4 ms·

Pretty ridiculous especially when all of the advertising of those computers is designed to be utterly confusing and impossible to compare for the customer. One

by andy99 3y ago

Pretty ridiculous especially when all of the advertising of those computers is designed to be utterly confusing and impossible to compare for the customer. One could easily picture a 70% off sale on a computer with a different sku and a made up "regular price" advertised as a deal, it's basically how the industry operates. So it's funny to see HP claim she should have known better. Edit: here is a US example, advertised as "Save 75%" https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-elitebook-x360-1040-g8-notebook-pc-wolf-pro-security-edition?jumpid=ma_cyber-sale_product-tile_top-deals_5_9a8u4ua_hp-elitebook-x360-10 https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-elitebook-x360-1040-g8-... (I have no idea if this is a good deal or not, point is that such "savings" are a common occurence)

dboreham 3y ago
Some countries (e.g. UK) have laws about this: you can't just make up a high price then advertise a big discount from that price. The higher price has to be "real" (usually defined as they were selling actual units of the thing to customers for that price for so many weeks, within so many weeks of the sale date).
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  The US definitely has rules on what constitutes a sale price. Though how often the FTC goes after retailers, I don't know. Probably only when someone complains.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- pavlov 3y ago
  I remember reading that France has hundreds of price inspectors who secretly visit stores all year taking down the prices. When the annual discount season comes around, they compare the discount prices to the data compiled through the year to ensure the advertised discount percentages are real and representative of the long-term pricing trend (instead of, say, yanking up the price briefly before the discounts start).
  - gumby 3y ago
    Seems like we almost have this capability for online retailers thanks to sites like camelcamelcamel. Just needs the appropriate plug ins. The canonical way to thwart this in meat space is to have channel-specific SKUs (e.g. same product sold at Best Buy and Costco but with different model numbers).
    - mh- 3y ago
      > channel-specific SKUs I'm sure this would eventually make its way online if the FTC started enforcing the existing sale price rules. When I worked at Best Buy in 2000, this was already standard practice for appliance manufacturers as well as some PC brands.
    - swores 3y ago
      Channel specific SKUs is common already, but would it be legal to use the same trick for same-channel seasonal sales? I'm not aware of it being done, but maybe it is and I just haven't noticed. For example, sell product all year round as item sku-0001 for $100, while also listing an identical product as item sku-0001b which costs $150 but is not promoted at all. Then the day before black friday, stop selling item sku-0001, and promote item sku-0001b for $105 with a flashing "30% off!!" sign? If you're a third party trying this on Amazon then it has downsides such as lack of reviews, poor ranking etc. on sku-0001b that most of the year nobody is buying. But if you're a retailer with your own online shop, then you just say that the reviews are for this family of products and display the sku-0001 reviews on the sku-0001b page while promoting sku-0001b heavily during the black friday campaign... And then the day after the sale ends, item sku-0001 magically reappears for its usual price of $100 ($5 cheaper than sku-0001b's sale price, but no flashing banner to promote the fact) and sku-0001b spends the next months to a year not being bought or promoted again.
      - toast0 3y ago
        Some jurisdictions have laws about needing to have actual sales (within some time window) at the reference price, not merely being available at that price.
- cafard 3y ago
  In the 1980s, the Attorney General of Maryland beat up on a number of department stores for this sort of thing.
callalex 3y ago
For me there’s a big red banner at the top of the page stating that I can even save 84%!

by andy99 3y ago

dboreham 3y ago

Some countries (e.g. UK) have laws about this: you can't just make up a high price then advertise a big discount from that price. The higher price has to be "real" (usually defined as they were selling actual units of the thing to customers for that price for so many weeks, within so many weeks of the sale date).

rootusrootus 3y ago
The US definitely has rules on what constitutes a sale price. Though how often the FTC goes after retailers, I don't know. Probably only when someone complains.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
pavlov 3y ago
I remember reading that France has hundreds of price inspectors who secretly visit stores all year taking down the prices. When the annual discount season comes around, they compare the discount prices to the data compiled through the year to ensure the advertised discount percentages are real and representative of the long-term pricing trend (instead of, say, yanking up the price briefly before the discounts start).
- gumby 3y ago
  Seems like we almost have this capability for online retailers thanks to sites like camelcamelcamel. Just needs the appropriate plug ins. The canonical way to thwart this in meat space is to have channel-specific SKUs (e.g. same product sold at Best Buy and Costco but with different model numbers).
  - mh- 3y ago
    > channel-specific SKUs I'm sure this would eventually make its way online if the FTC started enforcing the existing sale price rules. When I worked at Best Buy in 2000, this was already standard practice for appliance manufacturers as well as some PC brands.
  - swores 3y ago
    Channel specific SKUs is common already, but would it be legal to use the same trick for same-channel seasonal sales? I'm not aware of it being done, but maybe it is and I just haven't noticed. For example, sell product all year round as item sku-0001 for $100, while also listing an identical product as item sku-0001b which costs $150 but is not promoted at all. Then the day before black friday, stop selling item sku-0001, and promote item sku-0001b for $105 with a flashing "30% off!!" sign? If you're a third party trying this on Amazon then it has downsides such as lack of reviews, poor ranking etc. on sku-0001b that most of the year nobody is buying. But if you're a retailer with your own online shop, then you just say that the reviews are for this family of products and display the sku-0001 reviews on the sku-0001b page while promoting sku-0001b heavily during the black friday campaign... And then the day after the sale ends, item sku-0001 magically reappears for its usual price of $100 ($5 cheaper than sku-0001b's sale price, but no flashing banner to promote the fact) and sku-0001b spends the next months to a year not being bought or promoted again.
    - toast0 3y ago
      Some jurisdictions have laws about needing to have actual sales (within some time window) at the reference price, not merely being available at that price.
cafard 3y ago
In the 1980s, the Attorney General of Maryland beat up on a number of department stores for this sort of thing.

callalex 3y ago

For me there’s a big red banner at the top of the page stating that I can even save 84%!