3 ms·
To the extent that a company can tell the difference between rich and poor customers, rich customers will get more freebies, discounts, and other benefits. Tha
by panic 11y ago
To the extent that a company can tell the difference between rich and poor customers, rich customers will get more freebies, discounts, and other benefits. That's because rich customers are worth more to a company in the long term. Poor people have to pay the full price up front.
- vog 11y agoThat is just one half of the story. Another equally applied strategy is market segmentation: Try to get a higher price for those who have the money, but sell at a lower price to those who otherwise couldn't afford your product. There is a somewhat popular article by Joel Spolsky on that topic: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie... Of course, those strategies don't exclude each other. If you can make some people pay more for your product, you can of course be "generously" give out free stuff, so they feel cared and hopefully don't notice the mediocre deal.
- ptaipale 11y agoAn example of this is pricing of flight trips and hotel accommodation depending on the browser used in the booking: if the client has an Apple product, he/she will be charged more.
- GBond 11y agoCan you please elaborate? I've never heard of this.
- ptaipale 11y agoSee for instance http://www.ibtimes.com/ripped-mac-why-apple-users-may-pay-more-booking-hotels-orbitz-704345 http://www.ibtimes.com/ripped-mac-why-apple-users-may-pay-mo... Of course, pricing proposals could be different based on not just the browser variant, but also cookies, browser history, where you came from, etc. http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/mcgee/2013/04/03/do-travel-deals-change-based-on-your-browsing-history/2021993/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/mcgee/2013/04...
- gambiting 11y agoHow is this discrimination? If you came to me and said, "hey gambiting, I want to buy a cookie from you, how much is it?" and I say $1, and then you come and say "hey I want to buy an entire truck full of cookies, will you sell them for $0.50 each?", am I discriminating anyhow against the first person if I sell the cookies for $0.50 to the second guy? It's the most insane assumption I've heard in a while.
- DanBC 11y agoIt's not discrimination, it's price discrimination. The range of coffee, and the range of prices, that Starbucks has is often used as an example of price discrimination. You take your basic product, add a cheap to provide option, and charge more. This allows rich people to give you more money.
- panic 11y agoSorry, I didn't mean the word "discriminate" as a judgement against these companies. I edited the post to (hopefully) be clearer.