“Imagine buying a new vacuum cleaner online. You find an item with a sale price of $190, a previous price of $250, and an advert “You’ll save $60”. You liked the offer and bought a vacuum cleaner. Then you talk to a friend who says he bought the same product for $115 and didn’t realize the discount was mentioned. Then you go online again to find that the price is actually $115 and the comparison with the previous price has vanished. You were deceived, ”said the authors of the study.
They tracked multiple product categories on Amazon for 13 months. Researchers have found that raising prices and supposedly discounting is common practice for many product categories and merchants. Thus, they encourage people to buy goods at a higher price. This is also practiced by Russian online stores.
Source: Ferra
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