Vitacost warns customers about an order limit on this Tom's of Maine soap while at the same time discounting the price of the soap.

Scarcity Pricing: Why Discount When Supply Is Constrained?

I prefer soaps with no additives, scents or other assorted chemicals. Accordingly, I have purchased Tom’s of Maine natural soaps for almost 20 years after a dermatologist introduced me to this friend of sensitive of skin. The soap is a bit expensive and sometimes hard to find. So when I find a reliable source, I […]

Football

Football Analytics: Kick Extra Point, Worry Later About 2-Point Conversion

The Football Game Scenario The football game was early in the fourth quarter on November 15, 2020. The home team Carolina Panthers were down 32-17 to the visiting Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Bucs). Hope came alive for the Panthers after quarterback Terry Bridgewater ran up the middle for a 3-yard touchdown. With over 11 minutes to […]

Grocery Pricing: When A Sale Is Not A Sale

The topic of pricing is one of my favorite on this blog. Over the years, I have developed a keen sense of pricing dynamics. So when I find (apparent) pricing anomalies, I feel compelled to talk about and explain them. I made a quick 2019 New Year’s Eve run to Target and decided to take […]

A Football Story: The Brittle Logic of Kicking Away A Scoring Opportunity

Football coaches are notoriously conservative play callers, especially at the professional level. While this behavior can produce sub-optimal game strategies, the precautions are understandable given the precarious nature of the job. A coach’s audience is prone to judge decisions by outcomes instead of the situation and information available at the time of the decision. Coaches […]

Jeff Bezos may go down as one of the most successful valedictorians in American history.

Jeff Bezos and More: In Defense of the Value of Valedictorians

Source: Steve Jurvetson – Flickr: Bezos’ Iconic Laugh, CC BY 2.0 Jeff Bezos is known as the founder and CEO of Amazon.com (AMZN). The stock for his company is toying with the $1000 level for the first time ever and is close to pushing Bezos past Bill Gates as the world’s richest man. Source: FreeStockCharts.com […]

Still Not Worth the Cost: A Follow-Up Case Study of Congestion Pricing in the SF Bay Area

Over three years ago, I wrote “Not Worth the Cost: A 17-Month Case Study of Congestion Pricing in the SF Bay Area” as an analysis of congestion pricing on the Express Lane for Highway 237 in Milpitas, CA. I concluded then that the opportunity for saving time was not worth the price of the toll […]

Uber Uses Economics 101 And A Natural Experiment to Justify Surge Pricing

I have several beefs with Uber and its ilk. One beef I do NOT share with some is the controversy over Uber’s surge pricing. Surge pricing sounds exotic, but the pricing process is relatively basic in operation and in principle. It comes from the economics of bringing supply and demand into balance when demand surges […]

Using Machine Learning To Tease Out A Dynamic Pricing Algorithm

On November 29, 2013, I wrote a piece titled “Not Worth the Cost: A 17-Month Case Study of Congestion Pricing in the SF Bay Area.” In that piece, I presented data I manually collected on toll costs for the westbound Express Lane on Highway 237 (running from Milpitas to Sunnyvale, CA) versus the drive time […]

Not Worth the Cost: A 17-Month Case Study of Congestion Pricing in the SF Bay Area

On March 20, 2012, the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) implemented congestion (or dynamic) pricing on a critical San Francisco Bay Area thoroughfare called Highway 237 that primarily connects commuters from the East Bay to the South Bay. This change converted an existing car pool lane into an “Express Lane” which now allows solo drivers access […]

Does the TouchPad Firesale Teach Some Lessons In Pricing?

On August 18, Hewlett Packard (HPQ) announced its earnings and dropped the following bombshell: “HP will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. The devices have not met internal milestones and financial targets. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward. “ My first […]