Lee & White

Do you want to tell a seller that you want to pay more?

Picture this, you’re in your favourite shop and you spot this dress... you want it!

You look at the price tag, is this a good price for this dress, is it an item that will be marked down in the next sales, do they have something similar in your other favourite shops, would your friends think you look gorgeous in this dress?

And then you decide, buy now, buy later, leave it.

Moving to the digital world: You browse on your favourite shop's eCommerce site and you spot this dress... you want it!

You look at the ‘price tag’, is this a good price for this dress, etc, etc?

Now know that the price of this item can be changed at the flick of a switch, based on supply and demand, or even calculated on the fly.

A few factors can be taken into account for this calculation:

• You came to see this dress for the 5th time in just as many days... you really want it, perhaps a small downwards nudge on the price would convince you
• You really ‘like’ this dress (on Facebook) – perhaps you want to pay just a little bit more
• You’re the right gender, age, build and style
• You’re married/engaged/befriended to someone with those properties and their birthday is coming up/tomorrow/today/yesterday...
• Your ‘friends’ really ‘like’ this dress, some of your ‘friends’ came back several times to look at it, and perhaps some even purchased it. – perhaps you don’t mind paying a bit more
• You looked at similar – more pricy – items at other stores, perhaps already adding it to your basket, without checking them out

From the point of view of the seller, how much can they ask for this dress? The answer? As much as they can get (from you), or in other words, as much as you would be willing to pay.

In French, the expression ‘A la tête du client’ is used, the best English translation being a price based on the customer’s appearances. In tech/marketing it is called ‘Behavioural Pricing’.

Behavioural pricing consists of calculating the asking price on the fly based on your personal data. This can include any of the following personal data, some of which are sensitive data and not allowed to be used for this purpose:

• Your age, gender, build, style, address, job, job level, medical history, tastes and dislikes
• Your browsing and purchase history
• Your travel history and plans
• Your friends and the above properties thereof

Farfetched? Possibly. Feasible? Certainly. Applied? Who knows?

In any case, the lesson to be learnt here is to not spread your personal data around unless absolutely necessary and justified, for the purpose only for which you are giving it, and only as long as they need it and you want them to have it.

Organisations know an awful lot about you and are starting to deduce and predict your every move, and you are giving them the means to do so, willingly, knowingly.