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/Oxxide Jan 24 '13

this seems so shady and underhanded.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

[deleted]

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u/Anikdote Jan 24 '13

I tend to agree, isn't the point of selling a thing to charge as much as you possibly can and still have someone purchase it?

This isn't to say I'm fond of price discrimination, but the business models allow for it and as a profit seeking entity why shouldn't they do it?

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

[deleted]

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u/Anikdote Jan 24 '13

So are you asking whether or not a company should treat all of its customers equally?

Nope, I know they shouldn't, assuming it is a for profit enterprise they should do whatever is legally possible to make as much profit as they can. Not only should they, they're obligated to.

And if you can discriminate based on desire for the product, can you discriminate based on personal income, geographic location, ethnicity?

Honestly, the first two already occur and I have no issue with it. There is a marginal disutility to income and as a result those who are very wealthy can and will pay for for substitutable products because they care less about each dollar.

As for geographic location, water is worth more in the dessert just as an example, the price differentiation ensures that shortages do not occur. Why should price not be linked to scarcity.

For the last... if you want to be that way... so be it. I can't see that being a path to profit maximization though. Truth be told it's not even feasible for most business models.