個性化網購價 你的錢包有多鼓?
Businesses are offered software that spots which customers will pay more.
能發現願意多付錢客戶的軟件現可供企業使用。
IN MANY types of face-to-face retailing, it pays to size up your customer and tailor your offering accordingly. In a 2006 study of Fulton fish market in New York, Kathryn Graddy of Oxford University found that dealers regularly charged Asian buyers less than whites because the Asians had proved, over time, more willing to reject high prices, and readier to band together to boycott dealers who ripped them off.
在許多面對面的零售過程中，揣測客戶需求並對其進行鍼對性銷售往往會得到應有的回報。根據2006年牛津大學Kathryn Graddy對紐約Fulton海鮮市場的研究，跟白人相比，賣家經常以更低的價格賣給亞洲人。因爲經驗顯示亞洲人更容易對高價產生反感，而且更願意很快地聯合起來抵制奸商。
The internet, by allowing anonymous browsing and rapid price-comparing, was supposed to mean low, and equal, prices for all. Now, however, online retailers are being offered software that helps them detect shoppers who can afford to pay more or are in a hurry to buy, so as to present pricier options to them or simply charge more for the same stuff.
具有隱身瀏覽和快速價格比較功能的互聯網，本應代表着所有人都能享用低廉，平等的價格。然而現在，網上零售商可利用軟件幫他們篩選出更有承受能力或急着埋單的消費者。對應地，零售商可推薦更昂貴的商品或直接將同樣的商品標更高的價格。
Cookies stored in shoppers' web browsers may reveal where else they have been looking, giving some clues as to their income bracket and price-sensitivity. A shopper's internet address may be linked to his physical address, letting sellers offer, say, one price for Bel Air, another for Compton. Doug Bryan of iCrossing, a digital-marketing consultancy, explains that the most up-to-date “price customisation” software can collate such clues with profiles of individual shoppers that internet sellers buy from online-data-aggregation firms. All this is fairly cheap, he says.
存儲在消費者瀏覽器內的小型文字檔案（Cookie）可能透露了他們曾經逛過哪裏，並提供了估算他們收入狀況和價格敏感度的信息。一名消費者的網絡地址可以跟所在地地址聯繫在一起，這讓賣家給貝沙灣（Bel Air洛杉磯富人區）可標一個價，給康普頓（Compton肯塔基州窮人區）標另一個價。數字市場營銷諮詢公司iCrossing的Doug Bryan解釋稱，時下大多數"個性化價格"軟件可以使用自身收集的數據對網絡賣家從其他在線數據彙總企業的數據進行校驗。而且他稱這一切都十分便宜。
One of the few big online firms to admit to using such techniques is Orbitz, a travel website. Its software detects whether people browsing its site are using an Apple Mac or a Windows PC and, since it has found that Mac users tend to choose pricier hotels, that is what it recommends to them. Orbitz stresses that it does not charge people different rates for the same rooms, but some online firms are believed to be doing just that, for instance by charging full whack for those assumed to be willing and able to pay it, while offering promotional prices to the rest.
其中一個少數承認使用該手法的大型網絡旅行社企業是Orbitz。公司使用的軟件檢測用戶究竟是用蘋果電腦還是普通電腦瀏覽公司網站。因爲公司發現用蘋果電腦的用戶更傾向選擇更貴的酒店，所以網站也應勢推薦給他們。Orbitz強調他們絕對沒有同房不同價，但是人們相信一些網上公司就是這麼操作的。例如對那些有能力也願意付全價的用戶則收全價，而對其它用戶打更多折扣。Allocating discounts with price-customisation software typically brings in two to four times as much money as offering the same discounts at random, claims Ravi Vijayaraghavan of [24]7, a Bangalore-based firm that develops and operates such software. One way to do this is to monitor how quickly shoppers click through towards the online seller's payment page: those who already seem set on buying need not be tempted with a special offer. Firms like [24]7 and RichRelevance, another price-customisation software firm, from San Francisco, are somewhat keener to talk about their software than the internet retailers who are trying it out. Mr Vijayaraghavan names United Airlines, for example, as among his big clients, but the airline declined to comment for this article.
基於班加羅爾開發和運營這種軟件的公司[24]7，該公司Ravi Vijayaraghavan稱，通過個性化價格軟件來分配折扣，通常可以帶來比隨機分配折扣多兩到四倍的營業額。其中一個方法是監測消費者在網站點入付賬頁面的速度：那些看起來已經決定了的買家不需要通過特價來吸引。另一家來自三藩市的價格個性化軟件公司RichRelevance和[24]7公司一樣，它們跟嘗試軟件的網上零售商相比，感覺更願意暢談這類軟件。Vijayaraghavan稱聯合航空（United Airlines）便是他們其中一個大客戶。然而該航空公司拒絕對此文章置評。
Andrew Fano, a consultant in Accenture's Chicago office, reckons that at least six of America's ten biggest web retailers are now customising prices in some way, but it is hard for shoppers to spot when this is going on. If they knew, many would feel that it is "pushing the boundaries" of fairness, notes Werner Reinartz, a University of Cologne marketing professor and consultant to two Fortune 500 companies that use customisation techniques.
埃森哲諮詢公司（Accenture）芝加哥分部的顧問Andrew Fano稱，美國最大的十家的網絡零售商中，最少六家現在或多或少地在使用個性化價格，但消費者本身很難發現自己所在的處境。如果他們知道，很多人將感覺在試探公平原則的底線。這是由Cologne大學市場營銷教授Werner Reinartz提出的，他同時也是財富500強裏兩家使用價格個性化技術公司的顧問。
Mr Reinartz preaches caution lest companies be dragged through an ordeal pioneered by Amazon in the autumn of 2000. Word broke that the internet giant was selling DVDs at differing prices, to see which web browsers happened to be favoured by shoppers least concerned about cost, former executives say. The resulting backlash prompted it to refund those who paid more, and Amazon now declines to discuss its pricing system.
Reinartz提醒公司要預防陷入2000年秋亞馬遜爲此成爲先烈的經歷。時任總裁稱，在網上流傳這家互聯網巨頭以不同價錢賣DVD，用來分析哪個瀏覽器的用戶更不在意價格。引起的反彈致使公司給多付錢的客戶退款，亞馬遜現已拒絕對其標價系統置評。
Users of price-customisation software have so far been reluctant to peep at potential customers' social-media pages, for fear that this would provoke a privacy backlash. But the operators at the call centres [24]7 runs for its clients are beginning to scan Twitter for gen on the shoppers they are talking to—and sometimes, says Mr Vijayaraghavan, their tweets give useful hints about whether a discount is needed to clinch the sale.
個性化價格軟件的用戶至今還不敢窺視潛在客戶的社交網頁，因擔心這將引起關於私隱的反彈。但24[7]公司客服中心的客戶代表，已經開始代客戶在Twitter上追溯消費者聊天的關係網。Vijayaraghavan稱，有時候用戶的微博會透露究竟是否需要折扣來達成交易。
