When Rafi Mohammed used his Orbitz iPhone app to book a vacation package he found one rate. When he looked up the very same thing on the Orbitz website from his laptop, he received another, one that was about %6.5 more. He’s a pricing strategy consultant and wrote about his experience for the Harvard Business Review. Dynamic pricing which already affects things like theater tickets seems to be coming to the web. Apparently the reason is due to what retailers may already know about us, to the data they have learned or accumulated about who we are. Amazon, he says, has been on the record as having the same prices for all customers. But that may not be so for other retailers. Reminding his readers of the old saying caveat emptor, Mohamed feels that it is up to the consumer to discover for themselves. In the end he surmises it is up to consumers whether this kind of price difference takes hold or not. If customers go along, then it will. If consumers rebel or find ways around it, then it will not be found part of a viable business model. We are now duly warned. If online retailers are going to price according to the data they have in store about us, then we must definitely be aware this is happening, and loudly speak through our buying power.
Web Pricing Differences
