MSE Forum poll: Is dynamic pricing a good or bad thing?

MSE_JC

Some services (Uber, for example) have a dynamic pricing system, raising prices on the fly when demand is higher and reducing them when demand is lower.

It's a double-edged sword, but it can mean getting a cheaper deal if you've found yourself buying/booking when there's a lull in customers.

On the whole, how do you feel about dynamic pricing?

youth_leader

My poor 31 year old son had to share a room with me recently because of 'dynamic pricing'. 

Travel Lodge in Belfast was £191.00 for a room, I couldn't afford to pay for two rooms.  Also Easyjet flight out to Belfast was £35.99 on the Saturday ... on the Sunday night it was £135.00 each.  I couldn't afford to pay for luggage too.

twopenny

It seems to have got so complex now and not in the customers favour.
The big hotel chains have it carefully worked out that what you save on one day you pay more on another.
 I've even looked at using 2 over a week and you can't roll 4 or 5 days in a row without a huge price hike at some point.

Not quite so bad with airlines but nearly. You have to be really flexible on date and time but then you end up paying extra to hotel.

The only one I can win is West country to Scotland by train even by splitting tickets.
It's cheaper to go from west to London then London to Scotland by a very considerable amount.

Sarahspangles

I don’t mind dynamic pricing when I have a choice, like shopping around in advance for rail tickets or hotels, but I know it’s an issue for people who use service like Uber. If you’ve had to work late in some essential service and end up competing for taxis with people who are out on the town, it doesn’t seem fair.

Uriziel

The name is very misleading because it is not dynamic pricing at all since this implies the price would decrease if the seller can afford to but in the real world businesses know exactly how much customers are willing to pay since customers are already paying that. Why would prices go below what a customer is happy to pay, even if the seller could lower it. This means that dynamic pricing essentially just means that when a lot of people want something the price will skyrocket on a whim such as a certain time at night if they know that a lot of people are heading home for the night and know that young women will just about pay anything as their alternative is being assaulted just so that the business can profit even further.