From: rrhersh@gmail.com   
      
   On Tuesday, September 15, 2020 at 12:30:37 AM UTC-4, Questor wrote:   
   > 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?    
      
   New book prices are nearly as weird.  I have been paying attention to the   
   price of my book on Amazon.  It lists for $38, which is steeper than I would   
   have priced it, but it wasn't my call.  I have seen the price on Amazon as   
   much as ten dollars lower,    
   but fluctuating wildly.  It made more sense once I realized that they were   
   coming from third party dealers.  My theory is that they buy from the   
   publisher a batch of ten books, the smallest order that rates the wholesale   
   price, then use whatever    
   algorithm they favor to price them.  My guess is that the really low prices   
   are when they are down to one volume and want to get it off the shelf.  Then   
   the price jumped up to the list price and stayed there, even though initially   
   some of the third party    
   sellers were slightly cheaper.  The explanation is that enough copies had sold   
   for Amazon's own algorithm to kick in and buy a batch themselves.  These   
   naturally were listed first on the Amazon page, regardless of price.  The   
   third party prices then    
   gradually inched up over list, placing them in a holding pattern.  Amazon's   
   inventory is down to three copies.  Once they sell I suspect the third parties   
   will start jostling each other for position and the price will come down.  In   
   the meantime, go to    
   abebooks and you can find new copies below list, though with shipping it isn't   
   much below.  Mostly what I take from this is that being a third party seller   
   on Amazon is a mug's game.  If you have anything that sells well, Amazon will   
   cut you out of that    
   market.  Relying on a direct competitor turns out not to be a great idea.  Who   
   knew?   
      
   Richard Hershberger   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)