I keep getting these little greeting-card-like mailers from Dell, offering me some special deal on a PC or whatever. If you've bought from Dell, you probably get them too.
What I've noticed, though, is that I don't trust them. I don't trust the little card to be the best deal I can get, and I don't trust Dell to be upfront w/me if that is or is not the case. It's kind of like having a sale in a store, but you only get the sale price if you saw the ad in the paper... and there are different ads in different papers that list the exact same item for different prices.... and there's no indication inside the store that there's even a sale going on at all. That's kind of what it's like dealing w/Dell.
From a CNET article a few years back:
Dell's PC prices also vary on its own Web site. "Recommended
configurations" by Dell can often cost less than similar configurations
put together by consumers navigating the site on their own. Prices on
the site for the same PC model can vary depending on whether consumers
are shopping in the small business, consumer or large-business
subsections of the Dell site.
So... you end up with this whole little ecosystem where deal-finders start scouring sites like this, to see if they can get a better price than they get by navigating Dell's web site directly, or (in this case) responding to the little mailer ad.
There are many compelling reason to have variable pricing. Among them are maximizing short-term profit, and compensating for the support cost variances between different markets (enterprise vs. Grandpa Joe, for instance).
BUT, one of the casualites of variable pricing is relational trust. If my provider is giving a better deal to the guy down the street, and isn't transparent with me about that, and about why.....well, let's just say that I'm not inherently thinking of that provider as one who will reliably be looking out for my best interest.
...and that's not to say Dell is, or is not, in the relationship business (I think I would argue they are, or at least should be); but I'd sure pay a lot more attention to their mailers if I thought they were sincere.
