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A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

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Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#171

Post by input_sh »

shultays wrote: post #152
miohtama wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All EU prices must be tax included. All hospitality prices must include cleaning and service fees. It is only the US were hidden fees and charges may apply and the price regulation, if any, is more tilted towards corporations. Only upfront shipping charge is tricky because it depends on so many factors.

I find not including tax better tbh. That way people are being reminded how much tax they are with every purchase.

Every EU bill should come with the price without VAT (value-added tax) and with the VAT applied, leading to the same result.

The only difference is that the VAT is a certain % depending on your country (mostly 15-25%), making it easy for a merchant to calculate it with a single data point. Percentage is also always a fixed round number, so you can calculate it in your head when you stumble upon "+ VAT" somewhere without providing that data point to the merchant for calculation purposes.

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#172

Post by axlee »

Youden wrote: post #135

When and why did news cease being news and start being short stories and opinion? This entire article could have been cut down to the last few paragraphs and nothing of value would have been lost. Look at The New York Times in 1921 [0]. Generally the stories are factual and to the point. The entire front page seems to be pure news. There's very little storytelling here, at most there are a few timelines of events. Lo…

If you want the "pure" news as in 1921, subscribe directly to AP/AFP/Reuters/EFE. The world has changed, and most of the added value of newspapers now comes from contextualization that you seem to disregard to having no value, despite being the higher journalistic effort.

It's easy to report that a chicken died crossing the road, it's a lot harder to explain what chain of events led to a chicken dying crossing the road.

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#173

Post by galacticaactual »

gretch wrote: post #156
galacticaactual wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I view this phenomenon as a sort of sociological entropy. Anything bad that can happen will happen if the people tolerate it. Same with shitty politicians, encroaching of rights, etc. Its all just a matter of time.

This theory doesn't hold up against the test of time. We used to have tyrant monarchs - Genghis Khan would roam the steppe and cutting people's heads off and that would be normal every day life. There are still bad things today, but more people have more rights and a higher quality of life.

It's unclear what you're rebutting here. My position is that on a cyclic basis, there will always be societal elements that will trend towards the negative and nefarious as long as it is tolerated. The fact that the global minimum for such things manifested themselves much more severely (as in your example) in the past does not change the fact that it still occurs today.

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#174

Post by supernova87a »

Youden wrote: post #135

When and why did news cease being news and start being short stories and opinion? This entire article could have been cut down to the last few paragraphs and nothing of value would have been lost. Look at The New York Times in 1921 [0]. Generally the stories are factual and to the point. The entire front page seems to be pure news. There's very little storytelling here, at most there are a few timelines of events. Lo…

Maybe you don't know this, but the "A-hed" article of the WSJ is the humorous, light-hearted take on some cultural phenomenon that appears every couple of days. It's got a distinct separation (graphically) from the rest of the news, and is written not to be taken too seriously. (It's not so apparent in the online version, if you haven't read it before).

So you don't have to worry that it's some broad decline in journalistic standards (at least based on this)... The WSJ is one of the few quite reputable news rooms out there.

You can read about A-hed articles here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303362404575580...

And there was even a book published a few years ago with collections of these kinds of amusing stories: https://www.amazon.com/Floating-Off-Page-Stories-Journals/dp...

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#175

Post by totony »

perl4ever wrote: post #165
e15ctr0n wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Genghis Khan Genghis Khan was neither a tyrant nor a monarch, nor was cutting off heads a part of his everyday life. He actually got more Mongol people more rights and a higher quality of life. I would request you to read a detailed and accurate account of his life by a historian. For example, Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy by Frank McLynn https://amzn.com/B00X2ZW5ZI

Do you find the following inaccurate or biased, and if so, for the uninformed, briefly why? "Campaigns initiated in his lifetime include those against the Qara Khitai, Khwarezmia, and the Western Xia and Jin dynasties, and raids into Medieval Georgia, the Kievan Rus', and Volga Bulgaria. These campaigns were often accompanied by large-scale massacres of the civilian populations, especially in the Khwarazmian- and Wes…

From what I've seen Ganghis Khan was brutal against non-surrendering nations, but beneficial for those who followed him. E.g. you woulsn't see him cutting his subjects heads, and his brutality was pretty much an intimidation tactic so others army would join him.

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#176

Post by supernova87a »

galacticaactual wrote: post #150
Youden wrote: post #135

When and why did news cease being news and start being short stories and opinion? This entire article could have been cut down to the last few paragraphs and nothing of value would have been lost. Look at The New York Times in 1921 [0]. Generally the stories are factual and to the point. The entire front page seems to be pure news. There's very little storytelling here, at most there are a few timelines of events. Lo…

I view this phenomenon as a sort of sociological entropy. Anything bad that can happen will happen if the people tolerate it. Same with shitty politicians, encroaching of rights, etc. Its all just a matter of time.

Suggest you read my comment above, before you let this one story make you think the decline of civilization is imminent.

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#177

Post by dheera »

mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #43
whoisjuan wrote: post #8

This bot is simply trying to get the final price (with tax and shipping) which is ridiculous because e-commerce storefronts should do that in the first place without going through the whole checkout process. I always have found that kind of shady but it's probably known to increase conversions. What I found interesting is that this an open attack vector for e-commerces. Multiple bots can hit a website and start addin…

Not all shipping charges can be calculated ahead of time. For example, you may offer free shipping on orders over $50. You may charge $9.99 for the first item, $5.99 for each additional item. You may charge by weight of the whole order. You may have oversized items or packages that can be combined to reduce shipping charges. Some items may ship together as OTR Freight, while others can go via the local postal service…

You could GeoIP the user's IP address and display an initial tax + shipping estimate.

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#178

Post by dheera »

soganess wrote: post #84

For people saying this to calculate the final price with shipping and tax, it's not (or at least not entirely). It is for this new sales conversion dark pattern where prices aren't listed until you add to cart. Ebay sellers are particularly bad offenders: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Open-Box-Certified-Samsung-Galaxy-1...

I personally believe that anything that can be automated by software should be automated by software. If it takes programmatically clicking exactly the same A, B, C, D sequence to display what the user wants, that clicking should be done by the machine, not the human.

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#179

Post by Alupis »

cortesoft wrote: post #168
Alupis wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a one-time rejection, and is rightfully treated like an unsubscribe request. No harm done to either party - and the merchant is actually happy since we don't want to bother you. Guess what? Angry customers don't buy your products. Seems intuitive. You might think people don't want these emails just because you don't want these emails. That's pretty biased. Ask any ecommerce company - these emails, both marketi…

I never said no one wants them; I was very careful to say that I considered it a dark pattern, not that it was a certain dark pattern. Also, I don't think any amount of statistics is going to be able to show you if people truly want emails or ads... just because they increase sales doesn't mean people want them. Ads can be both effective and unwanted.

> I never said no one wants them; I was very careful to say that I considered it a dark pattern, not that it was a certain dark pattern.

OK fine, perhaps I interpreted your OP incorrectly. That's your prerogative, and you can do whatever you please.

> Also, I don't think any amount of statistics is going to be able to show you if people truly want emails or ads... just because they increase sales doesn't mean people want them. Ads can be both effective and unwanted.

True, but we're not just talking about increased sales.

We, and most companies that are serious about this stuff, track open rates, number of times the same person opened the same email, click rates, text link vs image link clicks, page dwell time after clicking through, session length and bounce rate, which pages they browse, which products they view, were the products related to the email that initiated the session, did they add something to their cart, how frequently this individual engages with our content, how long they were dormant, order frequency, etc.

Basically, we're interested in how "Engaged" you are with the site, brand(s), products and content. People who open every email, click on a bunch of links, hang out on the site for 20 minutes and add stuff to their cart are highly engaged, and are doing actions that indicate they like what they are seeing/receiving.

Remember, the people signing up for marketing emails are the most likely to be engaged with your brand/product/website. They've actively said, yes, please end me content from your company. If they lose interest some day, no problem, either our stats will show this and we'll unsubscribe them automatically, or they'll actively unsubscribe themselves.

Ads might be a different beast - however, you'd be surprised how many people click ads, and then buy products. It's immense. Clearly, the value provided there was getting the right product in front of them, matching what they were looking for, and offering it at a price that's attractive to that customer. In this scenario, I'd say it's wanted too - they got what they were looking for quickly and effectively. Everyone is happy in that scenario.

Everyone else can just run an ad blocker and choose not to subscribe to marketing emails. I do both myself... but I'd never assert these things were unwanted by a lot of people or ineffective.

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#180

Post by nickip »

dheera wrote: post #177
mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all shipping charges can be calculated ahead of time. For example, you may offer free shipping on orders over $50. You may charge $9.99 for the first item, $5.99 for each additional item. You may charge by weight of the whole order. You may have oversized items or packages that can be combined to reduce shipping charges. Some items may ship together as OTR Freight, while others can go via the local postal service…

You could GeoIP the user's IP address and display an initial tax + shipping estimate.

Tax isn't always only region based. You also need to account for Vat Tax which has a bunch of conditions around it too that you can't assume.
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