Business, Economics, and Taxes 2: That's Why We Fight to Take the Means Back

[aparch]

There is a furniture/appliance store here that has electronic price tags on most of their products. Talking to the owner, every hour the program they are set up to scours the online competition on the internet and makes sure they have the lowest price on their product.

I suppose it can work in reverse as well, if the online competition raises their prices, they in turn can raise theirs while staying under the online pricing. Must be legal here, as they actually mention this in their advertising.

I recall a story years ago about very topic specific books sold via Amazon that used a similar method to price themselves "competitively," but as stock was low, two sellers got locked into a feedback loop where each automated system incrementally increased the price due to "demand" and the price of the other seller until the books were thousands of dollars each.

*edit* Correction: Millions of dollars.

https://www.techdirt.com/2011/04/25/infinite-loop-algorithmic-pricing-amazon-how-book-flies-cost-2369865593/