

Sandman Pricing - jeffesp
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2012/10/17/Sandman-Pricing

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ben1040
Someone replied to his Twitter post on this topic with an interesting point:

<https://twitter.com/b6n/status/258785250145087488>

The message "This price was set by the publisher" only appears when he's
logged in. That message is a tipoff that the book is sold under the agency
model, where the publisher sets the price and Amazon takes a cut off the top.
Under the agency rules, Amazon had no choice but to sell at that price.

HarperCollins, the publisher of this book, was one of the three publishers
that settled with the DoJ in the lawsuit that accused the publishers of
colluding with Apple to use the agency model to impose price-fixing on ebooks.
As part of the settlement they agreed to knock it off. [1] But obviously the
DoJ does not have jurisdiction outside the USA, so they presumably would still
be free to force that model elsewhere.

Tim Bray is based in Canada, so if he's logged in Amazon presumably would
treat it as a Canadian sale, and still sell the book under the agency pricing?

edit to add: I tried going to Amazon.ca to see what they'd show a US-based
customer, but they don't seem to show me Kindle versions of that book at all.

[1] [http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/06/apple-ebooks-
idUSL...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/06/apple-ebooks-
idUSL2E8K6GI720120906)

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davidw
I think the international price explains the difference:

Logged in as "me, US guy with US credit card, US registered Kindle, shipping
address, etc..", I get $9.48.

With an anonymous browser window, here in Italy, I get: $14.27 includes VAT* &
free international wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet.

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jonknee
Tim works for Google who is widely known to test everything and show all sorts
of different stuff to different people, how is he surprised that he sees
different pricing based on his log-in status? He should also be clever enough
to figure out the international/domestic difference (as a US customer I see
the same pricing as he does when not logged in).

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Spoom
The first screenshot says "includes applicable taxes", the second does not.
And as mentioned by siblings, the first screenshot has the "price set by the
publisher" disclaimer while the second does not.

I would imagine that if he attempted to check out as an anonymous user, as
soon as he put in his address, the first price would be shown.

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thibaut_barrere
I don't know about other countries, but I'm fairly sure showing two different
prices at the same time to two different customers is completely illegal in
France.

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jonknee
Not when the customers are from different countries... He is logged in as a
customer from another country (probably Canada) vs browsing as an anonymous US
visitor.

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rabidsnail
Why does everyone claim that price discrimination is some kind of injustice
when it's done by a computer?

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abruzzi
It has little to do with the price being set by a computer or a person. He
sees the price for everyone else is one third cheaper. He doesn't say it, but
without making the connection to the price fixing anti-trust action, a
reasonable conclusion would be that since the book is one in a series, and
Amazon knows he bought the previous book, it has jacked the price for him
since he's already "hooked." That to most people would be a questionable
pricing strategy.

The anti trust action makes more sense, but he probably didn't make that
connection.

~~~
rabidsnail
Price fixing requires multiple sellers to collude to set prices. Who is the
seller besides Amazon in this case?

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_djo_
Amazon also adds about $1-$2 to pay for WhisperSync for each Kindle eBook sale
outside the limited countries where it's free. So books that cost $9.99 in the
US cost $11.99 or so when bought from the Africa-specific Kindle store on
Amazon.com.

I don't think that applies in this case, which seems to be as a result of
either Canadian Value Added Tax and/or the agency model, but it's why prices
in other countries might seem to differ from the price you see when you're
just browsing Amazon.com.

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ljd
Our entire business is about giving ecommerce stores the ability to price
discriminate algorithmically. Our servers aren't being malicious they are only
charging you the most you are willing to pay.

If you don't like a product then don't buy it, the price will most likely come
down. It might be hard for people to understand how cold the mathematics and
economics are but it really does go both ways.

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abhimir
For me it is slightly different: When I login "Indian guy with Indian credit
card, Indian registered Kindle, Indian shipping address, etc..", I get $9.21.
With an anonymous browser window, in India, I get: $9.48, no taxes and free
international wireless delivery. I guess this is just third-world / first-
world price discrimination.

~~~
praptak
It's probably also the local taxes. $9.74 here, when logged from IP in Poland,
using Polish credit card.

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mherdeg
Hmm. Meanwhile, on amazon.co.uk I am offered £6.99 including VAT and told
"This price was set by the publisher".

This is roughly the same as the $9.48 Amazon-set price that Tim sees, plus 20%
VAT.

