You’re not going crazy — you may actually be paying higher prices than other people
CNN
It’s hard not to get fired up at how much more everything costs compared to just a few years ago. But people making the same exact purchases as you aren’t necessarily paying the same exact prices as you.
It’s hard not to get fired up at how much more everything costs compared to just a few years ago. But people making the same exact purchases as you aren’t necessarily paying the same exact prices as you. This became apparent to me a few weeks ago when a friend texted me that Starbucks was running a buy one, get one free drink promotion. But when I logged in to the app, the offer was nowhere to be found. Why was my friend getting special treatment? It’s likely that Starbucks used artificial intelligence to determine that my friend, if offered a promotion, would make a purchase they wouldn’t otherwise have, whereas I would make a purchase regardless, said Shikha Jain, a lead partner in the North American consumer and retail division at the consultancy firm Simon-Kucher. The system nailed it for me — just opening the app to check if I had the promo got me to order, and I paid full price. It’s impossible to say exactly how Starbucks’ systems made that correct judgment about me — though my past shopping behavior and the shopping behavior of similar customers were almost certainly factors, she said.
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