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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.'"
Hmmm.... me thinks someone is posting to the completely wrong thread.
Meh.
This is sorta off topic, and I wrote this essay for another forum, but I think it's relavent anyhow because people should know why prices are very likely to be 20 to 40 times higher before the year is out.....
The Coming Collapse of the Dollar
and will FOSS Save the Day
Yeah, I know, the title sounds like gloom and doom. But seriously, I want
people to read this, so they can understand the big picture making it
more likely that they can improve and secure their life over the long
term. I am not an investment adviser, and I don't get paid for this -
so take things here with a grain of salt please.
Money is supposed to be a medium of exchange and a store of value. And
while it's true that money is still used as a medium of exchange, US money
at least, has not been good as a store of value since the 1970's when the
US dollar became 100% unlinked from any commodities (like gold). Well
I take that back, for some periods the dollar has been a great store
of value. Which is surprising, because other countries that had tried this
trick ended up having hyper inflation as their currencies became worth not
much more than the cost of ink and paper. But in the USA this has not
happened for several reasons:
1st: A LOT of people are used to using dollars as a store of value and
exchange, so it takes a lot to change that way of life.
2nd: (and most importantly) even if a US citizen does all his transactions
and makes all his earnings in other currencies, he still must eventually
convert any gained value to US dollars to pay taxes (or go to jail), which
creates a demand for dollars propping up it's value and keeping it from
collapsing.
3rd: The good citizens of the USA have had large productivity increases for
long periods of time, which has a tendency to disguise how badly the
dollar has lost it's value. If your bang for the buck is half of what it
used to be, but the cost of making your widgets has also gone down to
half of what it used to be. Then you are less likely to notice that you
were robbed of half of what you would have had otherwise. Did I say that
right?
BTW: they even have a name for this level of inflation, it's called the
"core inflation". In my own technically illiterate terms, it's the
inflation point at where the economy doesn't panic over inflation because
efficiency gains disguise the loss of value. And it's no coincidence that
oil, commodities, and food prices (that is "volatile" prices that are less
responsive to productivity changes) are often excluded from inflation indexes.
4th: The dollar is "technically" not just printed up like other fiat
currencies (as they are often called). It is "loaned" out to banks (by the
fed) who, in turn loan it out to people and businesses, who in turn
circulate the money in the economy. So in the big picture, the need to
pay back dollar debt also creates a demand that keeps the currency from
collapsing.
5th: At this point, so many institutions and investors rely on the dollar
that they can't afford to let it collapse. So they will go through great
measures to promote it's value even if they perceive it to be worth less
than it is.
6th: Other currencies do the same thing, and often aren't all that great
either. Factually, the USA is big, powerful, more business friendly,
less corrupt, and more transparent, than many other governments. When
people seek a place to store their wealth, they will more often than not
choose the dollar over other currencies for those reasons.
So are those compelling reasons to use the dollar, or what? Well, all of
these reasons really translate to: people can't find an easy way
to squeeze out of using and relying on the dollar. However, when it comes
money and wealth, people are very creative and determined, so over time
the dollar sill looses value in spite of all these pressures. And over long
periods of time, it
The trick to fighting fat kids is endurance! They don't have it... so you have to draw the fight out.
So needless to say, when I managed to find myself in an encounter, I had to end the event quickly.
Know thy own limitations!
(I did drop most of the weight though... roughly 30lbs to go)
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
"In Darwin Australia, Intelligent Designers troll for _you_!"
No more coffee for me...
"cop-car beater"
It's got a cop motor: a 440 cubic inch plant. It's got cop tires, cop suspensions, cop shocks. It's a model made before catalytic converters so it'll run good on regular gas. What do you say, is this the new Bluesmobile, or what? - Elwood to Jake, The Blues Brothers