Wed, 01 Jun 2005

Study: Shoppers Naive About Online Prices

It's true: most people believe that merchants charge the same price to all and sundry. But they obviously don't if you think about it even a little bit. There's the wholesale/retail price difference, for example, and the various breakdowns on quantity, not to mention the various "sales events". The market is still the bazaar, after all, even though the haggling is hidden.

I do believe that there is a place for the Uniform Commercial Code to step in here, though, as many of these practices are borderline deception. There's always going to be haggling, but it should be as transparent as possible, and always with an opportunity for a true give and take negotiation.

A more controversial thought I've had is that contracts shouldn't be able to specify the exclusion of other products. For example, a bar that sells Coca-Cola products should also be able to sell Pepsi - the soft drink companies are notorious for using supply contracts to exclude their competitors. Don't know how that would work in practice, however.

AP - Most American consumers don't realize Internet merchants and even traditional retailers sometimes charge different prices to different customers for the same products, according to a new survey.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

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