51–60 of 79 posts
Off-topic: Am I the only who can never load the comments on WSJ articles? This is across browsers (Firefox/Chrome) and platforms (Windows/Mac/iOS), and even with adblockers turned off. This article says it has 36 comments, so it must be working for most, but I can't seem to figure out why it never works for me.
This is a very unfortunate trend where sellers are selling not based on the value of the item/service, but demand/need of the consumer. It has been a common practice in airline industry, and upto some extent in healthcare. But now this practice is creeping into online shopping too. This can soon fall into unethical territory. Imagine an item, that costs $1. Just because it could be life-saving for someone, or someone…
you've just described capitalism
Sounds like a solution looking for a problem to me. For all of this complexity, Amazon rarely has a significant price advantage versus most retail stores. From a customer point of view, competitive categories have a flea market quality to them. For a company that is usually optimized for customer experience, this is a weird science experiment. IMO, they should make price adjustments less fluid. Require merchants to g…
I suspect (here as with the earlier story about imposter goods on Amazon) that the explanation for Amazon's behavior is that it doesn't have the resources to moderate the system its created. Disallowing price adjustments altogether wouldn't work for many categories- sometimes the price of milk just does go up, and retailers can't always just eat the difference. Disallowing only manipulative price adjustments would re…
I know anecdotally that non-techie people whom I associate with increasingly are wary about Amazon after getting scammed by fake phone accessories or gouged by Christmas toy prices.
When you consider that Amazon is moving into new categories where trust is critical, like food, this is going to hurt them. Every grocer peddles trust, "we're good neighbors", etc.
This is a very unfortunate trend where sellers are selling not based on the value of the item/service, but demand/need of the consumer. It has been a common practice in airline industry, and upto some extent in healthcare. But now this practice is creeping into online shopping too. This can soon fall into unethical territory. Imagine an item, that costs $1. Just because it could be life-saving for someone, or someone…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In case you're not being facetious: the price would change overnight not during business hours.
Maybe not. Dropping the prices on the wrapped sandwiches after lunch hour would be useful to clear out the unsold inventory.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Walmart can't change their prices as fast; humans have to re-label things. For now. Brick and mortar retailers can use radio-controlled e-ink shelf price tags for minute by minute price changes.[1] This hasn't really caught on yet, but the technology is ready. [1] http://www.eink.com/esl_tags.html
My mother used to be a scan coordinator at a grocery store. We have been talking about this eventually happening for over a decade. Although based on her experience, the infrastructure for even letting her know what pricing should be requires a major IT overhaul as well.
You essentially either need a power drop to each section of shelving, or you have to replace batteries on every sign through your store every X months or years.
Sounds like a solution looking for a problem to me. For all of this complexity, Amazon rarely has a significant price advantage versus most retail stores. From a customer point of view, competitive categories have a flea market quality to them. For a company that is usually optimized for customer experience, this is a weird science experiment. IMO, they should make price adjustments less fluid. Require merchants to g…
The issue is that there is no such thing as "the lowest price", it depends on supply and demand, and either can fluctuate drastically in short periods of time (i.e. surge pricing for uber). The manipulations the article mentions, that exist in all markets, are very rare.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My mother used to be a scan coordinator at a grocery store. We have been talking about this eventually happening for over a decade. Although based on her experience, the infrastructure for even letting her know what pricing should be requires a major IT overhaul as well.
The cost and wiring to power eink displays is too much, due to the USD being fairly stable, prices don't change daily/hourly, which would help eink signage for shelving make sense. You essentially either need a power drop to each section of shelving, or you have to replace batteries on every sign through your store every X months or years.
This is a very unfortunate trend where sellers are selling not based on the value of the item/service, but demand/need of the consumer. It has been a common practice in airline industry, and upto some extent in healthcare. But now this practice is creeping into online shopping too. This can soon fall into unethical territory. Imagine an item, that costs $1. Just because it could be life-saving for someone, or someone…
Supply and demand is the underpining of a market. It's nothing new at all.
A grocery store with e-ink prices could raise the prices for bottled water instantly after a natural disaster.