Rip off Britannica....

[AtW]

Its most likely the price which in their view maximises their profitability - they would have loved to charge more in the USA, but almost certainly the market there won't take it. Why do you think they developed different DVD regions? For different pricing (and to avoid people swapping them between regions with differnt prices) because they know they can't charge UK price in Asia, or UK price in the USA.

[mcquiggd]

And then they complain about file swapping and region-free DVD players.... ho hum!

[AtW]

Yes they did not count on that file swapping being made so feasible - their power was in controlling the distribution as well as spec of players (regions), but suddently this all went out of control, in practice a big chunk of the sale price goes to middlemen of all sorts, and the original creator often can't sell direct at low price in fear of alienating the channel, though this happens - say you see 30-40% off magazine deals if you subscribe it directly, this way they save from having to pay same amount to retailer.

Pricing is a really understated area of economics, wish I had time to write a nice PhD on it.

[BoredBloke]

When the Nissan z350 was launched a few years ago, it was a straight $/£ swap. The exchange rate was 1.9 at the taime making the UK car almost twice the US price. But that is the same for pretty much all cars out there.

[AtW]

I think some of it has got to do with taxation - they don't have 17.5% VAT in the USA, even though states do have sales tax but AFAIK it varies and high levels are like 8% or so.

Now Nissan z350 is a nice car! Take a note Dim - its not like SLK!

[Board Game Geek]

The problem is, the buyers in the UK are used to paying higher prices, because the market has conditioned them to expect so.

It is logical to say that a certain amount of collusion has gone on, in order to set a price expectation.

Take a tertiary service, like recruitment agency for example.

When you examine the real direct cost, they simply match a CV (not altogether successfully I might add) to a job requirement.

If you have managed to get the hang of the card game called "Snap", then you are well on your way to being a Recruitment Consultant.

Of course, additional costs can be incurred. but at the end of the day, the basic cost is next to nothing. However, such services tradtionally cost more than they really cost. Why is this ? Why have prices been escalated so much ?

If it is because of people's greed, then such people need to be taught a lesson.

I am convinced that there are some people in society who believe that they have a mandate to charge "as much as they can get away with".

This is simply wrong, on a deeply moral and fundamental basis. These people are basically saying "all people are free to charge the going rate, but some people have a little extra lee-way".

And now for a complete diversion........of sorts

In an online game, called World of Warcraft, there is an economy for goods and services within the game.

Some of the goods are very hard to obtain, and require much effort on the part of the individual to obtain. Hours of playing in fact. But there is an alternative. Some "entrepreneurial" individuals will spend hours of their own personal time, obtaining the goods you may desire. Such goods are available to buy for very high prices. These individuals then sell the goods for exceptionally high prices.

But the World of Warcraft is starting to see a change in the economical engine of the game world. Some people are starting to get fed up with the inflated prices that others charge for items. One chap in particular has completely turned the market on it’s head. Several people had spent a lot of time and effort (days worth in fact) monopolising the market with a product (Runecloth Bag). Prices were 7-8 gold a bag.

But this player said no to the economy and the 12,000 people that play on our server.He said prices should be lower. The other laughed, but some of us agreed with him. I don’t care if someone spent 16 hours of real time gathering the components to make a Rune Cloth Bag to sell for a vastly inflated sum. That’s their fault for not judging the market.
In the end, several of us bought the components to make these Rune Cloth Bags, and as such created a massive shortfall on the Server. Here’s the kicker. Did we sell them for “Mega-Bucks ?” No…we sold them for as cheap as we could, making just pennies per sale. They flew off the shelves. We got threats from the major buyers. Well boo hoo. They accused us of manipulating the market.

We agreed. We had manipulated the market.

We then asked them to read the comments on the message board of 1000+ players who said “Thank You for not screwing us”. We asked them to contact our customers if they had a complaint.

They never wrote back.

We have now told the server that we will step in if someone appears to be taking advantage of his/her fellow players, and we monitor the economy to ensure the prices are within our general guidelines. So far, things are ticking over nicely. We have had a few problem players who want to get rich quick or use others to make their fortunes, but luckily these have been nuked for obvious reasons. So far, the market is regulating itself, and we issue alerts of the base manufacturing cost of all products, so others can work out the cost of goods and caluclate whether the buyer is making an acceptable or exorbitant profit on his goods.

[AtW]

BBG - if you were in real life and you tried to dump product on a market like this then you'd get beaten up by other traders, probably killed even - above all you'd just join the gravy train to rip off others too and just count profits: its all easy to do it in the game where no real money lost, but in real life you would have never acted like that.

[Board Game Geek]

AtW,

I agree to a point.

The game is a safe environment to practice our ideas and manipulate the market to the detriment of more greedy players.

I agree real life would be a lot more "dangerous". You are absolutely right.

But if enough people can participate, and perhaps 1 in 10 of those people starts to form ideas outside of the game, then perhaps we have been successful beyond the game.

We have taken a humano-centric economy and modified it, and even though it exists virtually, we have shown what people can do, when motivated, to the whole of the world.

The step between the virtual world and the real one, is but a blink of the eye.

[Sysman]

I was considering getting the DVD version of the Encylopedia Britannica for a friend who has a kid who is at school.. until I saw the US price versus the UK price...

US price: $39.95 (about £22).
UK price: £32.99.

Any more examples of how we are being ripped off....?

That's nowt - try pricing up the OED, either for the "CD-ROM" or for the online subscription:

"CD-ROM" - 250 quid + VAT,
North and South America $295

WTF? not even a DVD at that price?

1 year online subscription - 195 + VAT, American price $295.
¨
Guess what? Same company, OUP.

[AtW]

But if enough people can participate

People (on average) generally make rather selfish and very short-sighted (which makes them foolish) choices.