Friday, April 20, 2012

In Response to Shane Norris...

Can you think of any other industry where this same pricing action occurs? 

The phenomenon of the fast food pricing situation that you wrote about is almost humerus.  I have seen something like this happen as well. As consumers we are trained to only go after the lowest prices when there is a competitors product that is a direct substitute for the one we are purchasing. But, what happened to the saying, "time is money?" In my eyes, you are only going to be spending around a dollar more if you go to one of McDonald's competitors like Wendy's or Burger King. One dollar is most certainly worth twenty minutes of time.

I began thinking about your question and realized that gas stations have the same situations occurring. I have literally seen two gas stations next to each other and one is priced one cent less than their neighboring station. The line for the station priced one cent less had huge lines while the other one remained basically vacant until they lowered theirs one cent as well. Then the line started to die down.

How can it be possible that as consumers we are willing to focus so much on prices like these situations, but then we go ahead an spend so much more than we have? Could studying the lowest prices of products be a way of making ourselves feel better for our splurges in spending?

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