After warnings from employees months ago, Target appears to be leaving prices off its clothing tags, igniting customer complaints. On Reddit, a viral post showed tags that omitted any price for the shirts and jeans for sale at the big box retailer, stirring fears that “dynamic pricing” is coming to physical stores.
Nobody appears to want this but the owners, so it’s coming.
Target introduces mystery prices
Back in September, Target workers began warning customers that the company had instructed them to remove prices from tags. Soon after that, items started arriving to the store without prices. TikToker @kaitlinsonday claimed this was to pave the way toward changing the cost of any item moment to moment.
“We’re not gonna see any price tags of anything because then that means they can fluctuate the prices without us literally knowing,” she said. “We are in a really bad time, and I’m so scared, truthfully.”
This practice, known as “dynamic pricing,” has been standard online for years. Customers were testing this on Target’s app back in 2019 and found that prices would change the moment you stepped inside a physical store.
Now, it appears that the portended future has come to pass.
Just before 2026, Redditor u/bluelily216 posted a photo of clothes tags without prices to r/mildlyinfuriating. Each tag has all the usual information except for how much you’ll pay.
This could be another step in a trend toward finding any way to extract more money from customers instead of drawing them with promises of the lowest price possible. In July, Target ended the price-matching policy that it started in 2013 in order to compete with Walmart and Amazon.
Other Redditors report additional price chicanery in stores.
“Even the scanner on the app is saying ‘scan at checkout’ sometimes!!” said u/FrostScraper. “Like, if I’m in the store, using YOUR APP, why is the price a mystery?!”
These moves may have something to do with Target’s ROI. Quarterly earnings have been on the decline for a while now, causing boycott campaigns over the company’s abandonment of DEI programs to declare victory.
“Anything without a price on it doesn’t get purchased”
Reducing price transparency may backfire on Target, however. Judging by the Reddit comments and the bile that rises in many a throat any time the phrase “dynamic pricing” comes up, the chain may only lose more customers.
“Idk about anyone else, but this would just make me not want to buy them?” wrote u/obog. “Like if I cant see a price tag im just gonna put it back more likely than not. Surely this would hurt their sales?”
“Anything without a price on it doesn’t get purchased,” declared u/Loud-Chicken6046.
“They got me with this!” reported u/petoftheweek. “Buying some men’s pants. No price on the tag, sign above said $40. More than I wanted to pay, but whatever. They rang up at $65! I just said screw it and told the worker I didn’t want them.”
“STOP SHOPPING AT TARGET,” u/letthetreeburn suggested. “These practices WILL CONTINUE AS LONG AS YOU LET THEM.”
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