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Your airlines and hotels are already doing this along with the travel industry in general (and they've been doing it for a long time). Amazon will almost defini

Your airlines and hotels are already doing this along with the travel industry in general (and they've been doing it for a long time). Amazon will almost definitely do this more broadly one day (they do some version of this now already). Physical retail will definitely do this once the in-store tech to manage the pricing complexity catches up. Sure, the degree and granularity to which each of these industries implement something like this may vary but I think that at the end of the day, it just makes sense from a business perspective. So while the word "Uber" might trigger some people, I think there's a broader, more interesting conversation to be had here outside of the Uber context.

manmal 9y ago
I read that Amazon in fact already does it, too. They price high-volume goods competitively, but niche products, not so much.
- takeda 9y ago
  Nearly any cleaning supplies from my experience are much more expensive in Amazon than in a local store. For example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J5HK3MY https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J5HK3MY one can of Ajax (same size) costs $0.99 in Rite Aid. Perhaps people who are buying cleaning supplies from Amazon are so used to it that they never visit local stores?
- FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago
  They also perform micro optimizations based upon what information they can gather on you. For instance, they may price an item higher if they can determine that you're using a Mac from the user agent
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
santaclaus 9y ago
> Amazon will almost definitely do this more broadly one day What is stopping networks of Amazon users from forming co-ops where each purchase is checked against and ordered by the user with the lowest price?
- askafriend 9y ago
  That already exists today in some form. Several sites cross check prices and track item prices over long time periods and store historical data for you to browse. You can even set alerts. But I don't use them because I'm lazy and millions of other customers with Amazon prime are too.
stevenwoo 9y ago
I put this link in another comment but Amazon and Google were already doing it. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/05/how-online-shopping-makes-suckers-of-us-all/521448/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/05/how-onl...

manmal 9y ago

I read that Amazon in fact already does it, too. They price high-volume goods competitively, but niche products, not so much.

takeda 9y ago
Nearly any cleaning supplies from my experience are much more expensive in Amazon than in a local store. For example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J5HK3MY https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J5HK3MY one can of Ajax (same size) costs $0.99 in Rite Aid. Perhaps people who are buying cleaning supplies from Amazon are so used to it that they never visit local stores?
FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago
They also perform micro optimizations based upon what information they can gather on you. For instance, they may price an item higher if they can determine that you're using a Mac from the user agent
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

santaclaus 9y ago

> Amazon will almost definitely do this more broadly one day What is stopping networks of Amazon users from forming co-ops where each purchase is checked against and ordered by the user with the lowest price?

askafriend 9y ago
That already exists today in some form. Several sites cross check prices and track item prices over long time periods and store historical data for you to browse. You can even set alerts. But I don't use them because I'm lazy and millions of other customers with Amazon prime are too.

stevenwoo 9y ago

I put this link in another comment but Amazon and Google were already doing it. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/05/how-online-shopping-makes-suckers-of-us-all/521448/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/05/how-onl...