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Ask HN: Is A/B Testing your pricing considered unethical?

8 points by bsears ↗ HN
I'm working on a SaaS which allows you to generate configurable pricing pages connected to Stripe. One of the things I wanted to do was to make it so you could have two pricing pages running so you can monitor how conversion rates change based on price. The problem is that I'm afraid our customers may get in trouble if they were to perform "unethical" tests (selling the same service at different prices to your customers).

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

7 comments

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patio11
While this is a common view among engineers, in e.g. retail, you can trivially pay 13 different prices for bitwise identical copies of the same Chinese sock. See also how many different prices you can find for e.g. a Starbucks latte.

If you feel very strongly about this or need to get over internal objections, you can distinguish X for $Y and X' for $Z in some operationally insignificant way which is unlikely to materially impact conversion rates.

whoaminow
Online shopping sites do it all the time, which I do find unfair, unethical I'm not sure.

But if we go there, you might as-well ask "is it unethical to run sales and discount promotions?" Users might not be happy to hear they missed out but I'd say no it's not.

jackgolding
Are coupons unethical? These are just different coupons...

I tested about a dozen different offers for each b2c role I've had... never once considered the ethics... if a customer complained that their neighbor was getting it cheaper we'd just give them the discount.

ju_je
It does not sound unethical, actually it sounds like normal market dynamics (adjusting your prices over time), and airline companies used to do that all the time and even Amazon experimented it. However if your customers notice the price for a good/service changes without logical explanation, they can resent your company and start complaining (publicly or not) about the unfairness of your prices. You might be interested in listening to an episode of Planet Money named "The Birth And Death Of The Price Tag" (https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/06/17/415287577/epis...).
cm2012
It's not unethical. People who buyat whatever price are clearly happy to do do so.
akulbe
I'd say you might want to look at it a little differently. Look at it in terms of value, as well. Customers value widget X differently. One may think your widget is too expensive, and they'll go elsewhere and race to the bottom. Another may look at your offering and say OMG-this-is-exactly-what-I-need and happily pay your higher price. You are solving a critical need for them, and they're happy to have you relieve them of the burden.

I think you want to look for the second kind of customer.

stevage
Selling the same service at different prices to your customers is basically the definition of market segmentation. It's not inherently unethical.