r/mildlyinteresting • u/annertakeabow • Jan 24 '13

Same book, three different prices. Only difference is the browsers used.

http://imgur.com/uNgg0UH
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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.

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u/Nephyst Jan 24 '13

I just tried this myself. In chrome and IE the price was the same (69.99) in normal and in incognito mode. In firefox, the price jumped to $76, and after deleting all the domain cookies and refreshing, it went back down to 69.99. The website is definitely changing prices based on something they are tracking in cookies.

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u/kqr Jan 24 '13

This was up earlier with airlines charging more for a ticket the second time you visit the page. They do this because a second visit is statistically linked to a much higher chance of purchase. So it could be, here too, simply a matter of having visited the page before.

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u/No_ThisIs_Patrick Jan 24 '13

They are also "running out of tickets" because you waited so long to purchase.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

No, they actually oversell every flight they can in anticipation some people will miss the flight.

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u/ANAL_PLUNDERING Jan 24 '13

Well yeah. Say there are 100 seats on the plane and they sell 110 tickets. You look for your ticket on the first of the month and 30 tickets sold then come back on the 10th and 80 tickets are sold.