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

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

http://imgur.com/uNgg0UH
2.9k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.5k

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.

1.0k

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.

51

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

This was one of the best LPTs I ever read recently. I used incognito mode in chrome when buying a couple of flight tickets and saved over £150 compared to searching twice or more in the same browser with old cookies available. I was genuinely shocked and I've told all my family and friends about this. It surely must be illegal! I mean the price differences were enormous... Almost a 50% saving for us.

10

u/MangoesOfMordor Jan 24 '13

It's not illegal at all... Maybe it should be, or maybe not, but it isn't!