Competitive pricing

[V8mate]

All this talk of recession and empty seats on planes got me thinking about taking my wife to New York for a bit of Christmas shopping around her birthday in early December.

Ran quotes with Virgin Upper Class and British Airways Business Class. The first came in at £3,730.80 and the latter ar £3,731 - a difference of 20p!

Part of me thinks that the two firms can't be colluding, as every time they have in the past Virgin blows the whistle on BA and drops them in it (somehow managing to get off without blame in spite of being part of the pact!)

But on the other hand, you do have to wonder how two supposedly competitive companies can possible come up with such a similar price on such an expensive product when there are so many areas, in this kind of service, to manage cost and value.



Any other products/services where you think something's wrong with the way the market is priced?

[V8mate]

tomTVR said:

Sharwoods Mango Chutney - every single supermarket is very expensive, i mean how hard can it be to pickle mangos? Yet it is £2 for a big jar.

But that's the same product. Sharwoods Mango Chutney isn't the same price as Tesco Mango Chutney.

[V8mate]

ninja-lewis said:

They'll have systems in place to monitor the other's prices and undercut it by a few pence I suspect.

If you look at the likes of play.com, Amazon and thehut, they often have prices very close to each other in odd amounts of pennies (i.e. Amazon is £6.99, play.com is £6.97).

I'd argue that your example is somewhat different. The sites you mentioned are all just resellers of a product they bought wholesale. There's very little opportunity to add or take away value on a DVD.

[V8mate]

Silver993tt said:

V8mate said:

All this talk of recession and empty seats on planes got me thinking about taking my wife to New York for a bit of Christmas shopping around her birthday in early December.

Ran quotes with Virgin Upper Class and British Airways Business Class. The first came in at £3,730.80 and the latter ar £3,731 - a difference of 20p!

Part of me thinks that the two firms can't be colluding, as every time they have in the past Virgin blows the whistle on BA and drops them in it (somehow managing to get off without blame in spite of being part of the pact!)

But on the other hand, you do have to wonder how two supposedly competitive companies can possible come up with such a similar price on such an expensive product when there are so many areas, in this kind of service, to manage cost and value.



Any other products/services where you think something's wrong with the way the market is priced?

Why on earth would you spend that on a plane seat for 7 hours? Economy costs around £600, saving you £3,100 (x2 if there will be 2 of you) that you can spend on hotels, restaurants, shopping. Look at it this way, over £6000 free spending money when you buy 2 economy class tickets!

It's £3800 for two tickets, not one. Apologies if my OP was misleading

[V8mate]

Silver993tt said:

YZF600R said:

Silver993tt said:

Why on earth would you spend that on a plane seat for 7 hours? Economy costs around £600, saving you £3,100 (x2 if there will be 2 of you) that you can spend on hotels, restaurants, shopping. Look at it this way, over £6000 free spending money when you buy 2 economy class tickets!

This is Pistonheads! God help anyone who admits to travelling cattle class*

(I agree with you, for the sake of 7 hours each way in a smaller seat I'd rather have the extra spending money thanks!)

• Apart from whinging about being 'forced' to travel economy on business!

Well, the way I see it is that you spend the night in a small dormatory with 40 strangers for over £3000 in just a seat - not even a bed (flat bed is actually a flat seat and quite narrow). Just think what sort of hotel suite/penthouse you could get for that and you would have a complete day/week and all to yourself

Edited by Silver993tt on Sunday 24th August 17:46

You're right, it doesn't necessarily make the best sense financially. But I'm tall and broad and hate people, so anything I can do to have more space to myself and less people - kids especially - around me is worth every penny. If I could afford to hire a private jet for the journey I'd be right there with my credit card at the ready.

[V8mate]

thinfourth2 said:

V8mate said:

You're right, it doesn't necessarily make the best sense financially. But I'm tall and broad and hate people, so anything I can do to have more space to myself and less people - kids especially - around me is worth every penny. If I could afford to hire a private jet for the journey I'd be right there with my credit card at the ready.

Well how about the leftfield suggestion of going by ocean liner as in the QM2

It's not leftfield; it's just slow