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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

by 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.

by maratd 11y ago

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.