General Question

Austinlad's avatar

Why is there such a difference of price in products on the Web?

Asked by Austinlad (16323points) August 4th, 2010

I ordered a new keyboard last night from a site that charged only $29. I saw the exact same keyboard on another site for $99. And by the way, the shipping cost on the cheaper one was half what it was on the more expensive one. I know a little about retailing, markups, etc., but do you/don’t you think a $70 difference is a bit excessive?

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3 Answers

rpm_pseud0name's avatar

I think it’s along the same reason why infomercials are still around, even though you can do a quick Google search to see that the item is a piece of funk…. that reason being, “There is a sucker born every minute.” Companies know that & will always try to take advantage of those people.

YARNLADY's avatar

sometimes it can be in the area of services offered. If you haven’t received the keyboard yet, you might be in for a big surprise.

the100thmonkey's avatar

The cheaper site cuold have bought the keyboards in bulk (serious bulk for that kind of markdown). They could have bought end of line models that were superceded by superficially similar products. They could have bought out another company in a fire sale and are selling off old stock for bottom-line profit.

The company might have simply calculated that they can sell more of the product and still make a profit if they adopt a radically lower markup – as often happens in November in the US and in January in the UK.

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