Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

thehustle.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 250 posts

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

#221

Post by dontbenebby »

porpoisely wrote: post #171
chippy wrote: post #32

> Most online clothing brands offer ‘free’ shipping, with the catch that you have to meet a minimum purchase amount (often $100) to qualify. Some 58% of consumers will add additional items to their cart — often things they didn’t originally intend to purchase — just to “save” $5 to $10 on handling fees. You will find people vigorously defending their behaviour when challenged on this. For example: Amazon Prime. Amazo…

I'm embarrassed to say Amazon got me with this trap a few times. I'm at the checkout with a $19 mouse but amazon reminds me that I could get free shipping if I get to the $25. So I go back and look for something I need for $6 bucks. Can't find anything I need for $6 bucks so out of frustration I somehow end up with a $70 worth of stuff I don't need just to save a couple of bucks on shipping.

I try to keep an eye out for small things I could use and keep them in a list for this reason. AmazonBasics has a lot of cords and adapters and things I'd much rather get in lieu of a shipping charge.

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

#222

Post by xur17 »

mcv wrote: post #62
mojuba wrote: post #54

The shady economics of a non-functioning close button of an annoying "Subscribe to newsletter" popup. Bottom line: it works but also sends a negative subliminal signal to the visitors that a given business is desperate. Just something for website owners to have in mind.

I increasingly tend to close popups on websites by deleting them from the DOM through dev tools. Not the most user-friendly method, but it's quite thorough.

I have started putting made up email addresses, or `abuse@domain.com` into these boxes.

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

#223

Post by mikeash »

mcv wrote: post #217
mikeash wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that the only “price” that matters in the end is the total amount you pay, with shipping. If shipping is separate then they’re not really showing you “the price,” they’re just showing you a somewhat arbitrary number that sets a floor on the actual price you’ll pay.

> My point is that the only “price” that matters in the end is the total amount you pay, with shipping. Not at all, how that price is built up is extremely relevant. If an item is cheap but shipping is horrendously expensive, I go look if I can find it at another webshop that has more reasonable shipping. Shipping is part of the total price. Pretending it's not is taking information and choice away from the customer.

But there is no additional information in the general case. The amount charged for shipping is completely arbitrary. All you’re being told is that the price P is actually the sum of A + B, where A and B are just some amounts.

There are exceptions to this. For example, I trust McMaster-Carr to charge me whatever they get charged for shipping, which is good because they won’t tell you in advance what it will cost. But in general it’s just another number. It’s a really common scam to have a cheap item with expensive shipping in order to trick people who aren’t paying close enough attention.

Put it this way: store A is selling widget X for $40 with “free shipping,” store B sells it for $35 plus $5 shipping, and store C is $15 plus $25 shipping. Who do you buy from?

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

#225

Post by mcv »

mikeash wrote: post #223
mcv wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My point is that the only “price” that matters in the end is the total amount you pay, with shipping. Not at all, how that price is built up is extremely relevant. If an item is cheap but shipping is horrendously expensive, I go look if I can find it at another webshop that has more reasonable shipping. Shipping is part of the total price. Pretending it's not is taking information and choice away from the customer.

But there is no additional information in the general case. The amount charged for shipping is completely arbitrary. All you’re being told is that the price P is actually the sum of A + B, where A and B are just some amounts. There are exceptions to this. For example, I trust McMaster-Carr to charge me whatever they get charged for shipping, which is good because they won’t tell you in advance what it will cost. But…

By that argument everything is "just a number". It's still part of the sum.

For example, if C sells something else that I want that's also much cheaper than a the other shops, and it won't increase shipping costs much, then that's the better option. If not, I may continue to shop around until I find a shop that combines low item price with reasonable shipping cost.

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

#226

Post by jghn »

mrec wrote: post #167
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.

It's not like bottled beer goes off, so unless you were planning to buy 2 bottles and then never buy beer ever again , I don't see the problem.

Bottled beer does start to acquire off flavors over time

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

#227

Post by Broken_Hippo »

hopler wrote: post #153
vxNsr wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to commodities, the best thing to do is shop by unit, ignore the "sale price" and the msrp, look only at the cost/ounce or cost/unit most US stores list both on their price tags, though you have to watch out for when they use different measurements for directly competing products (ie kellogs sold by the ounce while store brand by the pound). In semi-blind taste tests I've always preferred the name brand…

The name brands taste better because they have put more effort into researching weird chemicals that taste good

... Not really.

There are slews of items that have laws governing them. Milk is milk. Butter has to follow a formula. Flour is flour, rice is rice.

Butter might feed their cows differently, though, and flours have different gluten contents. Rice can be different varieties. In all of these, however, there isn't much different.

Other things are preferences. For example, my father preferred any-brand-but-Kellogg's corn flakes, but my spouse is in the only-Kellogg's-will-do camp. There isn't much difference between brands after that: Kelloggs flakes tend to be thicker and it changes the taste.

There are slews of store brands that are much better in taste - and ingredients - than their name-brand counterparts. The store brands aren't spending lots of money advertising, after all, and can invest that money into making products that are yummy. Having good-quality store-brand products gets people into your stores.

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

#228

Post by celticninja »

pattle wrote: post #29
rlue wrote: post #21

What makes this really interesting is how living in an economy where prices are both set by the seller and non-negotiable causes consumers to equate asking price with value. As a consequence, BOGO feels like a better deal than one item at 50% off MSRP. A 50% discount is a change in the asking price; the value of this item must have depreciated in some way for the seller to want to get rid of it (e.g., this garment is…

> 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…

I always check the price per litre/gram/unit etc because sometimes what looks like a good deal isn't.

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

#229

Post by vxNsr »

mikeash wrote: post #183
vxNsr wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and "Free delivery". I'd argue this is legitimate, or at least everyone is footing the bill when you request delivery. But that's no different than everyone footing the bill for having tables and chairs in the shop.

A discount for getting it yourself is the same as charging for delivery, though. And “free” delivery never is, at least in then US where tips are expected.

Rarely is there a discount for getting it yourself. usually the price is the same and either they charge for delivery or they don't.

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

#230

Post by mikeash »

vxNsr wrote: post #229
mikeash wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A discount for getting it yourself is the same as charging for delivery, though. And “free” delivery never is, at least in then US where tips are expected.

Rarely is there a discount for getting it yourself. usually the price is the same and either they charge for delivery or they don't.

The shop discussed in the original comment does it.
Post reply on HN