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How Retailers Use Personalized Prices

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Re: How Retailers Use Personalized Prices

#81

Post by hiram112 »

imron wrote: post #54
vtail wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fastmail offers you up to 100 email aliases (2 per each of 50 different domains) which route to your main account. Edit: it's actually 600 aliases now: https://www.fastmail.com/help/account/limits.html

If you're using fastmail you don't even have to worry about that limit. If your email is example@fastmail.com and you are registering with http://www.onlinestore.com/ Just use onlinestore@example.fastmail.com and fastmail will make sure it arrives in your example@fastmail.com inbox. It's completely hassle free.

Wow - been a Fastmail user for about a decade and have always used aliases (though I'm limited to just 10, I believe, based on my account type).

But this will come in handy!

Re: How Retailers Use Personalized Prices

#82

Post by twhb »

shubhamjain wrote: post #33

The extent of my profile that can be built (and is probably available) is absolutely insane. Picture this: most people use a single email ID to register anywhere. Dating sites, e-commerce, social networks, banks, and even offline stores. My online purchases can be linked with my preferences on OKCupid that can be linked to ads I am clicking that can be linked to my offline behaviour. Personalised pricing is direct re…

https://33mail.com and https://mailhero.io both offer what you're describing. https://mailinator.com is disposable email that reliably avoids block lists by showing (on their homepage) only one of their list of forwarded domains.

Also, the plus thing isn't Gmail-specific, it's part of the email protocol.

Re: How Retailers Use Personalized Prices

#83

Post by Freak_NL »

shubhamjain wrote: post #33

The extent of my profile that can be built (and is probably available) is absolutely insane. Picture this: most people use a single email ID to register anywhere. Dating sites, e-commerce, social networks, banks, and even offline stores. My online purchases can be linked with my preferences on OKCupid that can be linked to ads I am clicking that can be linked to my offline behaviour. Personalised pricing is direct re…

It's not email addresses they want most dearly though (although it is used and correlated of course) it is that nice unique identifier that is your (mobile) phone number. For smartphone apps it is the default (and often only) identifier (and conveniently, it is also the one identifier nearly always present in the contact lists they guzzle in).

A lot of services on the web want your phone number too; as a contact on the shipping label (often a required field), as part of the authentication scheme (out-of-band text messages with OTP codes to confirm certain actions), or as an account recovery option. A person's phone number is a unique numerical identifier that doesn't change often, if at all (in the EU you tend keep your mobile phone number when switching telco's).

Re: How Retailers Use Personalized Prices

#84

Post by Jommi »

bo1024 wrote: post #16

At some point in the next 5 years, I predict there will online services that will "proxy-shop" for you. They will specialize in building profiles (cookies, logins, etc) that get offered low prices, then use these to purchase products on your behalf. Perhaps a browser plugin, so that at the moment you go to check out on a product, you send the product's link to the service and they get it for you at a lower price. The…

Someone is already doing it for Airlines: https://flightfox.com/

Re: How Retailers Use Personalized Prices

#85

Post by baxtr »

edem wrote: post #68
baxtr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been thinking about that exact service for a while. One big issue is that you need the reverse engineer the pricing models of retailers, i.e. mapping out a high-dimensional space. For that you need a lot of data from the retailers . They could probably ban you quickly if you start pulling price quotes en masse. Then you need to invest a lot in cloaking techniques etc.

We can have TensorFlow do it...one model to rule them all...there will be neural networks fitting retailers, then there will be adversarial networks deployed by retailers, then NCMs (network counter measure)... the price will be high, since more and more will be consumed by the networks, then as an emergent behavior Skynet will rise and it will launch the missiles...

What about blockchain technology? That would sure help, too...

Re: How Retailers Use Personalized Prices

#86

Post by dotancohen »

vostok wrote: post #60
bubblethink wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm waiting for the day my Linux browser agent string pays off. So far, I've only seen random sites refusing to work for no good reason.

I wonder if Linux users spend more or less. I can definitely imagine that American Linux users are wealthier than Americans in general if you exclude non-traditional distributions (Chrome OS, Android, etc.) from the Linux category.

Skew wealthier, but are more practical with that wealth. Cuts both ways, the more expensive room will have to be perceived as a better value regardless.

Re: How Retailers Use Personalized Prices

#87

Post by aorth »

Slightly related: I was just looking to buy Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac for my mother. She's American, but I'm currently in Bulgaria. The Microsoft web store says it's $149 but when I add it to my cart it becomes 289 Bulgarian Leva, which is about $174 (and the whole page annoyingly switches to the Bulgarian language). Then I look on Amazon.com and see you can get it for $129. God I hate digital software pricing.

Re: How Retailers Use Personalized Prices

#88

Post by icebraining »

whathaschanged wrote: post #20
fjsolwmv wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? It's not their money in the first place so collecting deducting it just goes back to zero.

Does the money go directly to a charity? Or do they collect it on behalf of a charity and then donate it to said after end of business (or 4-8 weeks)? Electronic transactions are abused far more by companies/corporations compared to kids picking up a water jug of pennies.

I'm sure they collect it for a while, but that doesn't mean they can declare it as their own for tax purposes.

Re: How Retailers Use Personalized Prices

#90

Post by visarga »

hiram112 wrote: post #76
bogomipz wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like this, why not dynamic purchasing if consumers are increasingly confronted by dynamic pricing? Are there reasons why this wouldn't work? I am curious what would the legal challenge be if dynamic pricing on the sell side is considered acceptable?

Morally it seems fair. But like most things in our system, I'm sure it will end up being rigged legally in the big guy's favor. Look at our system now. Big capital can move their tax headquarters to Ireland, its service center to India, its manufacturing to China. Hell, they can now even import low wage workers to the EU and US on visas if it will give them an advantage. But good luck to any consumer trying to buy pr…

Good argument - they 'geo-shift' to reduce their costs on the one hand, and make sure we can't decrease our costs on the other hand. Pretty unfair taking advantage of the system like that.
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