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Author Topic: $23m for a book  (Read 1729 times)

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Re: $23m for a book
Reply #1 on: April 26, 2011, 19:36:21 PM
Haha very good!
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Re: $23m for a book
Reply #2 on: April 26, 2011, 23:18:34 PM
Interesting read on the algorithms they use!

It's clever how one company was pricing items 1.27 times more than the cheapest price as they didn't have them in stock, so If they sold them they could buy them cheaper elsewhere and still make a profit, and if they didn't sell it, it doesn't matter as they never had them in stock anyway. Quite ingenious! (IMO)
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  • Offline Dave

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Re: $23m for a book
Reply #3 on: April 27, 2011, 01:41:51 AM
Not really that clever given how simplistic the program was.

Even ignoring the school boy error of the price going out of control you think they'd come up with something a bit more advanced than a fixed parameter... it doesn't exactly take much to add some rules...

For example the shipping costs are more or less fixed (or at least vary within a narrow range) so presumably you'd want to quote for books above a certain value (enough for your % to cover costs) and reduce the % margin as the price of the target books increases.
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Re: $23m for a book
Reply #4 on: April 27, 2011, 01:45:06 AM
Clever for me! I didn't know that existed.

The program could be better as you say, but still a clever way of doing business.

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Re: $23m for a book
Reply #5 on: April 27, 2011, 12:40:34 PM
epic sanity check fail. I found this highly amusing
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