Started by Tomás Rinaldi (@tomas_rinaldi) ·
haggling was normal until price tags, and dynamic pricing is bringing it back
For most of history you negotiated the price of almost everything. Fixed prices on tags spread with Quaker shopkeepers and then 19th century department stores. Now apps reprice constantly and it feels like haggling with a computer that knows more than you.
6 sources · 38 min down the hole
How I got here
- Started with
- “when were price tags invented”
- Ended at
- Dynamic pricing
The Trail
- “when were price tags invented” (google.com)
- Quakers (en.wikipedia.org)
fixed prices were partly a religious thing: one honest price for everyone
- John Wanamaker (en.wikipedia.org)
- Department store (en.wikipedia.org)
- “coca cola vending machine raise price hot weather 1999” (google.com)
- Dynamic pricing (en.wikipedia.org)
surge pricing, airline fares, concert tickets
What I came away with
In 1999 Coca-Cola's CEO mused about vending machines that charged more in hot weather and got pilloried for it. Dynamic pricing tends to be accepted when it's framed as a discount (off-peak, early bird) and hated when it's framed as a surcharge (surge), even when the math is the same.
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