Slate explains why “You can’t get ipods at a discount“.
This is a very thought-provoking article, not so much because it relates to Apple and the iPod, but goes into some of the interesting details of marketing and advertising that enable me to understand some of the influences at play behind the scenes when I’m making a purchase.
Here’s an example where the 8GB iPod nano costs $250 everywhere while prices for most other electronics like this Sony Digital Camcorder fluctuate wildly giving the buyer a better deal ’somewhere else’.
The author sets it up by explaining away some of the mystery to how retailers advertise and set prices through ‘price dispersion‘ and explains Apple’s “accepted, if controversial, tactic, a retail strategy called minimum advertised price, to discourage resellers from discounting“.
