Re:More /. Amazon-bashing (Score 2)

There are two fundamentally differences between one-to-many marketing (and pricing) and one-to-one marketing (and pricing).

The first is that one-to-many marketing uses statistical data (think insurance) for determining appropriate price or discount. While one-to-one may use individual buying patterns, browsing patterns, neighborhood or regional criteria, and survey data such as household income. I have taken at least one survey at Amazon.com. Although the information is only as accurate as I want it to be.

The second difference is that collusion can now occur at the individual level. Just last week there was an article on slashdot about Amazon.com planning on selling their customer data. When other retailers discover that you are price-insensitive at Amazon.com you may discover you are paying list price regardless of where you shop! Of course, the government will not allow Amazon.com to sell their data directly to their competitors but other channels (i.e. information resellers) will emerge.