This article paints a pretty good description of how price discrimination is used in online shopping and how places like Amazon try to extract consumer surplus. I don't know if I agree with the title's claim, though. If a product is shown at a higher place and you click buy, you're still choosing to buy the product at an accepted price, i.e. the value of the product is still worth more than what you're willing to spend, otherwise you wouldn't have bought it at all. How does that make you a sucker? Because someone else might be getting it for cheaper? That might seem unfair at first, but ultimately it's irrelevant. Other people have different opportunities for a lot of things. Complaining about what price someone is voluntarily willing to pay for a good is probably near the bottom of my list of injustices.
As someone who runs an e-commerce site, I 100% agree with you. The reality is pricing is really hard. There is no "right price" for an item, it's a moving target based on an infinite number of variables. Sometimes we have to test pricing on certain segments of visitors, but there's no deceit going on. If that person doesn't believe the value of the product is equal or higher to the price being offered to them they don't buy, and that's totally fine.
It goes against our sensibilities of fairness. We expect that all consumers should pay the same price for a the same item, regardless of age, race, gender, or browsing history.
So is it unfair when someone uses a coupon they found in a flyer? They're not paying the same price for the same item as someone without a coupon, and people using coupons are likely to be less affluent.
And what about student discounts? Is it unfair that students get better deals on Photoshop and Microsoft Office?
I think the issue is more secret discounts - people who dont't clip coupons know they could. People accept that students might get discounts (or seniors, or whatever), but the idea that a website might give you a different price just because it thinks you will pay more rubs people the wrong way.
It rubs me the wrong way too. But rationally, it's just your classic price discrimination tactics (coupons and special discounts) on steroids, so if you aren't upset by those, you shouldn't be upset by this.
I guess my main issue here is the clickbaity title, since I don't think Amazon is making us suckers. The consumer ultimately has the upper hand since they can just choose not to purchase the product, or use a price search engine to find a better deal (which is akin to using a coupon - people that are price-sensitive are more willing to put in effort to save money).
I know that if I browse coupon sites, I can get a discount. If I'm a student I know there are certain discounts, same as a senior.
But what are my options when Amazon and others have logged my IP addresses and flagged my account and have determined I can afford to pay extra for everything?
What happens when consumers learn that they might have ended in a high price segment? Can they trust any seller to give them a good price anymore? You have to start comparing every item with a dozen web sites to make sure you're not being gamed. Seems like a huge waste of time and trust for everyone involved.
