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Show HN: Maximize your profit with dynamic pricing

19 points by jmarbach 7y ago

YakovKagan 7y ago
Really surprising that more companies aren’t doing this. I did a quick search and saw that The Princeton Review was doing this (https://techscience.org/a/2015090102/index.php https://techscience.org/a/2015090102/index.php) on their own. Of course I bet if this became more common, consumers would start to get annoyed and try to game the system. Cool website though.
- howard941 7y ago
  It might be common enough already to warrant a VPN in a low income country, if one is perhaps purchasing from Disney or Netflix or seeking college financing (among the examples from the OP)
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
amedytska 7y ago
Kinda reminds me of the Big Mac Index.. McDonalds charges different prices for the same thing in different countries. Of course that’s a physical product and this is an API and I bet cows in Romania are cheaper than America. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/01/12/the-big-mac-index-shows-currencies-are-very-cheap-against-the-dollar https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/01/12/the-big-...
aptinfo 7y ago
I just installed a VPN to see how this works on the demo site, https://concorde.io https://concorde.io. Pretty impressive to see the price changes when I change between various countries.
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  Yeah this’ll end up like discount codes. Everyone will VPN in to get a discount.
jamesponddotco 7y ago
This looks pretty cool — and I think it is what airlines already do —, but I wonder what the public perception is on something like this? I do not mind if a company does this — it makes sense to me. But what about other people?
- jmarbach 7y ago
  There is one precedent for this that spans all people: taxation. People with lower incomes will get better access to products. Meanwhile, people with higher incomes will contribute more, because they're able to.
yourmailman 7y ago
This makes complete sense and makes you wonder why a company like this doesn’t already exist. Seems like this company could help startups and unicorns (need scale) that are stuck due to broken pricing and unlock serious value
sonnynomnom 7y ago
woohoo!
hvass 7y ago
What are the legal implications of doing this based on jurisdiction? There are also ethical considerations. I expect this to be another thing which will be an 'open secret' in the tech/marketing worlds until other people find out about it and will be upset about.
- jmarbach 7y ago
  There are no legal implications for doing this based on jurisdiction. As one of the other commenters points out, the cost of a Big Mac varies widely depending on your geography. This is an example of McDonald's adjusting their prices to their local market. As an aside, it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, disability, age, or gender. This product is not considering in any of that information. It simply considers an IP address and a user agent.
  - adontz 7y ago
    Correlations may be hidden in statistical data. Don't be so sure.
gitgud 7y ago
Interesting idea, I assumed a lot of websites would do this via A/B testing in different locations, to determine the highest price a customer will pay in a region. But this is kind of a step further in predicting the price they'll pay. How much of the persons browser are you capturing? Just the user-agent? I would think screen size would be a helpful metric to segment users... small screen laptops vs massive displays, latest iPhone vs older Android...
kpsychwave 7y ago
If you are interested in testing geo-specific dynamic pricing, we have a tool here just for that: https://www.geoscreenshot.com https://www.geoscreenshot.com

19 points by jmarbach 7y ago

Really surprising that more companies aren’t doing this. I did a quick search and saw that The Princeton Review was doing this (https://techscience.org/a/2015090102/index.php https://techscience.org/a/2015090102/index.php) on their own. Of course I bet if this became more common, consumers would start to get annoyed and try to game the system. Cool website though.

howard941 7y ago
It might be common enough already to warrant a VPN in a low income country, if one is perhaps purchasing from Disney or Netflix or seeking college financing (among the examples from the OP)

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

amedytska 7y ago

Kinda reminds me of the Big Mac Index.. McDonalds charges different prices for the same thing in different countries. Of course that’s a physical product and this is an API and I bet cows in Romania are cheaper than America. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/01/12/the-big-mac-index-shows-currencies-are-very-cheap-against-the-dollar https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/01/12/the-big-...

aptinfo 7y ago

I just installed a VPN to see how this works on the demo site, https://concorde.io https://concorde.io. Pretty impressive to see the price changes when I change between various countries.

quickthrower2 7y ago
Yeah this’ll end up like discount codes. Everyone will VPN in to get a discount.

jamesponddotco 7y ago

This looks pretty cool — and I think it is what airlines already do —, but I wonder what the public perception is on something like this? I do not mind if a company does this — it makes sense to me. But what about other people?

jmarbach 7y ago
There is one precedent for this that spans all people: taxation. People with lower incomes will get better access to products. Meanwhile, people with higher incomes will contribute more, because they're able to.

yourmailman 7y ago

This makes complete sense and makes you wonder why a company like this doesn’t already exist. Seems like this company could help startups and unicorns (need scale) that are stuck due to broken pricing and unlock serious value

sonnynomnom 7y ago

woohoo!

hvass 7y ago

What are the legal implications of doing this based on jurisdiction? There are also ethical considerations. I expect this to be another thing which will be an 'open secret' in the tech/marketing worlds until other people find out about it and will be upset about.

jmarbach 7y ago
There are no legal implications for doing this based on jurisdiction. As one of the other commenters points out, the cost of a Big Mac varies widely depending on your geography. This is an example of McDonald's adjusting their prices to their local market. As an aside, it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, disability, age, or gender. This product is not considering in any of that information. It simply considers an IP address and a user agent.
- adontz 7y ago
  Correlations may be hidden in statistical data. Don't be so sure.

gitgud 7y ago

Interesting idea, I assumed a lot of websites would do this via A/B testing in different locations, to determine the highest price a customer will pay in a region. But this is kind of a step further in predicting the price they'll pay. How much of the persons browser are you capturing? Just the user-agent? I would think screen size would be a helpful metric to segment users... small screen laptops vs massive displays, latest iPhone vs older Android...

kpsychwave 7y ago

If you are interested in testing geo-specific dynamic pricing, we have a tool here just for that: https://www.geoscreenshot.com https://www.geoscreenshot.com