirely to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.”

Groundwork Collaborative released a report highlighting several Walmart patents that feature various technological pricing capabilities. Some of the patents have been granted, including one about the remote controlling of electronic shelf labels granted in 2023. In the patent, Walmart said "the labels and prices may be changed in a dynamic fashion" based on what it knows about a shopper’s cart via scan-and-go technology.

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