Pricing is an interesting practice
They determined that when the prices were listed with the dollar sign, customers spent less. Conversely, when the dollar sign was absent, they tended to spend more.
Putting on my hack consumer psychologist hat for a minute…
The dollar sign is a symbol that connects a number to the pieces of paper we think of as money.
The absence of that symbol allows the number to remain an abstract representation, just like the bits and bytes of digital finance.
This OpenAI stuff is a cluster.
The AI race is fast and furious right now. The board’s decision may be the equivalent of a massive in-season superstar trade in sports.
Microsoft could be poised to take the lead while OpenAI could become an also ran or small research shop.
Speaking of shopping looking different
CarMax, Carvana, and the rest of the purveyors of no-haggle, online car buying appear to have worn down the industry enough.
Amazon might truly be The Everything Store™ soon.
It’s going to be really interesting to watch how AI impacts product development. Especially with Google’s new search feature.
Use generative AI to create an image of what you’re looking for. Then use image search to find similar items that actually exist.
One day this could evolve into generating an image of exactly what you want and sending it to a factory to be made for you.
The shopping experience will soon be very different.