5 ms·

Price discrimination tends to be worse for women

16 points by aaronbrethorst 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
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Nadya 11y ago
//Edit: Welp, looking at the wrong number is going to hurt my karma a bit. Thanks for the corrections, I'll allow this slip-up to remain for posterity reasons. One screenshot hurts their entire argument, because I cannot take the rest of what they say at face value. Notice that the $18.49 package gives five razors while the $14.99 package gives four razors. The $3.50~ markup is due to an additional razor being provided. The package is misleading because it is called "Hydro 5" but provides 4 razors as indicated in the bottom right corner of the packaging. http://i.imgur.com/p3Z2lnJ.png http://i.imgur.com/p3Z2lnJ.png //End Edit - The above was my mistake of looking at the wrong number on the women's packaging as explained by the replies to this comment. Tacking on a reasonable counter-argument to the tail end of the article hoping people will miss it is also an annoyingly common practice I see these sorts of hatemongering articles. And you know what? They probably have a valid point. But they couldn't take the time to carefully make their comparisons, clean the data of any faulty issues (like the razors), and give any counterpoints some proper space. So I'll dismiss it like I would any other topic that tried to do this. >Ravi Dhar, director of the Center for Customer Insights at the Yale School of Management, said how we perceive “women’s” products could help explain why gender markups persist in the marketplace. >“Many men's products are not seen as men's products,” he said. “They might just be seen as products in the category.” >Which makes the “pink” version a specialty product, he said.
- danhak 11y ago
  > One screenshot hurts their entire argument, because I cannot take the rest of what they say at face value. Notice that the $18.49 package gives five razors while the $14.99 package gives four razors. The $3.50~ markup is due to an additional razor being provided. No, you've misread the packaging. Both packages contain 4 razor cartridges. The number 5 you highlighted on the women's product advertises 5 blades per cartridge (same as the men's product) but the package contains only 4 cartridges as you'll see if you look a little further to the right. You can see a higher resolution photo of the product and some more details here: https://shop.riteaid.com/schick-hydro-silk-razor-cartridges-4-cartridges-0368651 https://shop.riteaid.com/schick-hydro-silk-razor-cartridges-...
  - Nadya 11y ago
    >No, you've misread the packaging. It appears I have actually. Thanks for pointing this out! That removes a lot of my issue with the article with that issue, because it didn't exist to begin with. Just my own misreading. :) If I'm allowed to excuse why I overlooked that 4 - I'd blame my familiarity with the male packaging. I didn't even notice the 4 when looking for numbers because it didn't have words next to it! At this point I'd be more offended that they think the word "cartridge" is too difficult for women and use a picture of the blade instead, as if they're children.
- deleted 11y ago
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- yellowbkpk 11y ago
  The parts of the image you're highlighting are incorrect. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006DR2BQU http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006DR2BQU Schick Hydro Silk for Women Refill Blades, 4 Count $13.39 or $3.35 each http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GR0EFRG http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GR0EFRG Schick Hydro 5 Sensitive Refill Razor Blade, 4 Count $11.19 or $2.80 each
  - luso_brazilian 11y ago
    While I do not doubt price discrimination targeted to women exist (and this study seems to highlight it), in this particular market (razors) they misrepresent the value of their products across the board. For instance, read this amusing anedocte [1] about the difference between the Gillette Fusion and Fusion Power lines. It is from 2007 but I believe it lasts to this day: Second, I decided to try them for myself... I've been using the Fusion Power razor with Fusion Power blades since they came out (only on the face though). I always notice the price of the Fusion blades is typically $1 - $2 cheaper per 4 pack than the Fusion Power blades. I grabbed a 4 pack of the regular Fusion blades at Wal-Mart for about $12.36 (versus $13.74) and took them home to see if Gillette is telling the truth or if they are pulling our legs and profiting from a clever marketing ploy... ??? The Test and Results... The first thing I noticed was the regular Fusion blade was blue rather than orange... could that be the "specific design" mumbo jumbo that they were talking about? ??? I like orange, but not for an average upcharge of $1.50 per four pack... (...) My take on Gillette Fusion Power blades is that the blades are the same as the, dare I say, ordinary Fusion blades and they market them at a higher price to deceive men that they will get a better shave using the Power blades because they are designed differently. (...) He then wrote a letter to Gillette: All that being said, what gives Gillette?? Why do Fusion Power cartridges cost, on average, $1.50 more per four pack when, in my opinion, they give the exact same shave as a regular Fusion cartridge? What exactly is the difference that makes the Fusion Power cartridges superior to the regular Fusion cartridges? And received an answer from P&G: Dear Rob- The differences between the Power and Manual Fusion Cartridges are subtle but there are differences. The Power Fusion Cartridges have aloe, vitamin E and natural oils in the lubrastrip while the Manual Cartridges have just aloe and vitamin E. There is also a slightly different coating on the blade of the Power Cartridges. That coating was designed to work with the vibration of the razor. I hope this answers your questions. Thanks again for writing. Kelly H Fusion Team tl;dr: no difference between the Fusion and Fusion Power lines of Gillette except for the 1.50 increase in price and "natural oils". [1] http://www.slybaldguys.com/smf/index.php?topic=1871.0 http://www.slybaldguys.com/smf/index.php?topic=1871.0
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
Alex3917 11y ago
I submitted the original study the other day, with commentary on the methodology: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10768591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10768591
gruez 11y ago
>Compounding the injustice, she said, is the wage gap. Federal data shows women in the United States earn about 79 cents for every dollar paid to men. “It’s a double whammy,” Menin said Can we put this meme to rest already? That gap is mostly attributed to career choices that lead to less pay.
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
Assuming that, as implied, most of these goods are purely substitutable with no physical difference but in "gender-specific packaging," then one could actually interpret this as the capitalists (inadvertently or not) pushing consumers towards deconstructing traditional gender roles through their mark-up pricing. We can thus observe the profit motive serving a positive social function, though YMMV depending on ideological preconceptions.
jsnk 11y ago
Discrimination? Please... Can we not use this word to describe this phenomena? The undertone of the study and article make this situation sound like there's something cynical happening. It's just supply and demand. I am a 5'11" male with medium build. Whenever I try to get my shoes sized 10-11, I consistently pay 10-15 bucks more than someone with shoe size 7 or 13. I also have to pay more on cloths because people who can wear xxs or xxl usually get swoop in on good deal during sales. Medium or large are always sold out. Does this sound like "discrimination"?
- DanBC 11y ago
  "price discrimination" is a term that isn't related to "sexual discrimination". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    Sure, but that's clearly not what this investigation is about. From the article: >DCA Commissioner Julie Menin, who launched the investigation this summer, said the numbers show an insidious form of gender discrimination. Compounding the injustice, she said, is the wage gap. Federal data shows women in the United States earn about 79 cents for every dollar paid to men. They're framing this as a social justice issue and even using that ridiculous 79 cents statistic, which has been thoroughly discredited. When making actual apples-to-apples comparisons, the wage gap becomes an error bar: ~96 cents on the dollar.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      > which has been thoroughly discredited. No it hasn't. > When making actual apples-to-apples comparisons Which is how sexists justify paying women less for doing similar work, whilst ignoring the fact that they're also preventing women from getting the higher paying work.
      - marcoperaza 11y ago
JPKab 11y ago
Articles like this promote a very absurd notion that there is a vast conspiracy to actively discriminate against women. While there is, of course, real discrimination against women, this simply isn't one of them. The only discrimination going on here is that men are more discriminant on price than women are with broad categories of items. I work with retail data, and I know this is 100% true. Items marketed towards men in the "Consumables" category (deodorant, razors, shampoo, etc) are priced lower than their female counterparts because decades of scientific analysis has shown that men are more likely to shop for these particular products based on price than women are. In economic terms, depending on the category, men and women have different price elasticity curves. An interesting twist on this is that certain Men's products within the "Consumables" category are at high price points due to the data showing their respective consumer group to be far less price sensitive, especially with the 18-25 male demographic with hair care products. This is all data and algorithms talking, not actual discrimination. Anyone with a son can also point out exactly why boy's underwear costs more than girl's underwear: boys get very excited about underwear with characters on it, so parents are less price sensitive on those products. But according to this story, this is just another form of evil discrimination towards boys wearing underroos. Source: I help my customers set prices for their product/store combinations using data.
- Hermel 11y ago
  As a further factor, I have heard that women tend to return clothing more often than men, leading to increased costs for shops that sell to women in comparison to those that sell to men only.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > As a further factor, I have heard that women tend to return clothing more often than men, leading to increased costs for shops that sell to women in comparison to those that sell to men only. Some of that is that fit is more complex for women (and sizing less consistent -- which unlike the other part, is a direct result of commercial practice -- compounding the problem.)
  - mdip 11y ago
striking 11y ago
According to Gillette, there's a difference between men's and women's razors and razor blades. Whether it's just marketing copy or it's actually the truth, I couldn't tell you. But this is how they justify the price difference: http://www.gillettevenus.com/en-us/how-to-shave/hair-removal-methods/dont-share-his-razor http://www.gillettevenus.com/en-us/how-to-shave/hair-removal...
- lmcnish14 11y ago
  Of course they want women to use the women's razors when they're more expensive. That's just common sense on their part.
- mdip 11y ago
  There are pretty significant differences. Prior to the latest version, the women's product has been much larger (they're pretty similar now, except for the blade assembly). The blades also included a larger rubber pad on both the top and bottom of the blades. On a basic visual inspection, the women's product seems like it should cost more. I'd imagine some women prefer the larger blade and find the much larger handle more convenient for reaching areas of the body men don't typically shave. My wife, however, loves using my (inexpensive) Dorco razor. She doesn't care about the added padding on the top/bottom of the blades, nor that it's not specifically a "women's" product. I think the marketing copy holds some actual realities here. They've made a product that they believe was designed to meet unique shaving needs of most women, it's a product that uses more raw materials, and required unique R&D that was not shared with their men's razor. It also had the added risk that women would reject it due to these differences.
DHJSH 11y ago
Women and men are free to buy either product. So there's no discrimination.
escherize 11y ago
For scooters or toys, would like to see quantities sold. Because I would expect that economy of scale would push prices down for the non-female-gendered versions. Also I would wager it's more common for a girl to want a red scooter than for a boy to want a pink scooter, hence a larger market size for the non-female-gendered scooter. Not sure what to make of that, though.
maratd 11y ago
Price discrimination? Give me a break. The demand/supply curve is different. Maybe parents are willing to spend more on their daughters? Maybe women spend more on consumer goods in general? Who knows, it could be a thousand different things. Whatever the reason, I doubt there's a conspiracy to charge more for goods because of gender. How does that even work? If the retailer ignores the supply/demand curve they're losing money ... they won't do that. If they're charging at the intersection and prices differ between gender-specific goods due to any of the reasons I mentioned above ... well that's the free market? What's the alternative? If you start messing with the price you'll create either shortages or over-supply of the goods.
- ryan_j_naughton 11y ago
  Price discrimination in no way implies a conspiracy nor any ill-intent on the part of the company. It simply implies that there are different customer segments with different willingness to pay and not perfect competition. Seniors and military discounts aren't BC companies objectively care more about those populations. It's because those groups tend to have slightly less disposable income, so the company uses price discrimination to segment their market. The same is true here for women -- their price elasticity is different than men on average
  - maratd 11y ago
    > Price discrimination in no way implies a conspiracy nor any ill-intent on the part of the company. It was implied by the commissioner and really, the article as a whole: "DCA Commissioner Julie Menin, who launched the investigation this summer, said the numbers show an insidious form of gender discrimination." Not only that, there wasn't any price discrimination to begin with. In your example, people are being charged different prices for the same good. That is definitely price discrimination and attempts to segment the market, you're right. But that's not happening. They're trying to build an equivalence between different goods. There are many reasons that doesn't work. Another comment here did a fantastic job of explaining why. See above.
- mdip 11y ago
  I think you've hit the nail on the head on the demand/supply issue. I have two daughters, one likes pretty much everything my sons do, the other likes more traditional girly things (we don't encourage or discourage which toys the kids play with in the house, it just worked out that way). When I saw the two products, I thought, I wouldn't buy that scooter for my one daughter, she'd never use it. My two sons would both love it (thought not in pink). And if my girly-girl wanted a scooter, she would want it in pink if it were available. It's an anecdote, but I'm around a lot of other parents with girls and boys and it doesn't strike me that they're going to produce the pink scooter in the kinds of quantities that they're going to with the boy-branded one which will likely affect the cost of production resulting in an expected difference in the cost of the product. On the razors, there are subtle differences. The lady's Gillette product my wife used to use to shave is significantly different, designed to be held differently for shaving the variety of areas that women typically remove hair from. It was also a much larger product. The blades, themselves, were 1/3 larger, with an extra rubbery pad on the top and the bottom of the blade. They cost about 10% more than the men's version and from a basic visual inspection, that seemed like a fair price difference.
the_economist 11y ago
Not to mention fewer hours worked.
thezilch 11y ago
Products' pricing can't be their value; if pricing isn't algorithmic, someone is doing something very wrong! Or us nerds have a market to exploit -- I think many people are doing this in many nitch corners. So, computers are discriminatory... we might want to ban them along with encryption; think of the children.
mdip 11y ago
We figured this out a long time ago with "body wash". I was always a bar-of-soap kind of guy and when I was sent out to purchase toiletries for the family, I did a quick price comparison and made an "executive decision". I purchased 8 Axe branded body washes for $2.00 total (combined coupons and store specials). I was able to find several scents that appeared to be neutral to floral (discovered all of them were way more floral than I would have ever expected for a men's product). She freaked out (as I was expecting; I wasn't being naive or anything), but after a few showers she not only stopped complaining but agreed that they were of equal quality and some smelled better than the Dove or Suave products she preferred. I generally do all of the toiletry shopping in the house and I keep an eye on coupons and store specials -- I have never found as solid of discounts on products branded for women than I find on men. The body wash thing is always the biggest gap -- probably because a lot of men don't use body wash so they either need to give men an extra incentive to try them or deeply discount them to sell them at all. Shaving cream and hair conditioner are the second worst offenders from my limited research and led to the discovery that shave cream is a redundant product. My wife used to buy a $30 "premium feminine shaving gel" (for cough sensitive shaving needs). I tried it once when I ran out of the white bubbly stuff and happened to do so just after washing my hair. I realized that outside of the color, it was nearly identical to a store brand hair conditioner that we shared (and bought in a bottle 20 times larger for $9.00). So the next time we tried just using the conditioner -- it was a massive improvement over the best shaving cream I've ever used (though, to clarify, I am a shower shaver, and I have no idea how well it cleans up with a sink shave). Instead of a $1.50-$3.00 shaving cream bottle that lasts 5-6 shaves (or a $30.00 one) we use our bulk conditioner that lasts about six months between the two of us.
xiaoma 11y ago
>Compounding the injustice, she said, is the wage gap. Federal data shows women in the United States earn about 79 cents for every dollar paid to men. “It’s a double whammy,” Menin said That statistic completely ignores experience and numbers of hours worked per week. http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/16/its-time-that-we-end-the-equal-pay-myth/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/16/its-time-tha... "The wage gap statistic, however, doesn’t compare two similarly situated co-workers of different sexes, working in the same industry, performing the same work, for the same number of hours a day. It merely reflects the median earnings of all men and women classified as full-time workers."
- omonra 11y ago
  This. Any time someone trots out the '79 cent for every dollar' canard, their credibility goes to zero. Ie they are either too stupid to properly research the issue or actually intend to obfuscate it. The real wage gap is about 3% (http://time.com/money/4009768/wage-gap-men-women-equal-pay/ http://time.com/money/4009768/wage-gap-men-women-equal-pay/). But most of that comes down to choices made by the individuals - hours they work per week, career interruptions, etc.
- ryan_j_naughton 11y ago
  You are absolutely right that controlling for time worked, experience, education, etc makes virtually all of the wage gap disappear. Nonetheless, that is totally irrelevant to this topic. Regardless of the reasons, women do earn less than men on average. Since the topic here is about spending money (i.e. consumption side), then the amount of income available to a person to spend is absolutely relevant (regardless of the origin of the disparity in income). The reality is that most women are making less than men and yet goods tailored towards them do cost more.
  - oldmanjay 11y ago
    I'm old enough to remember that it used to be a source of humor that women spend indiscriminately on things they don't actually need. Now it's a source of handwringing and overwrought blogging. This is one of the rare cases where the old days were better.
lmcnish14 11y ago
This seems to get trotted out once a year like it's a new discovery. Consumer Reports study from 2010: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2010/january/shopping/same-products-different-prices/overview/same-products-different-prices-ov.htm http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2010/jan... University of Central Florida study from 2011 (I can't find it online anymore) was mentioned in some of the other studies as saying basically the same thing. New York Times on The Pink Tax from last year: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/opinion/the-pink-tax.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/opinion/the-pink-tax.html?...
mdip 11y ago
A lot of folks have pointed out that there is likely no conspiracy among the companies to attempt to screw women out of money. They're not identical products, there's economies of scale at work, etc, however, I believe there's a few places that marketing has specifically been targeted at women for products that such targeting is not happening (at least not successfully/to the scale of) for men: Shampoo, Conditioners, and Soap. Most men don't care enough about these things (outside of shaving needs, which have outrageous products similarly targeting men), but enough women do care enough for them to be victims of marketing and wasted money. These products principal feature is the advertising. "Natural" and "Essential Oils" and other common "features" mean exactly nothing (or not at all what folks think they mean). And many use pricing for the explicit purpose of implying quality. Obviously a $90 shampoo beats a $5 store brand. I freaked out when I found out a shampoo my wife loved was $40! So on one of my shopping adventures, I purchased several different brands of conditioner, shampoo and body wash (up to $30.00 w/coupon and no ingredients she was sensitive to), and generic 1 oz. travel bottles. I filled each and we switched them weekly for a few months. Her $40.00 one was in the middle of the rotation and made it "one shower" -- she hated it[1]. In each case the pick was in the bottom 25% for price. Body Wash: Axe for Men O_o, Shampoo: Kirkland (Costco), Conditioner: a Suave product (Suave was a back-up in all three, consequently -- I buy all at once when coupons/store discounts match up, so we needed a few). [1] I have never told her that was "her brand" -- she would have taken that as me calling her dumb/gullible when the reality is that these companies spend large sums of money to specifically target her -- and there's just no good reason to be a dick.
IkmoIkmo 11y ago
The clothing bit was the only thing that surprised me, in the Netherlands I feel women's clothing is incredibly, ridiculously cheap. My gf buys solid branded 30 euro pants, mine start at 40 and are shitty, solid branded pants start at 70-80, for example. The difference is pretty huge. Buying decent formal wear for work is much more expensive for men, both the shoes and the suit I feel. For some decent leather shoes I'm spending upwards of 150 euros, gf walks around in stylish 30 euro leather short heels that are fine quality, 80 euros would be considered expensive but long lasting for her. I know it's anecdotal, but I've talked about this with friends quite often and they all say it. And men's floors are usually singular, too, the other 2-3 floors are all for women, with one especially for girls. The competition for women's clothing is so strong it's pushing prices down. Thought it'd be no different in the US. Not just shops either, second hand markets for girls are insane, you'll easily buy pants for 2 euros at the ijhallen (popular fleamarket in Amsterdam, mostly for girls age 19-26 or so) that cost 30 euros in the shop a year ago, and have the same quality as a guys' 80 euro pants haha. It's crazy. Then there's the laundry, I've never heard of that before either, nor seen it. Different prices for hairdressers though is very common here though, in fact certain gender-only hairdressers are pretty much the majority. All the other stuff like razors, a more expensive 'female version' of a toy etc is really familiar, too.0
prolways 11y ago
The study from which the article draws is also posted on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10785107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10785107 I'm going to copy some of the comments I made over there. Hopefully this is acceptable. The study does not say there is price discrimination, but it heavily implies it. The WSJ article does say there is discrimination. First of all, I think the article falls into some kind of Political Correctness trap by claiming that certain products are for boys and others are for girls. Why couldn't a boy want the pink scooter? Why couldn't a girl want red? Building on that, if we see the pink one as "girls" and the red one as "boys" then it does look like discrimination. However, if we view the red one as "neutral/base color" and the pink one as a less popular "color option" it seems less like discrimination and more like paying for a unique customization. Do we know there isn't a blue scooter priced the same as pink? The conclusion (of the study) states: > DCA found, on average, that women pay approximately 7 percent more than men for similar products. Products’ price differences based on gender are largely inescapable for female consumers simply due to the product offerings available in the market. This seems fundamentally contradictory to me. If the products are sufficiently similar but priced differently, why would women buy the "women's version?" What makes it "inescapable?" If product A is so much better than product B, such that buying Product A is "inescapable," I'd expect a difference of more than 7% in price. The Wall Street Journal seems to draw the reasonable conclusion in its headline: Women should buy the "men's product."

deleted 11y ago

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Nadya 11y ago

//Edit: Welp, looking at the wrong number is going to hurt my karma a bit. Thanks for the corrections, I'll allow this slip-up to remain for posterity reasons. One screenshot hurts their entire argument, because I cannot take the rest of what they say at face value. Notice that the $18.49 package gives five razors while the $14.99 package gives four razors. The $3.50~ markup is due to an additional razor being provided. The package is misleading because it is called "Hydro 5" but provides 4 razors as indicated in the bottom right corner of the packaging. http://i.imgur.com/p3Z2lnJ.png http://i.imgur.com/p3Z2lnJ.png //End Edit - The above was my mistake of looking at the wrong number on the women's packaging as explained by the replies to this comment. Tacking on a reasonable counter-argument to the tail end of the article hoping people will miss it is also an annoyingly common practice I see these sorts of hatemongering articles. And you know what? They probably have a valid point. But they couldn't take the time to carefully make their comparisons, clean the data of any faulty issues (like the razors), and give any counterpoints some proper space. So I'll dismiss it like I would any other topic that tried to do this. >Ravi Dhar, director of the Center for Customer Insights at the Yale School of Management, said how we perceive “women’s” products could help explain why gender markups persist in the marketplace. >“Many men's products are not seen as men's products,” he said. “They might just be seen as products in the category.” >Which makes the “pink” version a specialty product, he said.

danhak 11y ago
> One screenshot hurts their entire argument, because I cannot take the rest of what they say at face value. Notice that the $18.49 package gives five razors while the $14.99 package gives four razors. The $3.50~ markup is due to an additional razor being provided. No, you've misread the packaging. Both packages contain 4 razor cartridges. The number 5 you highlighted on the women's product advertises 5 blades per cartridge (same as the men's product) but the package contains only 4 cartridges as you'll see if you look a little further to the right. You can see a higher resolution photo of the product and some more details here: https://shop.riteaid.com/schick-hydro-silk-razor-cartridges-4-cartridges-0368651 https://shop.riteaid.com/schick-hydro-silk-razor-cartridges-...
- Nadya 11y ago
  >No, you've misread the packaging. It appears I have actually. Thanks for pointing this out! That removes a lot of my issue with the article with that issue, because it didn't exist to begin with. Just my own misreading. :) If I'm allowed to excuse why I overlooked that 4 - I'd blame my familiarity with the male packaging. I didn't even notice the 4 when looking for numbers because it didn't have words next to it! At this point I'd be more offended that they think the word "cartridge" is too difficult for women and use a picture of the blade instead, as if they're children.
deleted 11y ago
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yellowbkpk 11y ago
The parts of the image you're highlighting are incorrect. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006DR2BQU http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006DR2BQU Schick Hydro Silk for Women Refill Blades, 4 Count $13.39 or $3.35 each http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GR0EFRG http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GR0EFRG Schick Hydro 5 Sensitive Refill Razor Blade, 4 Count $11.19 or $2.80 each
- luso_brazilian 11y ago
  While I do not doubt price discrimination targeted to women exist (and this study seems to highlight it), in this particular market (razors) they misrepresent the value of their products across the board. For instance, read this amusing anedocte [1] about the difference between the Gillette Fusion and Fusion Power lines. It is from 2007 but I believe it lasts to this day: Second, I decided to try them for myself... I've been using the Fusion Power razor with Fusion Power blades since they came out (only on the face though). I always notice the price of the Fusion blades is typically $1 - $2 cheaper per 4 pack than the Fusion Power blades. I grabbed a 4 pack of the regular Fusion blades at Wal-Mart for about $12.36 (versus $13.74) and took them home to see if Gillette is telling the truth or if they are pulling our legs and profiting from a clever marketing ploy... ??? The Test and Results... The first thing I noticed was the regular Fusion blade was blue rather than orange... could that be the "specific design" mumbo jumbo that they were talking about? ??? I like orange, but not for an average upcharge of $1.50 per four pack... (...) My take on Gillette Fusion Power blades is that the blades are the same as the, dare I say, ordinary Fusion blades and they market them at a higher price to deceive men that they will get a better shave using the Power blades because they are designed differently. (...) He then wrote a letter to Gillette: All that being said, what gives Gillette?? Why do Fusion Power cartridges cost, on average, $1.50 more per four pack when, in my opinion, they give the exact same shave as a regular Fusion cartridge? What exactly is the difference that makes the Fusion Power cartridges superior to the regular Fusion cartridges? And received an answer from P&G: Dear Rob- The differences between the Power and Manual Fusion Cartridges are subtle but there are differences. The Power Fusion Cartridges have aloe, vitamin E and natural oils in the lubrastrip while the Manual Cartridges have just aloe and vitamin E. There is also a slightly different coating on the blade of the Power Cartridges. That coating was designed to work with the vibration of the razor. I hope this answers your questions. Thanks again for writing. Kelly H Fusion Team tl;dr: no difference between the Fusion and Fusion Power lines of Gillette except for the 1.50 increase in price and "natural oils". [1] http://www.slybaldguys.com/smf/index.php?topic=1871.0 http://www.slybaldguys.com/smf/index.php?topic=1871.0
deleted 11y ago
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Alex3917 11y ago

I submitted the original study the other day, with commentary on the methodology: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10768591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10768591

gruez 11y ago

vezzy-fnord 11y ago

Assuming that, as implied, most of these goods are purely substitutable with no physical difference but in "gender-specific packaging," then one could actually interpret this as the capitalists (inadvertently or not) pushing consumers towards deconstructing traditional gender roles through their mark-up pricing. We can thus observe the profit motive serving a positive social function, though YMMV depending on ideological preconceptions.

jsnk 11y ago

Discrimination? Please... Can we not use this word to describe this phenomena? The undertone of the study and article make this situation sound like there's something cynical happening. It's just supply and demand. I am a 5'11" male with medium build. Whenever I try to get my shoes sized 10-11, I consistently pay 10-15 bucks more than someone with shoe size 7 or 13. I also have to pay more on cloths because people who can wear xxs or xxl usually get swoop in on good deal during sales. Medium or large are always sold out. Does this sound like "discrimination"?

DanBC 11y ago
"price discrimination" is a term that isn't related to "sexual discrimination". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  Sure, but that's clearly not what this investigation is about. From the article: >DCA Commissioner Julie Menin, who launched the investigation this summer, said the numbers show an insidious form of gender discrimination. Compounding the injustice, she said, is the wage gap. Federal data shows women in the United States earn about 79 cents for every dollar paid to men. They're framing this as a social justice issue and even using that ridiculous 79 cents statistic, which has been thoroughly discredited. When making actual apples-to-apples comparisons, the wage gap becomes an error bar: ~96 cents on the dollar.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    > which has been thoroughly discredited. No it hasn't. > When making actual apples-to-apples comparisons Which is how sexists justify paying women less for doing similar work, whilst ignoring the fact that they're also preventing women from getting the higher paying work.
    - marcoperaza 11y ago

JPKab 11y ago

Articles like this promote a very absurd notion that there is a vast conspiracy to actively discriminate against women. While there is, of course, real discrimination against women, this simply isn't one of them. The only discrimination going on here is that men are more discriminant on price than women are with broad categories of items. I work with retail data, and I know this is 100% true. Items marketed towards men in the "Consumables" category (deodorant, razors, shampoo, etc) are priced lower than their female counterparts because decades of scientific analysis has shown that men are more likely to shop for these particular products based on price than women are. In economic terms, depending on the category, men and women have different price elasticity curves. An interesting twist on this is that certain Men's products within the "Consumables" category are at high price points due to the data showing their respective consumer group to be far less price sensitive, especially with the 18-25 male demographic with hair care products. This is all data and algorithms talking, not actual discrimination. Anyone with a son can also point out exactly why boy's underwear costs more than girl's underwear: boys get very excited about underwear with characters on it, so parents are less price sensitive on those products. But according to this story, this is just another form of evil discrimination towards boys wearing underroos. Source: I help my customers set prices for their product/store combinations using data.

Hermel 11y ago
As a further factor, I have heard that women tend to return clothing more often than men, leading to increased costs for shops that sell to women in comparison to those that sell to men only.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > As a further factor, I have heard that women tend to return clothing more often than men, leading to increased costs for shops that sell to women in comparison to those that sell to men only. Some of that is that fit is more complex for women (and sizing less consistent -- which unlike the other part, is a direct result of commercial practice -- compounding the problem.)
- mdip 11y ago

striking 11y ago

According to Gillette, there's a difference between men's and women's razors and razor blades. Whether it's just marketing copy or it's actually the truth, I couldn't tell you. But this is how they justify the price difference: http://www.gillettevenus.com/en-us/how-to-shave/hair-removal-methods/dont-share-his-razor http://www.gillettevenus.com/en-us/how-to-shave/hair-removal...

lmcnish14 11y ago
Of course they want women to use the women's razors when they're more expensive. That's just common sense on their part.
mdip 11y ago
There are pretty significant differences. Prior to the latest version, the women's product has been much larger (they're pretty similar now, except for the blade assembly). The blades also included a larger rubber pad on both the top and bottom of the blades. On a basic visual inspection, the women's product seems like it should cost more. I'd imagine some women prefer the larger blade and find the much larger handle more convenient for reaching areas of the body men don't typically shave. My wife, however, loves using my (inexpensive) Dorco razor. She doesn't care about the added padding on the top/bottom of the blades, nor that it's not specifically a "women's" product. I think the marketing copy holds some actual realities here. They've made a product that they believe was designed to meet unique shaving needs of most women, it's a product that uses more raw materials, and required unique R&D that was not shared with their men's razor. It also had the added risk that women would reject it due to these differences.

DHJSH 11y ago

Women and men are free to buy either product. So there's no discrimination.

escherize 11y ago

For scooters or toys, would like to see quantities sold. Because I would expect that economy of scale would push prices down for the non-female-gendered versions. Also I would wager it's more common for a girl to want a red scooter than for a boy to want a pink scooter, hence a larger market size for the non-female-gendered scooter. Not sure what to make of that, though.

maratd 11y ago

Price discrimination? Give me a break. The demand/supply curve is different. Maybe parents are willing to spend more on their daughters? Maybe women spend more on consumer goods in general? Who knows, it could be a thousand different things. Whatever the reason, I doubt there's a conspiracy to charge more for goods because of gender. How does that even work? If the retailer ignores the supply/demand curve they're losing money ... they won't do that. If they're charging at the intersection and prices differ between gender-specific goods due to any of the reasons I mentioned above ... well that's the free market? What's the alternative? If you start messing with the price you'll create either shortages or over-supply of the goods.

ryan_j_naughton 11y ago
Price discrimination in no way implies a conspiracy nor any ill-intent on the part of the company. It simply implies that there are different customer segments with different willingness to pay and not perfect competition. Seniors and military discounts aren't BC companies objectively care more about those populations. It's because those groups tend to have slightly less disposable income, so the company uses price discrimination to segment their market. The same is true here for women -- their price elasticity is different than men on average
- maratd 11y ago
  > Price discrimination in no way implies a conspiracy nor any ill-intent on the part of the company. It was implied by the commissioner and really, the article as a whole: "DCA Commissioner Julie Menin, who launched the investigation this summer, said the numbers show an insidious form of gender discrimination." Not only that, there wasn't any price discrimination to begin with. In your example, people are being charged different prices for the same good. That is definitely price discrimination and attempts to segment the market, you're right. But that's not happening. They're trying to build an equivalence between different goods. There are many reasons that doesn't work. Another comment here did a fantastic job of explaining why. See above.
mdip 11y ago
I think you've hit the nail on the head on the demand/supply issue. I have two daughters, one likes pretty much everything my sons do, the other likes more traditional girly things (we don't encourage or discourage which toys the kids play with in the house, it just worked out that way). When I saw the two products, I thought, I wouldn't buy that scooter for my one daughter, she'd never use it. My two sons would both love it (thought not in pink). And if my girly-girl wanted a scooter, she would want it in pink if it were available. It's an anecdote, but I'm around a lot of other parents with girls and boys and it doesn't strike me that they're going to produce the pink scooter in the kinds of quantities that they're going to with the boy-branded one which will likely affect the cost of production resulting in an expected difference in the cost of the product. On the razors, there are subtle differences. The lady's Gillette product my wife used to use to shave is significantly different, designed to be held differently for shaving the variety of areas that women typically remove hair from. It was also a much larger product. The blades, themselves, were 1/3 larger, with an extra rubbery pad on the top and the bottom of the blade. They cost about 10% more than the men's version and from a basic visual inspection, that seemed like a fair price difference.

the_economist 11y ago

Not to mention fewer hours worked.

thezilch 11y ago

Products' pricing can't be their value; if pricing isn't algorithmic, someone is doing something very wrong! Or us nerds have a market to exploit -- I think many people are doing this in many nitch corners. So, computers are discriminatory... we might want to ban them along with encryption; think of the children.

mdip 11y ago

We figured this out a long time ago with "body wash". I was always a bar-of-soap kind of guy and when I was sent out to purchase toiletries for the family, I did a quick price comparison and made an "executive decision". I purchased 8 Axe branded body washes for $2.00 total (combined coupons and store specials). I was able to find several scents that appeared to be neutral to floral (discovered all of them were way more floral than I would have ever expected for a men's product). She freaked out (as I was expecting; I wasn't being naive or anything), but after a few showers she not only stopped complaining but agreed that they were of equal quality and some smelled better than the Dove or Suave products she preferred. I generally do all of the toiletry shopping in the house and I keep an eye on coupons and store specials -- I have never found as solid of discounts on products branded for women than I find on men. The body wash thing is always the biggest gap -- probably because a lot of men don't use body wash so they either need to give men an extra incentive to try them or deeply discount them to sell them at all. Shaving cream and hair conditioner are the second worst offenders from my limited research and led to the discovery that shave cream is a redundant product. My wife used to buy a $30 "premium feminine shaving gel" (for cough sensitive shaving needs). I tried it once when I ran out of the white bubbly stuff and happened to do so just after washing my hair. I realized that outside of the color, it was nearly identical to a store brand hair conditioner that we shared (and bought in a bottle 20 times larger for $9.00). So the next time we tried just using the conditioner -- it was a massive improvement over the best shaving cream I've ever used (though, to clarify, I am a shower shaver, and I have no idea how well it cleans up with a sink shave). Instead of a $1.50-$3.00 shaving cream bottle that lasts 5-6 shaves (or a $30.00 one) we use our bulk conditioner that lasts about six months between the two of us.

xiaoma 11y ago

>Compounding the injustice, she said, is the wage gap. Federal data shows women in the United States earn about 79 cents for every dollar paid to men. “It’s a double whammy,” Menin said That statistic completely ignores experience and numbers of hours worked per week. http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/16/its-time-that-we-end-the-equal-pay-myth/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/16/its-time-tha... "The wage gap statistic, however, doesn’t compare two similarly situated co-workers of different sexes, working in the same industry, performing the same work, for the same number of hours a day. It merely reflects the median earnings of all men and women classified as full-time workers."

omonra 11y ago
This. Any time someone trots out the '79 cent for every dollar' canard, their credibility goes to zero. Ie they are either too stupid to properly research the issue or actually intend to obfuscate it. The real wage gap is about 3% (http://time.com/money/4009768/wage-gap-men-women-equal-pay/ http://time.com/money/4009768/wage-gap-men-women-equal-pay/). But most of that comes down to choices made by the individuals - hours they work per week, career interruptions, etc.
ryan_j_naughton 11y ago
You are absolutely right that controlling for time worked, experience, education, etc makes virtually all of the wage gap disappear. Nonetheless, that is totally irrelevant to this topic. Regardless of the reasons, women do earn less than men on average. Since the topic here is about spending money (i.e. consumption side), then the amount of income available to a person to spend is absolutely relevant (regardless of the origin of the disparity in income). The reality is that most women are making less than men and yet goods tailored towards them do cost more.
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  I'm old enough to remember that it used to be a source of humor that women spend indiscriminately on things they don't actually need. Now it's a source of handwringing and overwrought blogging. This is one of the rare cases where the old days were better.

lmcnish14 11y ago

This seems to get trotted out once a year like it's a new discovery. Consumer Reports study from 2010: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2010/january/shopping/same-products-different-prices/overview/same-products-different-prices-ov.htm http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2010/jan... University of Central Florida study from 2011 (I can't find it online anymore) was mentioned in some of the other studies as saying basically the same thing. New York Times on The Pink Tax from last year: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/opinion/the-pink-tax.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/opinion/the-pink-tax.html?...

mdip 11y ago

A lot of folks have pointed out that there is likely no conspiracy among the companies to attempt to screw women out of money. They're not identical products, there's economies of scale at work, etc, however, I believe there's a few places that marketing has specifically been targeted at women for products that such targeting is not happening (at least not successfully/to the scale of) for men: Shampoo, Conditioners, and Soap. Most men don't care enough about these things (outside of shaving needs, which have outrageous products similarly targeting men), but enough women do care enough for them to be victims of marketing and wasted money. These products principal feature is the advertising. "Natural" and "Essential Oils" and other common "features" mean exactly nothing (or not at all what folks think they mean). And many use pricing for the explicit purpose of implying quality. Obviously a $90 shampoo beats a $5 store brand. I freaked out when I found out a shampoo my wife loved was $40! So on one of my shopping adventures, I purchased several different brands of conditioner, shampoo and body wash (up to $30.00 w/coupon and no ingredients she was sensitive to), and generic 1 oz. travel bottles. I filled each and we switched them weekly for a few months. Her $40.00 one was in the middle of the rotation and made it "one shower" -- she hated it[1]. In each case the pick was in the bottom 25% for price. Body Wash: Axe for Men O_o, Shampoo: Kirkland (Costco), Conditioner: a Suave product (Suave was a back-up in all three, consequently -- I buy all at once when coupons/store discounts match up, so we needed a few). [1] I have never told her that was "her brand" -- she would have taken that as me calling her dumb/gullible when the reality is that these companies spend large sums of money to specifically target her -- and there's just no good reason to be a dick.

IkmoIkmo 11y ago

The clothing bit was the only thing that surprised me, in the Netherlands I feel women's clothing is incredibly, ridiculously cheap. My gf buys solid branded 30 euro pants, mine start at 40 and are shitty, solid branded pants start at 70-80, for example. The difference is pretty huge. Buying decent formal wear for work is much more expensive for men, both the shoes and the suit I feel. For some decent leather shoes I'm spending upwards of 150 euros, gf walks around in stylish 30 euro leather short heels that are fine quality, 80 euros would be considered expensive but long lasting for her. I know it's anecdotal, but I've talked about this with friends quite often and they all say it. And men's floors are usually singular, too, the other 2-3 floors are all for women, with one especially for girls. The competition for women's clothing is so strong it's pushing prices down. Thought it'd be no different in the US. Not just shops either, second hand markets for girls are insane, you'll easily buy pants for 2 euros at the ijhallen (popular fleamarket in Amsterdam, mostly for girls age 19-26 or so) that cost 30 euros in the shop a year ago, and have the same quality as a guys' 80 euro pants haha. It's crazy. Then there's the laundry, I've never heard of that before either, nor seen it. Different prices for hairdressers though is very common here though, in fact certain gender-only hairdressers are pretty much the majority. All the other stuff like razors, a more expensive 'female version' of a toy etc is really familiar, too.0

prolways 11y ago

The study from which the article draws is also posted on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10785107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10785107 I'm going to copy some of the comments I made over there. Hopefully this is acceptable. The study does not say there is price discrimination, but it heavily implies it. The WSJ article does say there is discrimination. First of all, I think the article falls into some kind of Political Correctness trap by claiming that certain products are for boys and others are for girls. Why couldn't a boy want the pink scooter? Why couldn't a girl want red? Building on that, if we see the pink one as "girls" and the red one as "boys" then it does look like discrimination. However, if we view the red one as "neutral/base color" and the pink one as a less popular "color option" it seems less like discrimination and more like paying for a unique customization. Do we know there isn't a blue scooter priced the same as pink? The conclusion (of the study) states: > DCA found, on average, that women pay approximately 7 percent more than men for similar products. Products’ price differences based on gender are largely inescapable for female consumers simply due to the product offerings available in the market. This seems fundamentally contradictory to me. If the products are sufficiently similar but priced differently, why would women buy the "women's version?" What makes it "inescapable?" If product A is so much better than product B, such that buying Product A is "inescapable," I'd expect a difference of more than 7% in price. The Wall Street Journal seems to draw the reasonable conclusion in its headline: Women should buy the "men's product."