Are you paying the best price at online retailers?
An article by the Sunday Times about Amazon pricing, revealed a well known practice called "Dynamic Pricing", although not new, this method of pricing items according to different pieces of information the retailer has collected about the consumer, takes us back to the danger of profiling and how unethical this can be. It is now gaining momentum that we see major publications warning their readers to be aware of such practices when making online purchases.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/true-cost-of-amazon-pricing-revealed-pl0kj5gwt
What is Dynamic Pricing?
If you are a shopper at any online retailer chances are at one point or another you have been the victim of Dynamic Pricing. Although The times articles references Amazon in particular, this dynamic pricing is widespread on the internet, Amazon was selected basically because it's the biggest online retailer.
| Online retailers are paying 100's of millions of dollars a year to buy your private information, and turn around to use it or resell it to partners. Your private information in this case is your surfing habits, what music or videos you watch, what articles you read, what is your favorite news outlet, what car you drive, what pets you have or like and the list goes on and on. |
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So how does that information factor in the unethical practice of dynamic pricing?
| Let's assume you are a proud pet owner of a cat, your cat pics are on your facebook or twitter account, the next time you look at a cat food/toy offer chances are the price you see as a great deal is not what someone else sees. You are paying a premium because of information you already revealed. They know you need this product and thus are willing to pay more for it. But this is done with a lot of research and the prices they offer will seem to be a fair deal, but the reality is your habits have stopped you from getting the best possible deal. |  |
Another item that might factor into the pricing scheme is your interests, how many times did you read about the new upcoming iphone, or watched a video about it? did you know if you have done that you already influenced the best offers that companies are willing to make you to get your business?
Dynamic Pricing can also be affected by the time of year you make the purchase, time is of the essence, retailers change prices based on supply and demand, buying an item during times of high demand greatly influence the price as well.
So what to do to be certain you are not a victim of Dynamic Pricing?
1- Download a shopping browser, a browser you do not use on regular basis. Prevents tracking of surfing habits and the influence that puts on an item price. This does not prevent IP tracking.
2- Get a shopping friend, if you have friend or family in a different location/state, ask them to look for that specific item you are looking for and see if they get a better price option with the online retailer.
3- Bookmark your item and see if the price changes every other day. That works great for items you buy on regular basis, or items you do not need to buy immediately.
4- Coupon code discounts, most retailers offer sizable discounts on purchases with coupon codes, you can find these posted all over the internet by people who used them and rated them.
5- Email offers, if your online retailer has an option for email offers, make sure to check that option. Some retailers like NewEgg offer sizable one day discounts that applies to any item you buy, combine that with other manufacturer or discount offers to get a great deal.
These things will help you a bit with dynamic pricing, there are of course more steps you can take like using a vpn or more private browsing, but that is a bit extreme and might prevent you from fully enjoying your web surfing experience.
Great info as always. We need more cyrpto themed apps most are lame. Thanks agaun for the quality stuff.
Alot of people think that services like facebook and other similar services are free... these companies are selling your private info. There is no free lunch.
Totally agree. Our personal identifiable information is a product to them, therefore we are their business to make money.
Follow me @Yehey
Thank you.
but hey! All I have to do is upload my photo ID, my real name, phone number, address, mothers maiden name, a copy of my family crest, a DNA sample, a tissue sample from my first born, let them track me across the internet, monitor my surfing, manipulate my newsfeed (and by extension, my emotions) and then they let me reconnect with people I don't like and show them pictures of the food I've eaten. Wünderbar!
Not accurate. Facebook is protecting information the collected and extracted from your online behaviour like a Tiger is protecting its cubs.
But they do sell your information via ad profiling. If you go to FB and just start an ad campaign for fun, you will see that you can profile ads in great detail by gender, income bracket, gender, state, city, preferences, hobbies, sexual orientation, etc.
And then you pay for the ad campaign. FB is the worst of them all. Twitter is also profiling, but to the same extent (they are also making far less money than FB).
Google is also collecting data like there is no tomorrow, but you can escape them by using DuckDuckGo for example.
Amazon is also collecting informations to improve shopping recommendations, but their algorithms are confused easily.
Netflix is collecting, but is also confused easily if more than one user is using the same account and same persona. Netflix's content profiling is really cool (they do analyse content).
Google, fb, insta and many more...just tools that sell our info
Thanks for sharing this😁😁😁
You are right that they monitor your movement and we call that artificial intelligent software.These software is monitoring all you activities including your hobbies and likes. I believed aside from your recommendations. You have to wait also on their monthly or quarterly or yearly discount days and thus you can save up to 70%. Example in our country Philippines I like levis pants normally it cost us P6,000 per pant when the sale day comes less 70% and I got only P1,800 and saved P5,200. Because I knew Alibaba.com they makes one day sale in a year and the generate $100B in one day sales! Excellent report joseph cheer you up! Upvote my reply or comments and I will up vote your all articles. Thanks!
nice post bro come to my channel some times haha :)
I upvoted you
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Post is goood & thanku for making aware of it
Very good article. I am very much interested about the impact of the new GDPR that comes into effect next year. The GDPR (the new EU privacy law) has some very strict regulations around profiling. One of the ground rules is that a company may only perform profiling if you, the customer, has given explicit consent for it. Curious about the pricing developments between people being profiled and people not being profiled.
Thanks for sharing this informational article this will help us much more..:)
thanks for the information. what your news is useful for us all ..
You have to wait also on their monthly or quarterly or yearly discount days and thus you can save up to 70%. I Never Knew My Social Media Accounts Had That Effect On Dynamic Pricing
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good post
Great I love it..
Excellent Sir @joseph
I Learnt something new today, thanks to you. Nice post!!!
Thanks for sharing..
thnx friend
Dynamic pricing has come to air travel, hotel rooms and sports
As you said, dynamic pricing is unethical. Companies like amazon are not only killing small business but also ruining our culture (in my opinion it does not matter if you are European or American, that is a global problem). Great post, thanks.
hi Mr @Joseph, you always bring a new topic which is full of intrest and in which you convey they message in very beautifully way about the problems facing on online shoping. we think that social media services like fbook,twiter etc are free but after reading your post many people know that there is no free at all and these companies sold our informations.now a days everyone have no time to go to market and they preffer online shoping but you describe the demerits of online shopping in a easy way i hv many time experienced that their quality of material is low and prices were to high and the companies looted the consumers with both hands. thnx a lot for u such a this kind of helpful post. i always supporting and waiting for your every post.
dynamic pricing is criminal imho
Good article! Thank you for warning us!
There is another good way to reduce the price of goods before payment - bargain :)
Thanks for sharing!
Thank you soo much sir for this
OMG I knew these companies took our private data and all to analyse the data and provide results and content based on it which would increase their chances of profit; but I sure did not know that THEY SHOWED US DIFFERENT PRICES TOO! I mean taking data is not good but they do it to better their profits. Alright, agreed. But this shit? This is so, so not fair! 😤
And oh yeah thanks for the post @joseph! :) I didn't know such dirty shit happened on the online markets! Do drop by my blog and follow if you like what you see :)
there is no something like free lunch in this world..everything has a monetary value or they are trying to give a monetary value..nice post..thanks :)
deep insights of facts studied and displayed well. We alll must know these to safeguard ourself in some way or get the pie of things they reap on us, keep sharing this is good stuff.
I like this post :) I hope you make more this posts :)
Briefly, it's due to programmatic targeting.
I Never Knew My Social Media Accounts Had That Effect On Dynamic Pricing lol !!!
Now i will take care of this Dynamic Pricing thing thanks a lot for sharing :)
Card nice
Thanks for sharing :-)
I am new on steemit !
( Best of luck )
Desentralisation will change the game !
Nice post
Good
well now a days there are many sites with same thing but very high prices i think there should be a site which compare things for us in lowest or best price ... who's agree with me ?
Thanks information, good news for sha
i'm new in steemit ,, please follow me @danihom
Really useful and informative article @joseph !
Every giant are playing with data about us and earning from us.
Wow- I hadn't even considered this could be an issue, but it totally makes sense. Sites are already showing us things we have taken any interest in later in ads, so it shouldn't be a surprise that there would be yet another thing to look out for when shopping. I wonder if comparison shopping apps help at all or just make it worse?
Congratulations @joseph!
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Thanks