Thing is on sale

Pick thing up off the shelf

Walk around and look at other stuff

Go to check out

Thing is no longer on sale

Walmart, if they try this, is going to witness a Karen-level explosion of speaking with the manager like they could never imagine

This is an important story to read and it deserves the attention of consumers so they are informed and can scream bloody murder about it. I have no hope for the US and free market capitalism, but I can see some commonwealth countries like Australia and New Zealand legislating against this type of practice to protect consumers. Australia has done that with petrol prices - the price may change once every 24 hours, at 6am. The price for tomorrow’s fuel must be submitted to the consumer watchdog by 2pm for publishing online. There is a govt website that publishes the fuel pricing online with a map of locations and the fuel type and pricing info.

A similar restriction on fast-moving consumer goods where weekly pricing changes get published on Friday and enacted on Monday might help keep a lid on things.