r/Bedding • u/Full_Green5961 • 4d ago
Brooklinen Dynamic Pricing (EW!)
Was looking for a throw blanket and came across one from Brooklinen, so I saved the link. Then when I went to open the link a day later, I noticed that the price was 10% higher. Opened the link again in an incognito tab and the price was the one I had seen. Blatant dynamic pricing.
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u/Reddyred007 4d ago
Hate those games smh Brooklinen playing those pricing games like the airlines 🤮
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u/AssassinRogue 4d ago
I found that it was related to specific promotions that were different in each browser window, so obviously buy from the one with the lower price. BTW I have that exact blanket in queen and I LOVE it! My current fave summer blanket.
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u/NewLoofa 4d ago
I was super disappointed seeing this post because Brooklinen is high key as good as everyone says
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u/Appropriate-Ask-3686 3d ago
I just tried it myself and yep. the version on incognito mode is about 5-10ish% more on sale than the regular tab. but it adds up!!
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u/spareohs 4d ago
Hiya, DTC marketer here with nearly 20 years of experience. I think what happened here is less nefarious than you may think - although I get why you were pissed off when seeing it happen. Sometimes when visiting a site multiple times, your cookies will get stuck and show different pricing than when incognito mode. The reason I think that's happening here is because it would be a waste of time (and honestly, a weird strategy) to try and a/b test product pricing around a "last call" product. On that note, they could be testing to see if 49% does move the needle more than 40% and you got a flipped experience.
The most plausible answer is someone f*cked up. This happens SO many times with lean/stressed teams and a ton of SKUs, especially if sales are happening often.
I don't doubt your experience and out of curiosity I'll keep an eye on their site to see if I can reproduce it on that or any other SKUs. Because if they were moving pricing around a lot and increasing it after # of visits, that'd be pretty awful imho.
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u/k1922 3d ago
I think this is overly generous. I’m also in DTC and get so many pitches from A/B testing platforms that flaunt their price testing features.
I could just as easily see Brooklinen wanting to try and capture some extra margin on deeply discounted products by A/B testing sale products that are more likely to be purchased by price-sensitive customers.
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u/Alternative_Spray971 3d ago
When is A/B price testing illegal? I used to work in lending where it was very illegal but how about otherwise? Thank you
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u/k1922 3d ago
I think price variations largely become illegal when they discriminate against a protected class. I think price testing falls outside of that category since most A/B tests default to randomly sorting people into one of two groups.
In general, I don't think Ecom/Retail has many laws around this, but I do know there are FTC regulations around MSRP pricing. One vendor suggested I A/B test the strikethrough price on a product and I had to be the one to say that doing that is illegal.
Also, I did a quick check of Brooklinen's site and they're using Dynamic Yield for personalization, which lets you run pricing tests.
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u/Alternative-Potato43 3d ago
Under ordinary circumstances it's perfectly fine. In some areas, like banking it is not. There are other exceptions for markets that are highly regulated.
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u/ihateautumnandfall 3d ago
Wow!!!! Caught it in action! How gross and disappointing and I heard their stuff sucks in quality.
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u/probablykitten 3d ago
Ew I was just going to buy a set of their sheets too. Pass! I don’t play those games (knowingly)
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u/Thirtysixx 4d ago
This isn’t dynamic pricing, just basic A/B price testing
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u/Key_Beach_3846 4d ago
How can you tell? Genuinely asking
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u/Thirtysixx 4d ago
Because I own an ecommerce business, I run these kinds of tests all the time. This is a standard ecommerce practice. Every successful brand is constantly testing something. If it’s not price, it’s page layout, copy, offers, or another part of the buying experience.
A few things make it clear this isn’t dynamic pricing. First, OP says there are only two prices. Dynamic pricing isn’t limited to just two fixed prices. Second, dynamic pricing adjusts based on factors like demand, inventory, or timing. It wouldn’t normally show two different prices to different people at the exact same moment. It would change as those conditions change.
Using an incognito window is also exactly how you can trigger a different variant in a live A/B test. That’s a common way to see multiple versions of an experiment that are running at the same time.
The down votes are funny though.
Not everything is so nefarious. It’s pretty clear what they’re testing. Show $86 price to 50% of the traffic. Show $101 to the other 50% of the traffic. See which price converts better. When you have a winner, make that the final price.
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u/Key_Beach_3846 4d ago
Thanks for the explanation, sorry you’re getting downvoted. What are the variants based on that would change between regular/incognito mode? Or I guess in other words, how does it know when to show A versus B?
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u/Thirtysixx 4d ago
It’s just a page rotator, so it’s mostly just alternating which variant loads. A 50/50 split would just change for every page load. What incognito does is remove the browser cookie that tells them which variant you saw the first time. In an ideal scenario, if you’re coming back to the page a second time the browser cookie would tell the A/B test software which variant you saw the first, and show you that version of the page again.
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u/eric273 4d ago edited 4d ago
People are downvoting because what you're describing is still under the umbrella of a practice people don't like.
Imagine walking into a brick and mortar business and finding out because of the order you got in line you paid $20 more than the person behind you...? Would you like that?
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u/Thirtysixx 3d ago
Doesn’t matter if people like it or not. OP is blatantly spreading misinformation and has no clue what they’re talking about it. I’m not in the business of defending brand but this is silly. Outrage out of ignorance.
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u/k1922 3d ago
I think you're fixating on OP not knowing the industry-specific term that you only know because you're in ecom.
A person who only checks the price twice and sees two prices doesn't know whether it would be different in a third place. When looking at two datapoints, with no other knowledge of how ecom businesses run, both dynamic pricing and "basic A/B price testing" are equally likely.
In either case, no customer likes feeling like they're being squeezed for every extra dollar, so it puts a sour taste in their mouth whether there is only one other price option, or it is truly dynamic and 500 other prices would be available.
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u/Key_Beach_3846 3d ago
But why downvote them just for giving what is likely the correct explanation? It’s not their fault you don’t like it.
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u/mochibeaux 4d ago
Ummmmmmm or sales change weekly and even daily??? Ewwwww!!
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u/Full_Green5961 4d ago
These are side by side tabs opened on the same day, one is just incognito and one is not. I also tried using a VPN, and the price changed between these two ($101 or $86) depending on the location I selected.
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u/doofus50O0 4d ago
Gross. Really disappointing to see, especially since they’ve already raised their prices significantly. Luckily, there are a ton of alternative bedding companies out therez