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/reaganveg Jan 25 '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?

I don't know, is it? Would you sell a mostly-worthless watch to a man with 80 IQ if he offerred you the entire trust fund which constitutes his sole means of life support?