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The problem with this article is that it only seems to present options for intelligent selling agents. Where pricing inequality exists, so too does a market for
by dhx 15y ago
The problem with this article is that it only seems to present options for intelligent selling agents. Where pricing inequality exists, so too does a market for equally intelligent buying agents.
Personalised pricing, complex pricing structures (to prevent comparison) and other newer retail tricks can be overcome fairly easily. For example, proxying purchases through intermediate parties that have access to pricing closer to the point of equilibrium. Or grouping buyers together to starve an industry or supplier of cash flow until pricing requirements are met.
This is a game theory exercise where both buying and selling agents are involved. It is unwise to assume that sellers will have the upper hand. As many cost comparison websites have shown, a market also exists amongst buyers to force prices down to a level of equilibrium.
- JamisonM 15y agoI agree that buyer have power too but there is disparity in resources on the buying side where the buyers are at the retail level. The "easily overcome" tricks require that consumers join the intermediate groups that a buying and otherwise participate in more complex transactions in order to defeat them. This can establish a different equilibrium that is better for consumers but it still involves an extra cost in one form or another. The intermediary takes their cut too (even a co-op would have overhead to address).
- dhx 15y agoAgreed -- although the profit margins available to intermediaries will be very small. Buyers and sellers have a mutual interest in squeezing the intermediaries as much as possible. Thankfully the costs of operating an intermediary on the Internet are small.