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Google Patents Profit-Maximizing Dynamic Pricing
theodp writes "A newly-granted Google patent on Dynamic Pricing of Electronic Content describes how information gleaned from your search history and social networking activity can be used against you by providing tell-tale clues for your propensity to pay jacked-up prices to 'reconsume' electronic content, such as 'watching a video recording, reading an electronic book, playing a game, or listening to an audio recording.' The patent is illustrated with drawings showing how some individuals can be convinced to pay 4x what others will be charged for the same item. From the patent: 'According to one innovative aspect of the subject matter described by this specification, a system may use this information to tailor the price that is offered to the particular user to repurchase the particular item of electronic content. By not applying discounts for users that may, in relation to a typical user, be more inclined to repurchase a particular product, profits may increase.' Hey, wasn't this kind of dynamic pricing once considered evil?"
This guy has bought every Madden game ever: No discount on Madden 13 for him.
This guy has never bought a Madden game: Give him a $10 discount to incentivize him.
Sounds great in theory. Sounds ever better in a Google ad pitching the idea. But the reality is that you're about to screw over your biggest fans and supporters. And if they get wind of it, you consequently risk LOSING some of your biggest fans and supporters. Penalizing your fans for being your fans could result in an epic backlash.
Now there are some fan groups (not mentioning any names here), whose members would probably respond to this kind of abuse with a smile an a "Thank you sir, may I have another?!?" But I imagine most people would be none-to-happy to learn that their loyalty to a product line has been rewarded with a backhanded insult.
Not to mention the fact that you can bet that some of the more unscrupulous and technically-minded people out there will quickly learn how to game the system.
BTW, I've never bought a Madden game. Can I get a coupon, EA?
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
You can patent something truly horrific, then not use your patent or let anyone else use it. Hopefully that's what they're going for here.
It's not different, that's whole point. Bargaining involves human thought processes. Most human thought processes are poorly understood. If you can create a well-defined procedure that replicates a mysterious human thought process, you've clearly done something innovative.
Which is not to say I'm happy about businesses finding another way to gouge me,...
It's not that we expect things at any particular price. It's an expectation of basic fairness: that the store won't quietly double their normal prices just because I'm wearing a suit when I walk in, in the hopes of getting me to pay more than they'd normally charge.
And I've seen price discrimination backfire. When I lived up in northern Nevada, I remember the story (straight from the cowboy involved) of the scruffy cowboy who'd pulled up to the lot in a rusted-out beater truck and started looking at the expensive trucks. The new salesguy who'd "got stuck with him" tried arguing with him and pushing him towards the used cars. The cowboy was pretty adamant, and finally got mad and left. The salesguy figured no great loss, and he didn't have to deal with the stink of cowpies anymore.
Next day, the owner called all the salesguys in and called the new guy up front to congratulate him. On costing the dealership the sale of 15 brand-new pick-up trucks to a ranch's fleet. Plus loss of the maintenance on that ranch's fleet. Oh, and the loss of all business from one of the local drilling companies. Turns out, that scruffy cowboy? Was the owner of the ranch and drilling company in question. He'd just come in from helping fix a broken truck and bringing in some cows that'd gotten out, and was looking to replace all his trucks before he had more breakdowns. He was driving the beater truck because that was the one available to run out and take care of the problem, and he'd decided if that was the way he was going to be treated then he'd just take all his business somewhere where they had better manners. Oops.
Now imagine the owner of your company listening to a couple of his friends complain that when they went to buy something for their kids from his company, they were seeing prices a lot higher than what they knew other people were paying, and they weren't happy about it. Do you think the owner's going to be happy with you for getting his friends mad at him because of this new pricing scheme? Didn't think so.
While schemes like this may drive up profit margins to some extent, I think the goal for a lot of retailers in using schemes like these is to keep the actual prices paid for products private and in house. The schemes prevent competitors from price matching and destroy comparison shopping sites like Nextag and (oops) Google Shopping, since their robots will no longer be able to collect meaningful prices. All the vendors will think "This way customers will just stay on my site" And that will be true, so long as the vendor is Amazon or Walmart.
The backlash will be people reporting the prices/discounts they were given for products when they review them. Vendors will respond by deleting that information from the reviews, which will upset their customers who will in turn switch to review aggregator sites like Epinions.com for their reviews, which will in turn be bought by Google, Amazon, or Walmart.
No, their slogan is "Don't, be evil". I thought everyone knew that by now.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.