And you really expect this mantra of capitalist utopia to play out in the next four weeks? Look, it’s not complicated. When I look at a product that is being sold profitably for $11 and change, and the next day the exact same product is suddenly $24 – and the only apparent change has nothing to do with production costs but is all about increased public demand – that is the very definition of price-gouging.
Could be worse. At least they’re telling you that they’re increasing their prices. It’s not like, say, they’re advertising a lot of 1000 for a unit price of $0.39, and then when you go to make an order, telling you that the total is $750 when you add in shipping. And then when you ask how the heck they’re shipping them, telling you that they can’t help it, it’s how much the factory is charging them.
Sorry, just a little bit salty right now.
The pricing of goods isn’t and shouldn’t be based upon production costs but driven by supply and demand. Simple economics.
You have to separate economic from morality. Economics is like physics; it describes how things work but it has no inherent morality and can be used for good or bad. Society has to regulate how morally neutral systems like economics or physics are used to prevent them from being used for immoral purposes.
Too many people believe that if something is economically possible it must therefore being a good thing. Their argument on whether an act is right or wrong is to say the act is based on simple economics. Selling heroin is based on simple economics. That doesn’t mean society should condone the sale of heroin.
The price has now dropped back down to $11.95. It was $11.77 yesterday (which is when I placed my order). I suspect the price is set by the number of views the product is getting and the price surge we saw was attributable to this thread.
I don’t think the 25 views that my link to Amazon got was responsible for doubling the price on a product that had over 10,000 sales last month. In my experience a sudden large price increase may occur if Amazon is out of stock and the listing automatically switches to a third-party reseller. I didn’t notice if that was the case the other day. I’m sure there could be other causes as Amazon has some pretty crazy algorithms driving their pricing.
True only if we had some sort of magical or super-tech factories that could instantly switch production from one product to another in order to fill such needs - not to mention instantly malleable distribution and logistics networks that can instantaneously account for this shift in production and demand.
In reality we do not have that, so it’s just price gouging. This is where the nonsensical capitalist ‘increased prices will bring increased supply’ fairy tale falls flat on its face. Increased prices, sustained over a sufficiently long period of time, have a good chance of inducing people to produce an increased supply…but even given the long period of time, that is not by any means guaranteed in real situations.
Eclipses aren’t surprise events, so we don’t need an instant changeover of production from anybody.
Most surprise events that suddenly affect market conditions (like hurricanes) are regional, meaning the rest of the country has goods on the shelf or in the pipeline that can meet that sudden surge in regional demand. And the distribution network, depending on demand, can be instantly malleable. If the price of portable generators triples due to demand after a hurricane, some guy in the next state will rent a trailer, load it up with all the generators he can find in his town, and drive all night to get to the region where the demand is. He’s not going to do that if he can’t charge considerably more than the usual price. If the law says that generators in the stricken region can only be sold for their usual price, then they’ll only be available for purchase until the local supply runs out. More will trickle in, but they won’t come gushing in unless profits are allowed to gush out.
I think the point is that, if you react to high prices but starting your own eclipse glasses company that just siphons off the existing supply chain, that won’t lower prices.
If you react by starting a company that independently manufactures glasses, that could lower prices but the time to put it together (and get your lenses independently certified) probably isn’t there and most people would be rightfully skeptical of someone who started manufacturing and retailing medical protection equipment on a whim within a few weeks.
In any event, I bought some plastic frame glasses for more money than I remember spending in 2017 but wanted them over the paper frame glasses. I thought there was a chance my younger kid would be interested and wound up buying two packs, but he’s probably not (and I won’t press him for reasons unimportant to the thread) so I now have a wealth of eclipse glasses: four pairs of plastic framed and six paper frames. I’ll bring 'em all with, both in case a pair of the plastics are scratched/damaged and to give away – although I assume anyone in the totality band even vaguely interested will own a pair or several by April 8th.
And in reality, we have the example of what happened the last time there was an eclipse. The Free Market didn’t suddenly provide a large number of quality glasses at a reduced price as compared to the price gougers. Instead, we got the scammers providing cheap fakes that actually ended up causing injury to the people who bought them.
So “price gouging” and “pricing” are just synonyms now? I thought there had to be an element of necessity to the concept of gouging, like if someone is charging thirsty people $100 for a bottle of water because a hurricane knocked out the only bridge.
I agree. I don’t feel you can really apply the concept of price gouging to the sale of eclipse glasses. If the sellers raise the price too high, potential customers will just choose not to buy the product. Price gouging is when you set a high price on a necessity like food, water, electricity, or medicine.
My experience of its use (and the way I have seen others use it) largely means when a product has an accepted and common ‘normal’ price, and then that price is raised significantly, generally for no reason other than ‘they can get away with the increase at this time’. Usually reserved for temporary situations, but no element of necessity has been present in many of the common uses I’ve seen.
For a good example, Google “ticketmaster gouging” and see how many hits you get over price gouging for concert tickets. Concerts are pretty much the exact opposite of a “necessity”, but people still get bent out of shape over abusive pricing schemes.