10 ms·

I’d love to see some data on whether MSRP and average actual price paid have diverged over the years. It does feel like everything is perpetually “discounted” t

I’d love to see some data on whether MSRP and average actual price paid have diverged over the years. It does feel like everything is perpetually “discounted” these days. If Price is Right is using the manufacturer’s list price, this would help explain why contestants undershoot more now — because the prices they tend to see advertised are in fact ~20% lower.

grawprog 7y ago
Prices on most things have also gone up somewhat substantially over the last 5 or more years fast enough I find I still think of some things being the price they were before and end up being surprised.when I realize it's been more expensive for a while. The discount trickery plays into it. You never notice the price increases at first as it's fairly standard all around from what i've seen to raise the base price during a sale, to the point where i've seen them raise the base price at the same time a sale starts then, cross out the new 'old' price and show how great of a sale it is. Then the sale ends and the price is higher.
- didgeoridoo 7y ago
  If you live the the US, that’s likely a violation of FTC regulations against deceptive pricing[0]. My guess is that the “discount” phenomenon has a somewhat more innocent explanation; it’s the result of aggressive inventory management and sophisticated dynamic pricing models. Launch at a high price to snag the price-insensitive customers, and gradually discount down to pull in the lower end of the market and keep your unit volume relatively predictable (very helpful for just-in-time inventory management). [0]: https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=b9b38b61c935105b8ab64d193b46323e&mc=true&node=se16.1.233_11&rgn=div8 https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=b9b38b61c935105b8a...
  - grawprog 7y ago
    I'm not sure, I live in Canada. I know years and years ago the grocery store I used to work at did this. We were told when I worked there that's specifically what they did.
  - charwalker 7y ago
    You just described the Pixel launch model. Launch at X in October then by Black Friday have a $200 off deal or 25% pricing by other vendors for the life of the phone. I wonder if that means the Pixel line is a much cheaper flagship, if the discount price is assumed to be the actual price execs are targeting after launch. I got a Pixel 2 then later a 3 for like 2/3 sticker price off promos by vendors and I'm happy with the price/features/etc. But I wouldn't pay launch price or it.
- taneq 7y ago
  > Prices on most things have also gone up somewhat substantially over the last 5 or more Have the effective prices gone up? Or have "normal prices" gone up and discounts increased in lockstep?
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  Apparently companies tried that and the consumers didn't like it even though prices were comparable or actually better. It has been established as a norm annoyingly to those who would rather not have the noise.
madengr 7y ago
The only thing I track over the years is the price of a regular sized candy bar at the grocery store checkout. When I was a kid in the 70’s and 80’s, they were $0.25, and now they are $1.25 or more.
- AlexB138 7y ago
  I also suspect the quality has dropped. It may just be because I'm not too big on sweets, or my palate becoming dull with age, but when I had a bit of Halloween candy recently it all tasted like wax and sugar. Even things that were favorites when I was a kid (Butterfingers and Whoppers in particular) were bland and flavorless compared to what I remembered.
  - boomboomsubban 7y ago
    The "fun sized" versions of candy generally given out at Halloween always tasted stale to me, likely due to the production and distribution methods for the holiday. I wouldn't use those to draw conclusions.
    - karthikb 7y ago
      More likely they were actually stale, lots of people buy a big stash of candy and hand it out over several years until it runs out.
      - boomboomsubban 7y ago
        They were stale, but even freshly purchased ones are often stale. Candy goes stale faster than you'd think, and seasonal candy often sits around longer and is stored with less care than a regular candy bar.
      - LegitShady 7y ago
        nobody does this. Keeps halloween candy between years? why? there's no advantage to having a "big stash". halloween candy decomposes into empty wrappers naturally anyways. It has a half life of 9 days.
taneq 7y ago
> It does feel like everything is perpetually “discounted” these days. Agreed, most of our general supermarket shopping seems to be on some significant "discount" since most of the time, to the point where we consider that the 'real' price and will avoid buying things when they're not discounted.
- Spivak 7y ago
  My general rule for shopping is that the real price of an item is the lowest price that it routinely goes "on sale" for. Some examples (in my area): - The real price of a can of Coke at my grocery store is $.25/can or $3.00/12pk - The real price of Aerie underwear is $3.50/pair. - The real price of KitchenAid stand mixers is $189.99
  - cgriswald 7y ago
    I do that mentally as well, but I generally ignore the word “sale”, and just focus on the most frequent low price. Around a decade ago I regularly bought a particular food product for $10.99. Then one week it was 13.99. The following week it was “on sale” for 11.99. Then it went up to 12.99 for a few weeks before going back to 10.99. It was eye opening and I also learned to stock certain products.
  - RomanBob 7y ago
    This won't work for loss leader discount though.
- vanniv 7y ago
  Clothing and furniture are the most egregious in this regard. So many stores with "everything 30% off!" signs out front that have been in the sun so long they're cracked and fading.
  - btgeekboy 7y ago
    I’ve found Kohl’s to be a great example of this. If you happen to find something that isn’t 30, 40% off, just try again next week.
samueloph 7y ago
I wonder if companies should be forbidden of advertising discounts at all, maybe they should just list what is the price and the customers can look out the price history and compare with competitors themselves (which is the defence mechanism for the current situation). I really don't like the idea of living in a society where companies I buy things from are trying to scam me by using Pavlov-esque techniques of using fake discounts to get my attention, especially because that works. Really, is that the society we want to have? I would like to hear counter arguments to this.
- pnongrata 7y ago
  You should see the documentary PROPAGANDA: Engineering Consent, on Edward Bernays' theory.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  A lot of products you buy, especially those featured on The Price is Right, aren't sold directly to you they're sold to other companies/distributors for wholesale prices then they sell it on to you (or sometimes another step through a distributor). The manufacturer has no association with you at all and having them fix a price would remove competition from all those stores. It's coming really close to being a price control cartel too, it'll just mean stores can't compete on price to get you into their doors which will probably mean higher prices.
- Dirlewanger 7y ago
  I think about this (in different flavors) all the time. It all comes down to: how much government control do you want in society? For places like the US, well, the answer was at the time of its founding: as little as we can afford (but then again, I don't think the founding fathers could have predicted how absolutely gargantuan the federal government was going to get). The idea of "as little government as possible" was a rough model that continued to thrive as people migrated westward and states were incorporated. With such little oversight came eras like the Gilded Age, during one can see the birth of the modern corporation and the freedoms they took to grow and exploit their markets as they saw fit, all in the name of profits. We're now arguably in the middle of a 2nd Gilded Age; the size and scope of tech companies today would make the JP Morgan's/Rockefeller's of yester-century red with envy, and we've done jack shit as a society to hold them accountable for just about everything. And if we're in the middle of a 2nd Gilded Age, are we also in need of a 2nd wave of Progressivism? Most likely. I don't know how much they could get done though. The modern model of policymaking (especially at the federal level) is so choked with so many voices trying to get the attention of politicians that you often need a hefty budget to get anything done. Even then, it's at a snail's pace. And even if something smelling of a 2nd Progressive wave started to percolate, the sky-high polarization of public discourse on the Internet would make it nigh-impossible to get the facts straight. It makes it an even tougher sell to Americans that hate big government that we need to implement sensible legislation that is in their best interest. This is probably one of the biggest hurdles today to getting anything done: convincing the general public that corporations are not your friend and do not/never will have your best interests at heart.

grawprog 7y ago

Prices on most things have also gone up somewhat substantially over the last 5 or more years fast enough I find I still think of some things being the price they were before and end up being surprised.when I realize it's been more expensive for a while. The discount trickery plays into it. You never notice the price increases at first as it's fairly standard all around from what i've seen to raise the base price during a sale, to the point where i've seen them raise the base price at the same time a sale starts then, cross out the new 'old' price and show how great of a sale it is. Then the sale ends and the price is higher.

didgeoridoo 7y ago
If you live the the US, that’s likely a violation of FTC regulations against deceptive pricing[0]. My guess is that the “discount” phenomenon has a somewhat more innocent explanation; it’s the result of aggressive inventory management and sophisticated dynamic pricing models. Launch at a high price to snag the price-insensitive customers, and gradually discount down to pull in the lower end of the market and keep your unit volume relatively predictable (very helpful for just-in-time inventory management). [0]: https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=b9b38b61c935105b8ab64d193b46323e&mc=true&node=se16.1.233_11&rgn=div8 https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=b9b38b61c935105b8a...
- grawprog 7y ago
  I'm not sure, I live in Canada. I know years and years ago the grocery store I used to work at did this. We were told when I worked there that's specifically what they did.
- charwalker 7y ago
  You just described the Pixel launch model. Launch at X in October then by Black Friday have a $200 off deal or 25% pricing by other vendors for the life of the phone. I wonder if that means the Pixel line is a much cheaper flagship, if the discount price is assumed to be the actual price execs are targeting after launch. I got a Pixel 2 then later a 3 for like 2/3 sticker price off promos by vendors and I'm happy with the price/features/etc. But I wouldn't pay launch price or it.
taneq 7y ago
> Prices on most things have also gone up somewhat substantially over the last 5 or more Have the effective prices gone up? Or have "normal prices" gone up and discounts increased in lockstep?
Nasrudith 7y ago
Apparently companies tried that and the consumers didn't like it even though prices were comparable or actually better. It has been established as a norm annoyingly to those who would rather not have the noise.

madengr 7y ago

The only thing I track over the years is the price of a regular sized candy bar at the grocery store checkout. When I was a kid in the 70’s and 80’s, they were $0.25, and now they are $1.25 or more.

AlexB138 7y ago
I also suspect the quality has dropped. It may just be because I'm not too big on sweets, or my palate becoming dull with age, but when I had a bit of Halloween candy recently it all tasted like wax and sugar. Even things that were favorites when I was a kid (Butterfingers and Whoppers in particular) were bland and flavorless compared to what I remembered.
- boomboomsubban 7y ago
  The "fun sized" versions of candy generally given out at Halloween always tasted stale to me, likely due to the production and distribution methods for the holiday. I wouldn't use those to draw conclusions.
  - karthikb 7y ago
    More likely they were actually stale, lots of people buy a big stash of candy and hand it out over several years until it runs out.
    - boomboomsubban 7y ago
      They were stale, but even freshly purchased ones are often stale. Candy goes stale faster than you'd think, and seasonal candy often sits around longer and is stored with less care than a regular candy bar.
    - LegitShady 7y ago
      nobody does this. Keeps halloween candy between years? why? there's no advantage to having a "big stash". halloween candy decomposes into empty wrappers naturally anyways. It has a half life of 9 days.

taneq 7y ago

> It does feel like everything is perpetually “discounted” these days. Agreed, most of our general supermarket shopping seems to be on some significant "discount" since most of the time, to the point where we consider that the 'real' price and will avoid buying things when they're not discounted.

Spivak 7y ago
My general rule for shopping is that the real price of an item is the lowest price that it routinely goes "on sale" for. Some examples (in my area): - The real price of a can of Coke at my grocery store is $.25/can or $3.00/12pk - The real price of Aerie underwear is $3.50/pair. - The real price of KitchenAid stand mixers is $189.99
- cgriswald 7y ago
  I do that mentally as well, but I generally ignore the word “sale”, and just focus on the most frequent low price. Around a decade ago I regularly bought a particular food product for $10.99. Then one week it was 13.99. The following week it was “on sale” for 11.99. Then it went up to 12.99 for a few weeks before going back to 10.99. It was eye opening and I also learned to stock certain products.
- RomanBob 7y ago
  This won't work for loss leader discount though.
vanniv 7y ago
Clothing and furniture are the most egregious in this regard. So many stores with "everything 30% off!" signs out front that have been in the sun so long they're cracked and fading.
- btgeekboy 7y ago
  I’ve found Kohl’s to be a great example of this. If you happen to find something that isn’t 30, 40% off, just try again next week.

samueloph 7y ago

I wonder if companies should be forbidden of advertising discounts at all, maybe they should just list what is the price and the customers can look out the price history and compare with competitors themselves (which is the defence mechanism for the current situation). I really don't like the idea of living in a society where companies I buy things from are trying to scam me by using Pavlov-esque techniques of using fake discounts to get my attention, especially because that works. Really, is that the society we want to have? I would like to hear counter arguments to this.

pnongrata 7y ago
You should see the documentary PROPAGANDA: Engineering Consent, on Edward Bernays' theory.
rtkwe 7y ago
A lot of products you buy, especially those featured on The Price is Right, aren't sold directly to you they're sold to other companies/distributors for wholesale prices then they sell it on to you (or sometimes another step through a distributor). The manufacturer has no association with you at all and having them fix a price would remove competition from all those stores. It's coming really close to being a price control cartel too, it'll just mean stores can't compete on price to get you into their doors which will probably mean higher prices.
Dirlewanger 7y ago
I think about this (in different flavors) all the time. It all comes down to: how much government control do you want in society? For places like the US, well, the answer was at the time of its founding: as little as we can afford (but then again, I don't think the founding fathers could have predicted how absolutely gargantuan the federal government was going to get). The idea of "as little government as possible" was a rough model that continued to thrive as people migrated westward and states were incorporated. With such little oversight came eras like the Gilded Age, during one can see the birth of the modern corporation and the freedoms they took to grow and exploit their markets as they saw fit, all in the name of profits. We're now arguably in the middle of a 2nd Gilded Age; the size and scope of tech companies today would make the JP Morgan's/Rockefeller's of yester-century red with envy, and we've done jack shit as a society to hold them accountable for just about everything. And if we're in the middle of a 2nd Gilded Age, are we also in need of a 2nd wave of Progressivism? Most likely. I don't know how much they could get done though. The modern model of policymaking (especially at the federal level) is so choked with so many voices trying to get the attention of politicians that you often need a hefty budget to get anything done. Even then, it's at a snail's pace. And even if something smelling of a 2nd Progressive wave started to percolate, the sky-high polarization of public discourse on the Internet would make it nigh-impossible to get the facts straight. It makes it an even tougher sell to Americans that hate big government that we need to implement sensible legislation that is in their best interest. This is probably one of the biggest hurdles today to getting anything done: convincing the general public that corporations are not your friend and do not/never will have your best interests at heart.