General Question

elbanditoroso's avatar

Why is there such a huge price difference for the exact same SKU?

Asked by elbanditoroso (33159points) September 26th, 2021

I was shopping today for some compression socks. There is a manufacturer I like, and I have been buying the same ones for years. I know the stock number and the SKU (stock keeping unit = barcode) so that’s what I look for.

Amazon had it at $31.95. (lowest)

Several medical supply houses had the same stock number at similar prices- one was $32.50, another $33.90 – a little higher but in the same ballpark.

What threw me: Once place wanted $48 – another one $57.00 – for the exact same stock number.

How do they expect to sell anything at nearly double the price of the others? What’s the rationale for pricing a commodity and a level far above the competition?

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5 Answers

Zaku's avatar

Cashing in on people who don’t do enough (or any) research to notice, or who don’t care because they are expensing it, or even part of a racket where someone’s expensing it and buying excessive amounts from their friend’s business?

But probably not even that. Many things have widely varying prices from different vendors, because they do, for whatever reasons. Most shoppers are not comparison-pricing everything.

SQUEEKY2's avatar

That is cheap compared to the compression socks I had to buy, granted mine are custom made but mine just cost me $300canadian.

gorillapaws's avatar

@elbanditoroso What’s the MSRP for the stockings? Are they still being manufactured, or are these the prices of people cleaning out their inventory?

SQUEEKY2's avatar

Retailers will charge what they think the public will pay, and @Zaku is correct a lot of people don’t comparison shop and will just pay what the store is asking when they find what they are looking for.

Lightlyseared's avatar

You list a product that you don’t have for sale on your website but that people may google. It brings you visits and then you switch them to a similar cheaper product that you do actually stock.

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