Study: Shoppers naive about retail prices online

Charging loyal customers higher prices

[chadmg]

When it comes to online shopping, which I do fair bit of, I do my research and scour the internet for the best price I can find. I had no clue that I could get different prices at the same store.

[cnn.com...]

Amazon.com outraged some customers in September 2000 after one buyer deleted the electronic tags on his computer that identified him as a regular customer and noticed the price of a DVD changed from $26.24 to $22.74.

So basically they lure you in with low prices until you become a regular customer. You then come to expect that they will always have the lowest or near lowest price. Then they charge you a higher price, to reward you for being a loyal customer. I can't say that I've ever fallen victim to this since I always shop for the lowest price, but it still puts a bad taste in my mouth.

Do any of you use this technique or know of some stores that do?

[shigamoto]

No I don't use this kind of technique. But it's actually not much different from what normal brick and mortar stores does. For example when a low price chain establish themselves they hold lower prices luring customers in and then they raise prices when they get more established.

[oneguy]

I hate to say it, but according to that study, I'd have to call 2/3 of internet users clueless. (not my normal view of people.)

2/3 believed...

...illegal to charge different people different prices... ...travel sites are required by law to offer the lowest airline prices possible...

Crazy.

I would find the amazon.com example to be a rather sinister attempt at market segmentation. They called it a pricing test, but I could see companies doing it with segments. Seems like it would make many consumers never shop there again if they noticed such a thing.

[KevinC]

if they noticed of course - most will not.