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Ok, so you set a price cap and it all sells out in 10 minutes. What then?
by css 7y ago
Ok, so you set a price cap and it all sells out in 10 minutes. What then?
- theseadroid 7y agolimit quantity per customer?
- jerf 7y agoWhat do you mean, what then? Then it's gone. That's all. There's no moral component to this.
- whatshisface 7y agoMaybe it would be better if the people who needed it more and were willing to pay more got it, instead of one average guy who wants to panic buy the whole shelf. In terms of giving the right stuff to the right people, the ranking is probably "price cap and instant sell-out" < "price-based rationing" < "need-based rationing."
- 2zcon 7y ago>the people who needed it more and were willing to pay more got it And there the idealism breaks down. Willing to pay more - which you always are if it becomes a life-or-death situation - does not mean able to pay more; able to pay more does not mean deserves it more.
- whatshisface 7y agoHand sanitizer is not life or death even in a pandemic.
- antisthenes 7y ago> able to pay more does not mean deserves it more. Yes, but what's a good allocation metric for 'deserves' ? It's not an easily quantifiable metric.
- mrguyorama 7y agoThere is no law that prevents stores from having limits. Most places seem to manage not running out of inventory with significant sales or coupons just fine.
- jerf 7y ago"Most places manage not to run out of inventory when they give out their own coupons or choose to run sales and have decades of experience in knowing what to expect from them" does not translate to "will know how to avoid running out during a black swan event like a pandemic". Limits are legal, but sufficiently desperate people will do what it takes to get around them. A major component of the problem here is that neither you nor these stores can take their normal day-to-day experiences and apply them to black swan events like this. Your System 1 (bleh, what a terrible name that is....) heuristics are lying to you; you need to engage System 2 for this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow
- pengstrom 7y agoIf they're effective, you ration them like with any other emergency.
- Joker_vD 7y agoThere is also rationing. Ever saw "Limit of X pieces per customer" signs or equivalent? With a price cap, that's essentially rationing.