I Have Rolled Past A Million Price Tags, And Not One Of Them Ever Sized Me Up

I have spent most of my life at eye level with the bottom shelf, which is where the honest prices live. So I feel qualified to say something about the new digital price tags everyone is so nervous about.

This weekend a large home improvement chain promised that its glowing little tags will not charge you more for being in a hurry. People did not believe it. I understand. When something lights up near you in a store, it is usually about to ask for your email.

But I want to tell you what I know about tags. In 30 years of service I have rolled past more than a million of them, paper and plastic and now glass, and not one of them has ever looked down at me and thought, "Here comes a cart with a wobbly wheel. Let us add a dollar."

A price tag has one job. It is not paid enough to have a second one.

1,000,000+

Price tags I have rolled past

0

Tags that changed when they saw me

3

Tags I have personally knocked off a shelf

Source: Wendell Wheelwright, counting on his wheels

If you want to worry about something in a store that sizes you up, worry about the end cap. Worry about the impulse rack at the register, which has studied you for decades. Worry about the free sample lady, who knows exactly how many times you have come back.

What I have learned, being pushed, is that people who think they are being watched start to shop like they are being watched. They stand straighter. They whisper to their spouses. They pick up the hammer and put it back as if the hammer might report them.

Please relax. Put the hammer in me. I will carry it to the register at whatever price it said, and I will not tell anyone you hesitated.

Return me to the corral when you are done. My price is still zero, and it has never once changed based on who is pushing.

Mr. Wheelwright is a 34-gallon steel shopping cart at a supermarket in Tulsa, Okla. He has opinions about wheels.