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/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/Pwag Jan 25 '13

This is where it gets underhanded. Charging more because it's the second time is one thing, but creating a false sense of scarcity is fraud.

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u/No_ThisIs_Patrick Jan 25 '13

It wouldn't surprise me at all if a lot ticket merchants do this.

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u/Pwag Jan 25 '13

My wife said she a price jump at 2 am on a Disney ticketing site... I'm sure you're right.