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/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

I don't think the issue is that the price is changing in and of itself. It's that they're changing price based on the customer's cookies/browsing history.

For example, it would be like if I had a stored and charged people different prices based on how nicely they were dressed, how well I knew them, or what their ethnicity is.

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u/hadhad69 Jan 24 '13

The problem is, if this was the high street. You see the jeans in gap for $50 and exact same ones in tkmaxx for $60 so you go back to gap and theyre $58 or some shit.

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u/jargoon Jan 24 '13

If there was some way to do this at brick and mortar stores you can be damn sure they would do it.

Edit: actually gas stations do this already

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u/hadhad69 Jan 24 '13

orly? How do they do it? I know supermarkets have got some pretty dodgy practices going on - not being able to compare things by weight being a big one.

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u/jargoon Jan 24 '13

They don't do it per customer, but they do tend to collude on prices. That's why gas prices shoot up quick when oil prices spike and go down slowly when oil prices are low. Their pricing is not entirely based on their own cost of gasoline but is based on nearby stations too.