Online Shoppers Naive About Online Prices

smooth wombat writes "Have you ever been shopping online and noticed the difference in prices for the same item at different stores? Do you realize that not only are the prices different from store to store but they could be different for you compared to someone else who shops at the same store? Nearly 2/3 of adult internet shoppers thought that practice was illegal according to a study (pdf format) conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. First-time buyers at a retailer could see higher prices than a firm's repeat customers, and retailers may not offer discounts to consumers who buy the same brands regularly without even looking at alternative products on the same site. From the article: 'The Annenberg study was based on results from a telephone survey from Feb. 8 to March 14 of 1,500 adults who said they had used the Internet within the past 30 days. The margin of sampling error was reported to be plus or minus 2.51 percentage points.'"

Comments

Yep

[beforewisdom]

There was a story a few years ago about Amazon charging people different prices on the same items based on the customer's geographical location.

You can use this site to compare prices on books, cds, dvds ..etc across site, with the cheapest price on top. The information includes shipping costs:

http://www.bestbookbuys.com/

You can also blow your cookies and see what the prices are before you sign into your account.