Many people have noticed that the price of a ticket changes between two checks, and a product in the cart suddenly becomes more expensive. From this came the persistent belief that websites recognize an interested buyer and raise the price for them personally. The reality is more complicated, since there are two different phenomena here that are constantly confused, and only one of them is really about you personally.

Dynamic pricing means changing the price depending on market conditions, that is, demand, product availability, competitors' actions, time of day, and season. The key feature is that at a specific moment all buyers see the same price, although it may change several times during the day.

Personalized pricing works differently, since it responds not to the market but to a specific person, relying on their purchase history, behavior on the website, location, and device type. Here, two people at the exact same moment see different figures. A separate term has already appeared for the second phenomenon, which can be translated as tracking-based pricing, and it is precisely this that raises the most questions. The difference has practical significance, since dynamic pricing is an ordinary market practice that existed long before the internet, whereas personalized pricing is in a gray area and is increasingly coming under the attention of regulators.

What Is Proven and What Is Folklore

The most widespread everyday version concerns airline tickets and looks like this: the website remembers your searches and raises the price, while clearing cookies or using private browsing helps you find a cheaper option. There are few systematic confirmations of this specific scheme, and most ticket price changes are explained by ordinary dynamic pricing, that is, the sale of cheaper fare classes. When the cheapest seats run out, the next check shows a higher price regardless of who is looking. At the same time, documented cases of personalization do exist, and the most high-profile one happened recently. An investigation by Consumer Reports showed that the grocery delivery service Instacart conducted pricing experiments using artificial intelligence, because of which different users saw different prices for the same products in the same stores at the exact same moment, and the difference for individual items reached approximately twenty-three percent.

After the publication, legislators and consumer advocates called for an investigation, and within several weeks the company announced that it was ending these experiments. Earlier, it had also shut down another program that allowed retail chains to set different prices for people living in the same city. That is, the phenomenon is real, but it is rarer and more cautious than mass consciousness imagines, and companies quickly abandon such practices as soon as they become public.

What Affects the Price You See

Location is the most common factor, and it works both at the country level and at the level of a city district. Device type is taken into account, since it is believed that users of more expensive devices are less sensitive to price, while mobile buyers are more likely to be in a hurry. Browsing and purchase history makes it possible to assess your interest and willingness to pay. Time of day and day of the week affect demand, and therefore the price. Loyalty program status can work both ways, meaning that it can give a discount to a regular customer or, conversely, show a higher price to someone who already buys regularly.

Competitors' actions are tracked automatically, and the price changes in response to their changes.

How to Protect Yourself

Compare prices on aggregators, since they show offers from several sellers at the same time, and the difference between stores is usually greater than any personalization. For Ukrainian electronics, these are Hotline and E-Katalog. Check the price from different devices and in private browsing mode, and although this does not always change anything, the cost of checking is minimal. Do not buy immediately if the purchase is not urgent, since many services send a discount to those who left a product in the cart. Use price-tracking services that show the history of changes and allow you to understand whether the current offer is really advantageous or whether it is an ordinary price presented as a promotion. Turn off personalized advertising and periodically reset the device's advertising identifier, since the profile is the basis for any personalization. I wrote about this separately in the material about whether your phone listens to you. Treat countdown timers and messages about the last units of a product as a signal to stop rather than hurry, since artificial urgency is a classic technique that I wrote about in detail in the material about dark patterns.

What About This in Ukraine

European and American regulators are actively dealing with this issue, but their decisions do not directly protect Ukrainian consumers. In practice, the most noticeable issue for us is not behavioral personalization, but regional pricing, when the cost of subscriptions and digital goods differs depending on the country. The second factor is currency conversion, because the actual amount in hryvnias changes along with the exchange rate, and some banks add their own commission.

The third is that a significant part of the Ukrainian market operates through marketplaces with dozens of sellers, and the price spread there is explained by ordinary competition rather than tracking algorithms.

Therefore, the most effective protection in our conditions remains comparing offers rather than fighting personalization.

About the Line Between Normal and Questionable

Airlines have been selling tickets by fare classes for decades, and there is nothing hidden about this. Hotels raise prices during the season. Taxi services increase the cost of a ride when there are fewer cars than requests, and companies explain this by the ratio between the number of drivers and the number of requests. The question arises when the price depends not on the market, but on an assessment of how much a specific person is willing to pay, and when they are not informed about it. It is precisely this lack of transparency, rather than the fact of changing prices itself, that is the subject of disputes.

Summary

Prices on the internet really do change constantly, and in the vast majority of cases the reason is market conditions rather than a personal assessment of your ability to pay. Personalized pricing does exist, however; it is documented at least in one high-profile case with a difference of up to twenty-three percent, and companies quickly shut down such experiments as soon as the public learns about them. The practical conclusion for the buyer does not depend on which of the two phenomena you encountered, since in both cases the same thing works, namely comparing offers, checking the price history, and refusing to hurry when you are being pressured.


Sources: Consumer Reports investigation into pricing experiments, publications by Marketplace, Kiplinger, industry materials on pricing in e-commerce