On the surface, it might have seemed that this system of one price for all was logical and fair but many would argue just the opposite.\u00a0 After all, why should the most loyal customers pay the same price as the most promiscuous?\u00a0 Why should the customer who only needs one<\/em> of something be treated to the same deal as the customer buying ten<\/em>? Why should an item be priced the same on a slow sales day as it would be on a day when throngs of customers are in store?\u00a0 In other words, why shouldn\u2019t the fundamental laws of supply and demand apply to retail?<\/p>\n

The truth is that all these things do matter but rather than offer different customers different prices, most retailers simply choose to mask the underlying dynamics of pricing by using conventions like loyalty discounts, coupons, promotions and markdowns.\u00a0 Thus, the sticker price really only served to create the illusion of fairness in pricing. The ability for one consumer to get a lower price on a product than another now depended as much on luck and timing \u00a0– stumbling on a sale or promotion – as it did on any real connection to supply and demand for the item. \u00a0\u00a0Pricing was generally speaking, purely supply-based<\/i> and served the retailer.\u00a0 There was no true \u201cone price for all\u201d but merely a suggested retail from which to discount, often quite arbitrarily.<\/p>\n