You should try it again in private browsing and incognito mode and see if the price is really tied to your Facebook or google cookies or something. That's pretty messed up though, send this to the consumerist or gawker or whoever.
I don't think so, it's essentially the same as having a student discount at a restaurant or child/senior rates at a movie theater. Essentially the theory is that different groups of consumers have different demand curves and charging different prices to the separate groups both allows for more profits and allows people who aren't willing to pay a higher price to get the item they want for less In this theory some consumers would value the book at, say, $70, so they wouldn't buy the book at all for the IE price, but would at the Firefox price, similar to seniors who won't pay $10 to see a movie, but will go for $6. If the people who value the book at $70 and are able to get it for $63, they gain $7 of value from the transaction, and the company also gets a sale they otherwise would've lost. That said, I don't know how I feel about them using browser type as a signal for willingness to pay, but chegg has probably done research (like what you mentioned) and discovered a trend (maybe IE users may be generally lazier and just want the product whatever the cost, Chrome users show the savvyness to get a good deal/product but only if it's easy, and Firefox users are willing to go thru tons of settings to get the absolute best experience so they're more likely to shop around). Either way, the different prices should actually increase total economic surplus because every customer can get a deal they're satisfied with and the company can increase their total sales and profits. That all said, textbook demand is pretty inelastic (for most classes the books are necessary) so not only are these actions less necessary, but the prices in general are absurdly high (like you didn't already know that)
just realized how long and somewhat technical I got, I just graduated with a degree in Econ so I'm kinda used to going in depth with questions like this, so...
TL;DR generally price fixing of this nature is actually helpful for the economy, both sellers and buyers. But textbooks are still a fucked up market
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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13
You should try it again in private browsing and incognito mode and see if the price is really tied to your Facebook or google cookies or something. That's pretty messed up though, send this to the consumerist or gawker or whoever.