Have you experienced dynamic pricing from online bike shops?

[AUbicycles]

First the explanation:
Dynamic pricing is where a retailer changes the sale price - it is extremely common among airlines and travel / accommodation services to drive a sense of urgency (and get a commitment/sale) and also ensure that they get a higher sale value. Typically the cost of the service or product increases.

The basic indicator is that the price changes, it may be when you are on a shop clicking around and return to a page. Very there are messages ('only 2 left') to signify urgency and typically this information is manipulated. Sometimes you see a price change when you return on another day is still driven by dynamic pricing and not simply a regular price change.

The dynamic pricing is not always connected to your browser cookies (so clearing your browser cookies doesn't necessary resolve it - for example, your IP address may be used). A tell-tale sign for many is when they browse a product from a retailer from home and then also again from work and experience the different pricing.

As a note, dynamic pricing it is not to be confused with currency exchange where pricing is locked to an exchange rate. This is frequently used to show a shopper their preferred currency and usually there is also some type of rounding up and maybe rounding down so that the prices display nicely... eg. $59.99 rather than $58.23. In my research, retailers have a 'day rate' so a price is locked at the currency exchange rate for a day and the following day is updated as opposed to constantly dynamically generating pricing.


Now the question:
Have you experienced dynamic prices or suspected that prices were being manipulated in some way by any online bike shop?


And my comments:
The major issues is that is it a hidden dynamic and is not transparent so I feel that it is questionable. Only when I specifically accept this type of arrangement... is it then acceptable. For example an auction format. In the long term, I seek services that appear fair and reliable however when an entire industry does it, like the travel industry, it becomes very difficult as a customer.

[eeksll]

I have suspected for a while and if its a bigger purchase I will try a few different ways of getting to the product e.g work/home/ different browser etc. But I have never caught anyone out other than the initial "I thought i saw that at a different price".

The closest I have come to finding out right proof is a ladder from super cheap auto or sa all tools (one of those) where the price was $20 more for for mate (who i was chatting to over hangouts) than the price I was seeing (screen shots and all to prove). THe urls where different but my url when pasted in his browser redirected to a different url.

[queequeg]

Only place I have really seen this is with stores that run a parallel ebay shop and a website. Quite often the same product has two completely different prices, and you might be lead to believe that ebay offers the best price, when quite often it's not the case.
Now, maybe this is just because the two systems are not linked to the same database, who knows, but it's pretty easy to feel ripped off when you buy something and then find that it sells 20% cheaper from the same store on their other site.

[Ross]

I think the eBay price difference (I'm looking at you - a certain large bike shop beginning with P...) where the price is greater there is because of the eBay and Paypal charges are eating into the profit margin so they mark the prices up to cover this.

[RobertL]

I have never noticed it.

[trailgumby]

I find it with insurance renewals. GIO, NRMA, and CommInsure all charge a higher price when it's time to renew. So I just go on their site and get an online quote. Sometimes the saving is a few hundred dollars.

I have recently taken to using an insurance broker - my son - and he has saved me significant sums (four figures) across our vehicle, home and contents, and landlord insurances. PM me if you'd like contact details for a no-obligation chat.

[Neddysmith]

There is a website Hobbyking which i think sort of uses something similar, so for example if you are searching through and looking at various items and you have the items open for a period of time while you are reading or researching or whatever, you cna get a popup type thing where is offers you the item at a discounted price.

I am not 100% on how it works if you only get the discount offer to you once a day or you have to close your browser and go back in to be offered the discount again.

[Neddysmith]

Insurance is the WORST for that, simply by doing what you do and spending a couple of hours going through online quotes and getting a new policy you can save heaps, when you question the people over they dont care and say you dont get the loyalty discounts etc etc, but in reality who cares better to have cheaper insurance up front.

[Aushiker]

I find it with insurance renewals. GIO, NRMA, and CommInsure all charge a higher price when it's time to renew. So I just go on their site and get an online quote. Sometimes the saving is a few hundred dollars.

That is interesting. Thanks for the heads-up on that approach.

[trailgumby]

I find it with insurance renewals. GIO, NRMA, and CommInsure all charge a higher price when it's time to renew. So I just go on their site and get an online quote. Sometimes the saving is a few hundred dollars.

That is interesting. Thanks for the heads-up on that approach.

Or you could chat to my son and possibly save more.

[Aushiker]

I find it with insurance renewals. GIO, NRMA, and CommInsure all charge a higher price when it's time to renew. So I just go on their site and get an online quote. Sometimes the saving is a few hundred dollars.

That is interesting. Thanks for the heads-up on that approach.

Or you could chat to my son and possibly save more.

Does he cover WA but?

[MattyK]

I've seen manipulation on the quadlock website; discount offered if you hang around browsing for a while.

I think the eBay price difference (I'm looking at you - a certain large bike shop beginning with P...) where the price is greater there is because of the eBay and Paypal charges are eating into the profit margin so they mark the prices up to cover this.

I had the opposite with the big P. Cheaper pair of shoes on ebay than their website...

I've seen prices (sales discounts) come and go fairly arbitrarily on probikekit too.

[trailgumby]

That is interesting. Thanks for the heads-up on that approach.

Or you could chat to my son and possibly save more.

Does he cover WA but?

Let me ask

Edit: Yes. Australia wide.

[CaffeineAU]

There is a website Hobbyking which i think sort of uses something similar, so for example if you are searching through and looking at various items and you have the items open for a period of time while you are reading or researching or whatever, you cna get a popup type thing where is offers you the item at a discounted price.

I am not 100% on how it works if you only get the discount offer to you once a day or you have to close your browser and go back in to be offered the discount again.

Hobbyking is a little more complex. The 'one time' offer thing you get if you leave the browser tab open really is 'one time' (for that browser, not sure if it uses cookies), so I usually research everything I want using chrome, and then open the tabs of stuff I want in internet explorer and wait for the 'one time' offer again.

Also, as you buy more stuff, the prices you are shown reduce, often to lower than the 'one time' specials. Some of the guys at work have put many thousands of dollars of orders in, and the prices they are shown (when logged in) are far cheaper than what I get shown.

[Comedian]

I haven't noticed it..

[AUbicycles]

Glad to hear that dynamic pricing hasn't been noticed and I hope that the retailers continue to refrain as it eventually harms them because it opens the door to a multitude of comparison services and it just becomes convoluted and harder to keep long-term customers.

Many of the other things are incentives - I am not a fan of a changing price but it is a proven strategy to provide incentives for a customer to complete a purchase or add more items.