The price of groceries continues to increase—and as tensions across the globe mount, these costs are expected to get even higher.
According to NBC News, the price of orange juice has gone up by 31% since President Trump took office. Ground beef prices have also increased by 18% since January 2025.
In response to these rising prices, customers are finding all sorts of ways to save money. For example, some are now being more mindful of smaller costs, such as snacks or sides. Others are watching out for deceptive marketing and labeling to make sure they get the most out of their purchases.
Another thing shoppers might want to look out for is changing prices. According to one user on TikTok, some major chain stores may be looking at your preferences and using that information to try to get you to spend more money. But how?
What’s Going On With This Walmart Order?
In a video with over 103,000 views, TikTok user James Wrigg (@james_wrigg) claims that a woman recently reached out to him to share what she believed may be a scam on the part of Walmart.
“If you order online, they are trying to charge you 5 times the cost of an item in your favorites list,” Wrigg says.
According to Wrigg, a woman claimed that she frequently ordered a certain kind of Great Value pretzels. She put this item in her favorites list.
One day, she went to order more pretzels when she noticed that the price had skyrocketed. Instead of the normal $2.66, the pretzels were now $12.80.
The catch? She went out of her favorites and returned to the main page. Then, she searched up the item. They were still available for $2.66.
“What Walmart is trying to do is sneak items like this into your favorites list. So, in a hurry, you will select it unknowingly,” Wrigg declares.
Wrigg then speculates that Walmart may be doing this intentionally to get more money from one’s purchases.
“This is another one of Walmart’s deceptive practices, trying to squeeze every bit of purchasing dollar out of you,” he concludes.
Is This Real?
Prices can change pretty quickly on the internet. Therefore, it makes sense to be mindful of the price of an item before you order it, even if it’s something you order all the time. That way, if the price of an item has significantly increased, you can potentially replace it.
But is that really what happened here? It doesn’t look like it.
In reality, it appears that this is simply a glitch in Walmart’s website. If one looks at Walmart’s page for “Best Sellers In Pretzels Great Value Sticks,” one will see that the Great Value Ultra Thin Salty Pretzel Sticks, 16 oz, have been listed twice. One of the options has the product available for $2.44, while the other lists it at $12.78.
The difference is that the cheaper option is sold by Walmart, while the more expensive option is sold by a marketplace seller called Global Vision. The latter is also labeled “G V” instead of Great Value.
It’s unclear how exactly this happened. Walmart has a rule that it will automatically remove items that are priced “egregiously higher than prices currently or recently offered for the same item on Walmart.com.”
It’s possible that the marketplace seller could be trying to circumvent Walmart’s rules by renaming their listing, then marking up the price in the hopes that someone will buy it anyway.
It’s also possible that this is a genuine mistake. Bad Marketplace catalog data could have caused Walmart’s system to treat the “G V” pretzels as a different product instead of merging them with Walmart’s Great Value product.
Commenters Are Upset
In the comments section, users shared their own gripes about Walmart.
“I had a bag of jelly ranchers in my favorites and the jolly rancher price was the same but it charged $113 for shipping,” alleged a user.
“I ordered off walmart..they shopped to the wrong house and when I called and told them the Pic of item on the porch isnt my porch and i never got them…they told me it showed item was delivered so no refund, your out of luck,” claimed another. “Haven’t shopped or ordered from them since.”
“It’s so hard to not buy from Walmart because they have a lot of stuff I like at a lower cost, but I’m holding back and sucking up the cost somewhere else,” offered a third.
Subplot reached out to Walmart via media relations contact form and Wrigg via TikTok and Instagram direct message.
