7 ms·

An age old tactic I have encountered: Deep discounts (after raising the prices of course). For e.g. (Harvard research paper - WIP) https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/

An age old tactic I have encountered: Deep discounts (after raising the prices of course). For e.g. (Harvard research paper - WIP) https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/18-113_16977967-84c0-488d-96e5-ffba637617d9.pdf https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/18-113_16977... https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/how-retailers-trick-you-their-amazing-black-friday-discounts/355525/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/how-ret... https://www.forbes.com/sites/camilomaldonado/2018/09/24/what-retailers-dont-want-you-to-know-about-sale-prices/#4997add96878 https://www.forbes.com/sites/camilomaldonado/2018/09/24/what...

draugadrotten 7y ago
Udemy business model, fake 90% discounts https://www.google.com/search?q=udemy+discount https://www.google.com/search?q=udemy+discount
- mrhappyunhappy 7y ago
  I was just thinking about this. Also their deals “end” within x hours. The number of sites doing dark patterns is disturbing and the way marketing professionals openly brag about manipulating people is disgusting. People are so wrapped up around the masters finger that they convince themselves their work is meaningful. Sorry, but we are all just cogs in the misery machine.
lotsofpulp 7y ago
I don’t understand the issue with this sales tactic. There is complete price transparency, and it takes minimal mental capacity to understand that “discounts” are just to fulfill people’s desire to “get” something that others might not be able to. If they want that dopamine hit, then let them have it. If something is worth X at time Y at place Z to the buyer, then it doesn’t matter what the discount is or isn’t.
- vmurthy 7y ago
  Assume that the price of an item is $100 today ($200 original price - so a 50% discount). A week from now is Black Friday. The retailer has said 70% off on all goods. Now if the retailer increases the price to $333.33 (100/(1-0.7)) and then discounts it by 70% to give a final selling price of $100, wouldn't you feel cheated? I know I would.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    The words original price mean nothing to me, as it should to everyone. I ignore discounts too, I only care about how much money is coming out of my pocket for what I'm paying for, and what my alternatives are. I lie about discounts all the time, all salespeople have to. Buying a house, car, land, businesses, etc. People in poorer countries where bartering is common do it for everyday items too like fruits and vegetables. They'll say "I'll make a deal for you I don't make for anyone else."...obviously they make it for others too, but is the buyer supposed to take it to heart? No, it's all in the game. If the retailer says 70% off the rolling average sale price during the past 365 days, and then lies about THAT, I would feel cheated.
    - reroute1 7y ago
      But this is placing a giant burden on the consumer to do legal level language analysis of a sales pitch. That's not going to happen, so that kind of language is taking advantage of the average person since they aren't going to do that. Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's not shady and dirty. Your bartering example is a bit out of context, that's not as obvious as a dark pattern or blatantly misleading via pricing and sales.
- detaro 7y ago
  Clearly it does matter in practice, otherwise discounts wouldn't be worth advertising?
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    Because people like the feeling of getting a discount. I don't know why, but it satisfies some part of their ego. Discounts don't change the utility of the product or the budget of the buyer or anything, other than the buyer feeling good about themself.
    - mlthoughts2018 7y ago
      You are way overcomplicating it. People are not talking about comparing the discounted price with some fictional “intrinsic utility” price and your comments about the utility of the item are tone deaf and missing the point. Advertising that you are selling something at a discount is information that your price might be lower than a competitor. Nobody likes getting a discount at store A then seeing the same item for less at store B, and as a result, people don’t care much about discounts in an absolute sense. Only that the information announcement of the discount is advertising price competition with other sellers or substitutes. When a seller lies about the original price to claim a discount, they are banking on consumers just “believing the lie” that the fake, pre-discount price was a competitive price compared with competitors or substitutes. People choose to believe it’s a malicious & morally wrong action for the seller to do that, to intentionally play against consumers’ penchant to seek the lowest price among various alternatives by creating a discount from an inflated reference price that is intentionally not competitive with other sellers, and to hope that it fools some consumers who trust the seller instead of doing the legwork to compare prices & learn if the pre-discount price was in line with competitors. People just choose to believe a seller that chooses to do this is shitty and acting antagonistically to manipulate buyers. They expect sellers to be honest about sources of price competition. A discount should be with regard to a prevailing market aggregated price, or some close & sincere approximation from sampling the prices at competitors or prices of substitutes. If the discount is in regard to some other way of setting the pre-discount price, then it’s intentionally manipulating people to play on the cognitive flaw that they will nonetheless believe the discount is in regard to some notion of a “fair market value” price level, especially in situations driven by short-term cognition.
- mcv 7y ago
  There is not complete price transparency. The shop claims the normal price is higher than it actually is, in order to make the discount seem more attractive. That is deception, and therefore not transparency. If only the final price mattered, shops wouldn't be advertising such discounts.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    The only purpose of a discount is to make the buyer feel better. If they changed the price without labeling it a discount, the buyer’s utility of the item doesn’t change, but they’re feeling good about it does. I’d rather see education in schools teaching people that discounts are sales tactics that should be ignored rather than laws governing discounts, which would be costlier to implement and enforce.
    - mcv 7y ago
      It makes the buyer feel better because the buyer gets intentionally misinformed about the value of the item. That lies can make someone feel good does not necessarily make the lie okay. (I suppose it might in some circumstances, but I don't think trying to manipulate someone into spending money is one of those circumstances.) If you think discounts are completely meaningless, then completely banning advertising with discounts is very easy to implement and enforce. Much easier than to properly educate everybody how to arm themselves against deceptive sales practices (though I agree it would be nice if we could do that).
      - lotsofpulp 7y ago
        The value of an item is decided at the time an agreement is made between a seller and buyer. There is no one size fits all "value" until then. This can easily be seen in goods such as low volume, high margin goods such as land, vehicles, heavy equipment, intellectual property, and of course, labor. However, in the developed world, logistics and supply chains have sufficiently developed to allow for minuscule margins on many everyday, low price items that make it uneconomical to negotiate the value of each item to each buyer, so the seller just lists one price for everyone. In markets in poorer countries, the seller might not do that, and it might be worth their time to negotiate each sale. If they say to one buyer "I'll sell this to you for 50% off today, and charges him the same price as yesterday, and the buyer agrees to buy", who is harmed? Price discrimination is a natural part of markets, and the only reason it hasn't been happening is because it wasn't worth the retailers time in the US. But with automated systems coming into place, there is no more labor cost and so it's becoming economical to price discriminate again.
SmirkingRevenge 7y ago
Those seedy furniture stores that have "going out of business" sales that seem to last for years, are often running the same scam. Grocery also stores do this, with their shoppers cards discounts. Consumers are the other half of the problem though. At least some of the scummy tactics are psycological hacks to get around real irrational behaviors that actually work against both the consumer and the business. The rest are dark patterns meant to manipulate and coerce that work strictly for the business, consumers be damned. I'm not sure where the line is. Side note: Even to this day, I still catch myself sometimes thinking/saying the cost of something is $X rather than $X+1, when the listing price of something is $X.99, and I curse myself for the foolishness :P
- baud147258 7y ago
  > real irrational behaviors that actually work against both the consumer and the business Do you have examples of such behaviors?
  - pixl97 7y ago
    Look up JC Penny sales. Their CEO got rid of sales and marked the products down so the normal cost was the sale price. They almost went out of business.
- Doubl 7y ago
  Years ago in the UK, the prices were commonly, say, £9 19s 11d instead of £10, that is a discount of 1/240 of a pound
- save_ferris 7y ago
  I worked at my uncle’s shoe store as a kid, and he was a huge believer in marking down prices below the recommended MSRP. He even refused to set up an online store so his vendors wouldn’t know what he was doing. The only thing was that there were never any discounts whatsoever. We lived in a military community and I literally couldn’t count the number of times a customer would walk in and ask for a military discount. We were trained to politely explain our pricing and encourage shoppers to price-check our offerings against any place else. And often customers would demand to give us a discount because they served in $MILITARY_CONFLICT. No matter how much we tried pointing out that our shoes were effectively on sale in perpetuity, they simply wouldn’t believe us. The psychology of the sale is real.
C1sc0cat 7y ago
Uk Supermarkets do that All the time and have special small sized versions of brand products made to make it look cheap.

draugadrotten 7y ago

Udemy business model, fake 90% discounts https://www.google.com/search?q=udemy+discount https://www.google.com/search?q=udemy+discount

mrhappyunhappy 7y ago
I was just thinking about this. Also their deals “end” within x hours. The number of sites doing dark patterns is disturbing and the way marketing professionals openly brag about manipulating people is disgusting. People are so wrapped up around the masters finger that they convince themselves their work is meaningful. Sorry, but we are all just cogs in the misery machine.

lotsofpulp 7y ago

I don’t understand the issue with this sales tactic. There is complete price transparency, and it takes minimal mental capacity to understand that “discounts” are just to fulfill people’s desire to “get” something that others might not be able to. If they want that dopamine hit, then let them have it. If something is worth X at time Y at place Z to the buyer, then it doesn’t matter what the discount is or isn’t.

vmurthy 7y ago
Assume that the price of an item is $100 today ($200 original price - so a 50% discount). A week from now is Black Friday. The retailer has said 70% off on all goods. Now if the retailer increases the price to $333.33 (100/(1-0.7)) and then discounts it by 70% to give a final selling price of $100, wouldn't you feel cheated? I know I would.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  The words original price mean nothing to me, as it should to everyone. I ignore discounts too, I only care about how much money is coming out of my pocket for what I'm paying for, and what my alternatives are. I lie about discounts all the time, all salespeople have to. Buying a house, car, land, businesses, etc. People in poorer countries where bartering is common do it for everyday items too like fruits and vegetables. They'll say "I'll make a deal for you I don't make for anyone else."...obviously they make it for others too, but is the buyer supposed to take it to heart? No, it's all in the game. If the retailer says 70% off the rolling average sale price during the past 365 days, and then lies about THAT, I would feel cheated.
  - reroute1 7y ago
    But this is placing a giant burden on the consumer to do legal level language analysis of a sales pitch. That's not going to happen, so that kind of language is taking advantage of the average person since they aren't going to do that. Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's not shady and dirty. Your bartering example is a bit out of context, that's not as obvious as a dark pattern or blatantly misleading via pricing and sales.
detaro 7y ago
Clearly it does matter in practice, otherwise discounts wouldn't be worth advertising?
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Because people like the feeling of getting a discount. I don't know why, but it satisfies some part of their ego. Discounts don't change the utility of the product or the budget of the buyer or anything, other than the buyer feeling good about themself.
  - mlthoughts2018 7y ago
    You are way overcomplicating it. People are not talking about comparing the discounted price with some fictional “intrinsic utility” price and your comments about the utility of the item are tone deaf and missing the point. Advertising that you are selling something at a discount is information that your price might be lower than a competitor. Nobody likes getting a discount at store A then seeing the same item for less at store B, and as a result, people don’t care much about discounts in an absolute sense. Only that the information announcement of the discount is advertising price competition with other sellers or substitutes. When a seller lies about the original price to claim a discount, they are banking on consumers just “believing the lie” that the fake, pre-discount price was a competitive price compared with competitors or substitutes. People choose to believe it’s a malicious & morally wrong action for the seller to do that, to intentionally play against consumers’ penchant to seek the lowest price among various alternatives by creating a discount from an inflated reference price that is intentionally not competitive with other sellers, and to hope that it fools some consumers who trust the seller instead of doing the legwork to compare prices & learn if the pre-discount price was in line with competitors. People just choose to believe a seller that chooses to do this is shitty and acting antagonistically to manipulate buyers. They expect sellers to be honest about sources of price competition. A discount should be with regard to a prevailing market aggregated price, or some close & sincere approximation from sampling the prices at competitors or prices of substitutes. If the discount is in regard to some other way of setting the pre-discount price, then it’s intentionally manipulating people to play on the cognitive flaw that they will nonetheless believe the discount is in regard to some notion of a “fair market value” price level, especially in situations driven by short-term cognition.
mcv 7y ago
There is not complete price transparency. The shop claims the normal price is higher than it actually is, in order to make the discount seem more attractive. That is deception, and therefore not transparency. If only the final price mattered, shops wouldn't be advertising such discounts.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  The only purpose of a discount is to make the buyer feel better. If they changed the price without labeling it a discount, the buyer’s utility of the item doesn’t change, but they’re feeling good about it does. I’d rather see education in schools teaching people that discounts are sales tactics that should be ignored rather than laws governing discounts, which would be costlier to implement and enforce.
  - mcv 7y ago
    It makes the buyer feel better because the buyer gets intentionally misinformed about the value of the item. That lies can make someone feel good does not necessarily make the lie okay. (I suppose it might in some circumstances, but I don't think trying to manipulate someone into spending money is one of those circumstances.) If you think discounts are completely meaningless, then completely banning advertising with discounts is very easy to implement and enforce. Much easier than to properly educate everybody how to arm themselves against deceptive sales practices (though I agree it would be nice if we could do that).
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      The value of an item is decided at the time an agreement is made between a seller and buyer. There is no one size fits all "value" until then. This can easily be seen in goods such as low volume, high margin goods such as land, vehicles, heavy equipment, intellectual property, and of course, labor. However, in the developed world, logistics and supply chains have sufficiently developed to allow for minuscule margins on many everyday, low price items that make it uneconomical to negotiate the value of each item to each buyer, so the seller just lists one price for everyone. In markets in poorer countries, the seller might not do that, and it might be worth their time to negotiate each sale. If they say to one buyer "I'll sell this to you for 50% off today, and charges him the same price as yesterday, and the buyer agrees to buy", who is harmed? Price discrimination is a natural part of markets, and the only reason it hasn't been happening is because it wasn't worth the retailers time in the US. But with automated systems coming into place, there is no more labor cost and so it's becoming economical to price discriminate again.

SmirkingRevenge 7y ago

Those seedy furniture stores that have "going out of business" sales that seem to last for years, are often running the same scam. Grocery also stores do this, with their shoppers cards discounts. Consumers are the other half of the problem though. At least some of the scummy tactics are psycological hacks to get around real irrational behaviors that actually work against both the consumer and the business. The rest are dark patterns meant to manipulate and coerce that work strictly for the business, consumers be damned. I'm not sure where the line is. Side note: Even to this day, I still catch myself sometimes thinking/saying the cost of something is $X rather than $X+1, when the listing price of something is $X.99, and I curse myself for the foolishness :P

baud147258 7y ago
> real irrational behaviors that actually work against both the consumer and the business Do you have examples of such behaviors?
- pixl97 7y ago
  Look up JC Penny sales. Their CEO got rid of sales and marked the products down so the normal cost was the sale price. They almost went out of business.
Doubl 7y ago
Years ago in the UK, the prices were commonly, say, £9 19s 11d instead of £10, that is a discount of 1/240 of a pound
save_ferris 7y ago
I worked at my uncle’s shoe store as a kid, and he was a huge believer in marking down prices below the recommended MSRP. He even refused to set up an online store so his vendors wouldn’t know what he was doing. The only thing was that there were never any discounts whatsoever. We lived in a military community and I literally couldn’t count the number of times a customer would walk in and ask for a military discount. We were trained to politely explain our pricing and encourage shoppers to price-check our offerings against any place else. And often customers would demand to give us a discount because they served in $MILITARY_CONFLICT. No matter how much we tried pointing out that our shoes were effectively on sale in perpetuity, they simply wouldn’t believe us. The psychology of the sale is real.

C1sc0cat 7y ago

Uk Supermarkets do that All the time and have special small sized versions of brand products made to make it look cheap.