From: usenet@only.tnx   
      
   I know you can find just about anything through Internet purveyors like Amazon,   
   et. al.  Despite this, I still enjoy shopping at used book and record (CD)   
   stores.  Part of it is the thrill of the hunt, and part of it is the   
   serendipity   
   of finding something you weren't looking for, or didn't even know existed.   
   However, there are just some things that I never see in the stores, so I   
   decided   
   as a treat to simply look up a few long-sought items for possible purchase.   
      
   The prices for books were mostly what might be expected.  I was a little   
   puzzled   
   by one thing, though.  Sometimes there would be a couple of dozen listings for   
   a title, with a range of prices.  Say perhaps a couple of less expensive   
   options   
   for a few dollars, with the bulk of the entries for ten to fifteen dollars.   
   Then at the very top, two or three listings asking for thirty to forty dollars.   
   And no, the most expensive listings were not necessarily the ones with the best   
   condition rating.  Do those vendors ever expect to sell those books at those   
   prices?  Are they checking to see how others are pricing the same item?  Is   
   that   
   the price in their store, and they just don't care if it sells online?   
      
   The situation with CDs was even more extreme.  I could understand asking for   
   twenty to forty dollars for some of the rarer titles, although I would consider   
   most of that range pretty steep.  But I saw listings of two to three hundred   
   dollars for a single CD (not even a boxed set), and I found one priced at over   
   nine hundred dollars.  Granted, it was the only one available on Amazon   
   (I wasn't looking anywhere else), but that price seems wildly inflated.   
      
   I've read vaguely remembered stories about sites that charge different prices   
   based on the consumer profile generated through online activity tracking, and   
   escalating price wars due to algorithmic oddities between vendors that rely on   
   computer programs to set their prices.  Can anyone shed any more liight on   
   this,   
   or at least provide interesting stories?   
      
   --   
   Nostaligia University:  It was better when your dad went here   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)