This reminds me of this tweet about Verzion's "agents waiting" implementation on their website fetching the real count one time and then randomly changing via Math.random(): https://twitter.com/mixonic/status/736575632226852865?lang=e...
Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?
31–40 of 99 posts
Re: Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?
#32Booking.com are the all-time kings of this approach. The search results page is littered with highlighted messages like. “4 people are looking at this room now” “2 people just booked at this hotel” “Too bad you already missed out on this hot deal” “X% of the neighbourhood/city/region you’re looking at is already booked!” ... It’s quite likely real information, but the timeframes and language are vague enough to make…
The "... just booked this hotel!" is the funniest because they make it seem like they booked it for the dates you're searching.
In reality it's somebody booked the hotel, at some point in the past X (minutes? hours? days?), for some dates in the future that more than likely have nothing to do with when you plan on being there.
Re: Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?
#33Music Festivals use this same concept. By having pricing tiers for tickets you can have more "sold out" events, as they happen at each stage, driving interest. It works, and it is REAL unlike the javascript you see here, but it is still stupid. Can you imagine going to a Donut shop in the morning that had just sold 10% of its daily inventory and them putting up a SOLD OUT sign for Tier 1 Early Bird donuts? I hope one…
I see this as a way to let people who are _very_ interested in the event ("true fans") get in while it's cheap, taxing those who are lazier or "lesser" fans for their dawdling.
It works out that way, but you also have a higher chance of forgetting about the concert ticket that you bought a year ago.
Also, since the ticket cartel is also a scalper, they get a cut of the resale action as well!
Re: Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?
#34I haven't heard of this website before. Don't forget that bad publicity is still publicity.
Re: Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?
#35Re: Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?
#36SH: Deceive until we get caught, then we will 'listen' to our customers and adapt.
Blegh.
Re: Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?
#37I haven't heard of this website before. Don't forget that bad publicity is still publicity.
>>I haven't heard of this website before.
StubHub is widely, widely known to anyone who attends music events or sporting events. It's the largest exchange by a lot. They don't need bad publicity to spread the word.
Re: Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?
#38I haven't heard of this website before. Don't forget that bad publicity is still publicity.
Sometimes. Unless bad publicity causes regular users to stop contributing revenue.
Re: Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?
#39Creating a false sense of urgency is a cornerstone of modern marketing. The only difference between this and any other marketing campaign is that you just happened to catch them this time. This is just like when you go to an electronics store and they put the super expensive tv (almost) nobody buys right next to the still very expensive but comparably more modest model. You are more likely to buy that second tv even…
This might be illegal according to FTC regulations. CFR 16 section 232.2 says:
"Another commonly used form of bargain advertising is to offer goods at prices lower than those being charged by others for the same merchandise in the advertiser's trade area (the area in which he does business). This may be done either on a temporary or a permanent basis, but in either case the advertised higher price must be based upon fact, and not be fictitious or misleading."
Re: Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?
#40Just to be clear, it isn't that it's taking the top few listings and randomly marking as sold, but that the code is going out and retrieving what appear to be already sold listings (as stored in the urgencyMessageListings variable), and just injecting the top 2 from that array randomly in positions 1-5 in the main list (through a Array.splice() call). While somewhat deceiving, it's not as bad as marking tickets that…
To me the problem here is the transition: they appear available then are marked as sold. Had they appeared sold from the start, that would have been fine. But by transitioning them they've stated a timeline for their sale which is incorrect.