A report from the NorthEastern University reveals how online retailers charge users differently based on their browser, operating system and prior purchases. Also logged in users might see different prices on online shopping websites.
The researchers recruited 300 people from Amazon's Mechanical Turk to run product searches on 16 sites. Mechanical Turk is crowdsourcing Internet marketplace that enables individuals and businesses to coordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks that computers are currently unable to do.
Mechanical Turk users where then used to visit sites of Best Buy, CDW, Macy's, Newegg, Staples, Walmart, Cheaptickets, Home Depot, Sears, Cheaptickets, Orbitz, Priceline, Expedia, Hotels.com and Travelocity. The researchers were looking for price discrimination on these websites and their method worked to get different results based on different parameters on the websites.
Price discrimination based on the used device, OS and browser seems to be most popular on travel websites. The researchers found that Apple iOS users are favored on travel website Travelocity. Ipad and Iphone users saw lower prices on 5 percent of found hotel rooms, saving them about $15 per night. On the same website Chrome and IE8 users saw a price increase of $50 on one specific hotel.
A price decrease was spotted for users logged in to Cheaptickets and Orbitz who are owned by the same company and use the same technical setup. These sites gave discounts of about $12 per night on 5 percent of hotels rooms to users who were logged-in to their accounts on the site.
Other practices the researchers found at travel website were changes in the search results on the websites based on user clicks and purchase history. Another trick is trying to steer users to more expensive hotels.
From the general retailers in the list only Home Depot was changing prices based the used device. Shoppers searching the website of Home Depot received totally different products on desktop PCs and mobile devices. Desktop PC users searching Home Depot received about 24 search results on average, with an average price per item of $120. In contrast, mobile users received about 48 search results, with an average price per item of $230. Android users also pay more at Home Depot, products are $0.41 more expensive on average when visited the website with an Android device.
To get the best price, the researchers recommend to visit sites you buy from with different devices and when possible different operating systems. It can also be useful to login and/or to clear cookies before you start your search.
