I worked for a company that had 3 completely different websites selling electronics. The backend was the same (i.e. same products and descriptions), but the prices were different.
Essentially they competed with themself. They actually got some orders on the more pricey site! And the price checkers were happy thinking they checked a few sites, and found the lower one.
This is a fairly common occurrence in the real world, too. I knew a guy whose father worked for a company that manufactured windshield wiper fluid, which was packaged and branded in three varieties: budget, midline and premium. Identical product, three different price points, and all had good sales, because they were going after different market segments.
Not every sale is driven by "low price"-- in fact, in some segments, low price is a turn-off.
Yes, but that's not a 1-man job. And that company is EXTREMELY smart.
It may sound stupid to compete with yourself, but what about 'owning' a google search term? Good SEO on all 3 sites may result in 3 top 10 rankings for a single product, 1 on each site.
If you owned position 1, 2 and 3 - what % of that search traffic do you think you would get?
Essentially they competed with themself. They actually got some orders on the more pricey site! And the price checkers were happy thinking they checked a few sites, and found the lower one.