[charles2013]

a colleague sent me a link to "tactic 14." after reviewing the citations i'm skeptical of the rest. it appears the author misunderstood some research he cited.

the thesis for tactic 14 is:

> Anchoring not only works for prices, but it also works for any number, regardless whether that number is a price.

the SSN example demonstrates anchoring based on price (not just any high number). the results of this experiment would have likely been the same if people rolled dice.

and the only experiment [#4 of 5 from adaval and monroe (2002)] which tested "irrelevant dimensions (e.g. weights)" vis-à-vis priming with high/low prices seems to have been poorly designed and produced questionable results. (it should be noted the test methods were also sufficiently different than the UX illustrated in the article.)

so based on the cited research there's nothing that leads me to believe it makes sense to use "any high number" to make my price look better. and if i've understood adaval and monroe (2002) correctly this could actually create a contrast effect (and diminish value perception).

additionally, the suggestion in the article -- "join 2,387 happy customers" -- could also be an example of social proof, making it difficult to ascertain the cause of behavioral change. (was it any high number, or all those happy customers? or both?)

and lastly/separately, why base pricing strategy on the offline behaviors of a bunch of starving students looking for extra credit? it's 2015. where's the shopping cart data?

[blumkvist]

I skimmed through the article and saw some misunderstandings of research too.

Also another thing that made me raise an eyebrow - "You should avoid charging different prices based on past behavior, demographics, or any other factor besides natural supply and demand."

Clicked the "X" shortly after.

People are eating out of his hand it seems though, so he has that going on for him at least. Many ebooks will be sold.

[charles2013]

i'm disappointed this made it to the top of the front page yesterday with such little criticism. it feels like something written by an intelligent yet naïve marketing undergrad, not something on which to base pricing strategy.

> "You should avoid charging different prices based on past behavior, demographics, or any other factor besides natural supply and demand."

wow. what an incredibly stupid recommendation. based on this, every major grocery chain should terminate their loyalty card program, many luxury products/services should never see the light of day, and perhaps the rest of us should just start businesses in perfectly competitive markets with little hope of long-term economic profit.

an aside: searching for "you should avoid" led me to another incredibly naïve recommendation: "you shouldn’t A/B test your prices."

there are so many ways to test pricing it seems irresponsible to dissuade people from doing this, especially in the context of a gigantic list of pricing strategies.

here are just a few types of tests that come to mind:

* practically any promotional/limited offer pricing scheme could (and probably should) be tested.

* prices of users' shopping cart items saved for later (e.g. amazon) - can a/b test same items in different users' shopping carts and measure purchase patterns

* grocery coupons for people in different zip codes - most people don't get coupons for other neighborhoods so they won't see two prices

anyway. rant over :)

[nkolenda]

Thanks for the feedback. I don't mind the criticisms - I think a healthy debate is good. :) However, I just want to clarify something.

> "You should avoid charging different prices based on past behavior, demographics, or any other factor besides natural supply and demand."

That quote is taken out of context. Obviously you should determine prices based on those factors. That quote was referring to dynamic pricing and how you shouldn't charge different customers different prices based on those factors (e.g., I'll charge $200 to Customer X, but I'll charge $150 to Customer Y because I don't think he'd buy at $200).

[blumkvist]

Price discrimination is like the most wide spread marketing initiative period. Don't worry ebook buyers don't like to read comments, you're safe :)