The pricing of products as we know it has been turned upside down by the Net.
The consumer, more and more, is in control of the transaction. Fixed pricing is giving way to all kinds of dynamic pricing schemes ushered in by the technology of the Net. Auctions, reverse auctions, Dutch auctions, comparison shopping, group buying even bartering and a host of other buying schemes has put the consumer in control of how much they will pay far an item.
Not that any of this is really new. Auctions, group buying, and bartering have been around in the real world for many years but the Net has made them more efficient. In the real world, it's very difficult for retail stores to change prices after the price tag is applied. But on the Net prices can be changed in a second.
The technology of the Net offers another advantage to the online consumer, quick and easy comparison shopping. Although most of the Net-based shopping robots or personal shopping agents as they are sometimes called of today are primitive, they are maturing fast. A good example of a comparison shopping bot is mySimon. They cover the field in the number of merchants and the products shopped. Some day, you and I can simply tell a shopping bot what we want to buy, give it some basic parameters to follow, like size, color, shipping costs, warranties, and return privileges and it will scamper across the Net searching and negotiating on our behalf for the best deal.
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Douglas Adams
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