The shady economics of ‘buy one, get one free’ deals • Hacker News Board

Re: The shady economics of ‘buy one, get one free’ deals

#131

Post by Normal_gaussian » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #126

dazc wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A long running promotion in Tesco is 3 bottles of any brand beer for £5.25. I can't imagine anyone ever goes into a store with the intention of buying 3 bottles but if you just buy 2 you're misguided into thinking you'll lose out. In reality, you're spending more and drinking more than you really want to.

All that ever counts, regardless of "offer" or "saving" is the price per 100ml or kg. Thankfully the pesky EU interfered with the UK yet again and insisted that must always be displayed. Haven't used Tesco delivery for years, but their "best offers" always brought back the 10p and 7% savings, the real savings were on different tabs or buried in search. There was a search by cheapest, never by price per unit. Funny th…

MySupermarket offers a unit price ordering. Its invaluable.

Re: The shady economics of ‘buy one, get one free’ deals

#132

Post by mcv » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

vxNsr wrote: post #109

icebraining wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uBlock Origin has a visual picker, which also saves the blocking rule for future visits: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Element-picker

Only issue is the scrolling, how do I make a rule that blocks the inline js to prevent scrolling in the body elem. or worse when it's not inline.

I usually look at the body element and start removing classes there. That often works. But I suppose a plugin should be able to figure out automatically why something isn't scrolling.

Re: The shady economics of ‘buy one, get one free’ deals

#133

Post by ocdtrekkie » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 2:05 PM UTC

This article of course totally ignored the scenario where the buyer is aware of the going rate for a given item, and either stocks up when a sale happens or waits until the price point they want to pay. The article basically is suggesting "deals are bad" instead of what it should be saying, which is "don't fall for bad deals".

Re: The shady economics of ‘buy one, get one free’ deals

#134

Post by GordonS » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #126

dazc wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A long running promotion in Tesco is 3 bottles of any brand beer for £5.25. I can't imagine anyone ever goes into a store with the intention of buying 3 bottles but if you just buy 2 you're misguided into thinking you'll lose out. In reality, you're spending more and drinking more than you really want to.

All that ever counts, regardless of "offer" or "saving" is the price per 100ml or kg. Thankfully the pesky EU interfered with the UK yet again and insisted that must always be displayed. Haven't used Tesco delivery for years, but their "best offers" always brought back the 10p and 7% savings, the real savings were on different tabs or buried in search. There was a search by cheapest, never by price per unit. Funny th…

What really annoys me though is Tesco displays the price per/unit using different units, so you're constantly having to figure it out in your head - one loaf of bread might display the price per 100g, another the price per 1kg etc.

Re: The shady economics of ‘buy one, get one free’ deals

#135

Post by mrhappyunhappy » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 2:09 PM UTC

maaaats wrote: post #68

pattle wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This isn't even getting into the actual value of perceived value (cf. the sticker price of wine vs. its perceived quality). Really interesting stuff. I fall foul of this trick quite a lot when food shopping. For example if I'm buying a box of cereals and I see one is priced at £1.80 and another is priced at £2.50 but is on sale from £3.50 I'll buy the more expensive one because I'm under the illusion that I'm getti…

Even without discount on the more expensive one, it can be used as a marketing trick to make you buy more expensive. For instance offer three versions of a product: $1 branded as cheap/bad, $2 branded as good, $5 branded as luxury. The last one exists mainly to anchor the value of the $2 as also cheap and to make you buy it. If one only had the choice between $1 and $2, most people would choose $1 option.

Branding and perceived high quality due to high price works ridiculously well too. My wife will always want to buy the higher price item because “it’s probably better”. I’ve looked at pricing and anchoring extensively and know better but at this point I gave up trying to convince her. Now marketers take our money and I won’t blink an eye, just cry inside.

Re: The shady economics of ‘buy one, get one free’ deals

#136

Post by tyingq » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 2:10 PM UTC

afpx wrote: post #122

I’m very interested in knowing what proportion of retail revenue comes from these types of dark patterns. Is it even possible to come up with a number? If so, I’d be willing to help fund the research. The other day a friend and I were discussing the “take X% off your entire order” coupons. These seem to be very common, lately. She mentioned that she recent used one on a cart of $100 in items. She expected a $20 disco…

"Free shipping" is a funny one. For smaller businesses, it's basically subsidizing far away customers with nearby customer money.

I offer it not because I want to deceive people, but because we sell more that way. People like predictable upfront prices without having to tell anyone their location.

It is, of course, not "free". We just calculate the average shipping cost and pad the price.

Re: The shady economics of ‘buy one, get one free’ deals

#137

Post by GordonS » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

dazc wrote: post #98

joshvm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that other retailers charge upwards of £10 for Saturday courier delivery, Amazon is cheap. They also have fairly no-questions-asked customer service policies which is nice.

The refund policy is many times fairer in the UK than with other retailers. I never fell like I'm taking a risk with Amazon. OK, they have a fake products problem but I haven't experienced that yet.

They seem to have made refunds even easier recently too - you don't even need to print a label, just drop off the box at a post office!

The easy returns process is something I really value with Amazon.

Re: The shady economics of ‘buy one, get one free’ deals

#138

Post by JustSomeNobody » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

jacobyoder wrote: post #96

underwater wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not exactly beating the system. That's just plain old brand loyalty, which companies love. You've stopped shopping based on quality or value, and they can turn a profit without investing anything into marketing.

paganel is saving time by no thinking about the issue, so 'winning' in some sense. However... you don't know what the brand is. The brand may be the store brand, which... while it's brand loyalty, is almost always the cheapest, and usually don't have any marketing expense beyond the product in the store in the first place. I've learned to love most store brands, and... it may be my mind rationalizing it, but I think…

Store brands have certainly gotten much better. I generally try and buy as many store brands as I can. There are a few items where I like the flavor of a brand name better, but not many.

Re: The shady economics of ‘buy one, get one free’ deals

#139

Post by ianai » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #133

This article of course totally ignored the scenario where the buyer is aware of the going rate for a given item, and either stocks up when a sale happens or waits until the price point they want to pay. The article basically is suggesting "deals are bad" instead of what it should be saying, which is "don't fall for bad deals".

I agree, in the mane. But I think their point isn’t for people who target a specific good or service but who instead suddenly enter a market (purchase something they wouldn’t otherwise purchase) because of a BOGO deal.

Quote “”Retailers are often as guilty as you can get with manipulating price of an item,” says Cohen. “You’re often charged a price that nobody has ever paid; anything that’s free is just carved off the regular price.””

Re: The shady economics of ‘buy one, get one free’ deals

#140

Post by mrhappyunhappy » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

jamiethompson wrote: post #110

paganel wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I ended up doing in order to avoid this is that I’ve been buying from the same brands for some time now, i.e. the same soap, the same shampoo, the same butter (truth be told, for butter I fluctuate between two brands), the same chocolate, the same detergent etc. This way I don’t fall for tricks like the one you mentioned because I almost don’t care about any other brands and products than the ones I’m really int…

I'm very much the opposite. I have in mind what I want to pay for a certain item, butter for example, and I'll buy whatever brand is being promoted that week for my target price. As long as it's not absolute garbage of course. Maybe it's different in the UK than in other places, but the large supermarket chains are constantly running so many promotions that you can, if very brand disloyal, always shop smart based on…

Personally I go with whatever brand taste we like best. Of course I consider the nutritional value when looking at taste. These days we deliver most of our food to our house and the local supermarket that offers the service will have organic options of the same product but only to delivery subscribers. It’s weird but we are in Japan where things are weird. I can get sausage links with food coloring to make them more appealing or without but looking much less desirable. I don’t know if the prices differ since wife does all the ordering.