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My answer is to not worry about it and be glad that these practices lower prices.
by jimmaswell 5y ago
My answer is to not worry about it and be glad that these practices lower prices.
- fukmbas 5y agoYeah who gives a shit how many tampons I buy
- Vinnl 5y agoWhat if they don't actually lower prices, but use your purchase history to learn what gets you to spend more money?
- Scoundreller 5y agoIn Canada, 'price discrimination' is a criminal offence. Cuz you know, if something is anti-consumer and impacts rich people, strong laws will be written against it. But there's many ways around it.
- shadilay 5y agoWhen has anything so trivial as legality bothered multinationals?
- Vinnl 5y agoIt needn't even be price discrimination; for example, they can also just specifically highlight discounts for you for products that you usually combine with expensive/high-margin products that you otherwise wouldn't buy.
- detaro 5y agoHow do they lower prices?
- titzer 5y agoExactly. It doesn't lower prices. What it really does is increases profits, which allows them to grow faster than local markets and they can expand and wipe out even more groceries and ends up as a big fat bonus for the executives and shareholders.
- missedthecue 5y agoIf fewer people shoplift, the shrinkage rate lowers and grocery stores have more room to play with the price because their margin is wider. This is why inner city stores with higher shrinkage rates charge higher prices and why memberships stores like Costco which have almost no shoplifting losses at all can be so competitive. If facial recognition is able to reduce theft, prices will likely be competed downwards over time.
- swiley 5y agoIt worked well for the non-jewish Germans I guess.
- 9dev 5y agoThis comment might sound cynical, but it’s spot on.
- npteljes 5y agoThey lower prices how you get free email from Google, seemingly a good deal. When in reality email costs as low as 1 EUR/mo to be a long-term viable business.
- swiley 5y agoEmail is free if you already have a domain name and a public IP.
- teawrecks 5y agoAnd maintain/pay for an email server.
- swiley 5y agoYou already have to have a computer anyway.
- npteljes 5y agoWould it work if the computer I have is not always turned on? I think the other MTAs would give up delivery after a few retries, so you need at least one always-on computer, so a server. And then we're not really in the "free" territory anymore, it's much more worth it to just pay professionals for hosting.
- brewdad 5y agoDomains aren't free and neither is a static IP in most cases.
- mixmastamyk 5y agoThey raise prices, then give you a “discount.”
- Spivak 5y agoI feel like this misunderstands sales and discounting systems. Because it's a snappy line which is technically true but the long answer is way weirder. I'm just gonna use Kroger as an example because they use "club pricing", rotating club pricing, actual sales, "manager specials", and closeout sales. - Everything by default is priced at MSRP, that's the price on the white price tags or the yellow price tags that don't have a corresponding white price. - Then they use club pricing which is the price on the "yellow" tags that aren't formatted like number/$dollars like 3/$5 or 2/$4. This is the price you would compare to Walmart. - Then there is rolling club pricing which is like 2/$5 but always unit priced to your benefit. So they will mark 2/$4 but the unit price is $2. These aren't actually sales in any meaningful sense. But the next ones are. - The actual sales require a minimum unit purchase. You probably see these when buying soda or vitamins. If you compare prices to other stores this is only time you'll see the unit price actually smaller than other stores. The "buy n get $n" deals are also in this category but are way more gameified. - Then there are "manager specials" i.e. "woohoo!" deals which are priced with stickers and also actually discounts. - Finally there are closeout deals which are white tags usually steeply discounted and don't require a card to get. I really hate that all this garbage works. I really appreciate stores that just post a price.
- JohnFen 5y agoAll that is true, but none of it is a counterargument to "They raise prices, then give you a “discount.”"