Dynamic pricing

[Serial_Apologist]

For some products pre-launch "offers" and "be the first to get offers" may be significantly lower, but then if the price takes a hike later - perhaps without warning - if the date of the increase isn't announced - one can lose interest altogether. I'm not sure that the marketeers always get things right - from anyone's point of view.

That might be a good topic for some university to do a research project on.

[Dave2002]

Where there are offers, or prices declared in advance that's not necessarily a problem, but what I think purchasers don't like is if there is a sudden unannounced and significant price change. That's not quite the same issue as the dynamic pricing of tickets to shows, which does seem to present considerable problems, and sadly there are any number of hangers on trying to make an extra buck or more by nefarious practices.

[Serial_Apologist]

Where there are offers, or prices declared in advance that's not necessarily a problem, but what I think purchasers don't like is if there is a sudden unannounced and significant price change. That's not quite the same issue as the dynamic pricing of tickets to shows, which does seem to present considerable problems, and sadly there are any number of hangers on trying to make an extra buck or more by nefarious practices.

Well to my mind, it's just typical speculation, i.e. predicting - either genuinely or falsely - shortages which provide the pretext for price increases, and rake in the money. A lot of shortages are deliberately created; ironically such hoarding ought, all things being equal (), to devalue the product, which is why firms try to overcome piling up unsold stuff by resorting to "just-in-time" continuous throughput measures, but presumably any resulting forcing down of prices according to the rules of supply & demand is then counteracted by using the pressure of demand as the excuse to keep them high.

[Dave2002]

It is I believe somewhat complicated. One example, from a past when the UK had a domestic car industry follows: at certain times of the year there was high demand for cars, and factories could run af 100% capacity, and maybe [??] efficiently. That meant that most cars coming off the production line would not spend much time idle, but be shipped quickly off to customers. Later demand would drop a bit, but new cars could be stored on parking spaces near the factory.

Later, demand would drop further, and it would be somewhat uneconomic to run the factories, or fill up more fields with new, but currently unwanted, cars.

Consider that in those days, workers' strikes were [arguably!!!] more common than now. If workers went on strike over some issue, such as shorter tea breaks, or a dismissal of a fellow worker - sometimes relatively trivial things which sane people might fix quickly - the management could realise that it could save money by shutting the factory or mothballing it - until such time as the workers wanted to return to work.

This may have led to conflicts, as the unions might have dissuaded workers from going on strike during relatively low demand periods, but to an extent encouraged strike action over wages and conditions when it would actually have had an effect on the business.

Now that many car factories are highly automated, basic simple strikes might not happen with the same patterns, though robot maintenance workers and other IT people may ponder on previous eras.