In the age of digital and permanent promotions, paying the “normal” price seems to be more and more difficult.

Even the most zealous shoppers, who routinely compare deals online, aren't sure they're getting the best deal.

And for good reason: they can, without knowing it, be offered an “optimized” price in relation to their propensity to buy.

This is called price customization.

Decryption...

The marketing persona

Targeting customers is the basis of any marketing strategy.

The objective is to be able to offer products that meet the needs and expectations of consumers at a price that they are likely to accept.

Therefore, the price does not only result from the production costs and the producer's necessary margin.

Much more complex, a brand's pricing policy is based on a multitude of criteria relating to the profiles of potential customers.

And to capture as many buyers as possible, price differentiation is essential.

This is the well-known principle of loyalty programs and other senior or junior cards.

But with Big Data, these business practices have changed scale.

Nowadays, algorithms make it possible to develop ultra-precise marketing "personas" (typical profiles) by analyzing the behavior of Internet users, but also to use these tools for price personalization purposes.

To each his own price

What we are talking about here is nothing more or less than adapting the price of certain products and services according to each consumer or, more familiarly, setting a price “at the head of the customer”.

The worst thing is that we are not aware of it since it is from the online display that the differentiation takes place! 

"We don't all see the same prices on the Web"

, explains Laurent Amar, the co-founder of France Vérif, a free diagnostic tool aimed at evaluating the reliability of a website in order to avoid scams and obtain the best possible price.

And to explain that

“if you are young, wealthy, living in Paris and identified as extremely digitized, there is a very good chance of paying a lower price than an elderly person living in the provinces”.

Why ?

Because the algorithms deduce from this type of profile that it has a greater ability to compare offers on other platforms.

A need for transparency

And the interest of the consumer in all this?

For Laurent Amar, the answer is clear: 

“This personalization of prices creates a strong breach of equality.

As early as 2016, a study by the National Consumer Institute depicted a model

"

where some win and others lose"

, stating that if you are not informed about the mechanisms of this price differentiation, you could question the misleading nature of this commercial practice.

Our "E-commerce" file

For the OECD too, the problem stems from the lack of transparency, often linked to false assertions that this personalized tariff would be the “best price”.

In a note from 2018, the international body considers that

"it would be appropriate to consider as unfair any price customization device that is not transparent or does not provide for an opt-out option for consumers who so wish"

.

As often, however, the legislation is lagging behind and a good number of platforms, foreign but also French, use this method... in the most total discretion.

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Arming yourself against abusive practices

If we can only wish for a framework by law, it is still necessary that it has the material means to act. And precisely, it is to provide transparency tools to consumers that Laurent Amar founded France Vérif. The entrepreneur himself was the victim of an online scam that nearly cost him his life when he bought an electronic cigarette that was found to contain heavy metals. He went on a crusade against the criminals of the web, he brought together a team of renowned engineers to create an anti-scam device using artificial intelligence.


France Vérif is free and is used as an anti-virus.

Once installed on your computer or smartphone, simply launch the analysis to check the reliability of an e-commerce site on which you wish to order.

The diagnosis is obtained in a few seconds, after reviewing more than a hundred parameters.

Added to this is a bonus comparison of the prices of the coveted product on the entire web.


Good to know: other anti-scam tools have emerged, such as ScamDoc.com, a free community platform but without price comparison.

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