Price Discrimination Encyclopedia Article @ aNewLow.com (A New Low)(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
Although the term "discrimination" has negative connotations, "pricediscrimination" is merely a technical term meaning differentiation in price to increase efficiency.
Pricediscrimination requires market segmentation and some means to discourage discount customers from becoming resellers and, by extension, competitors.
Pricediscrimination is thus very common in services, where resale is not possible; an example is student discounts at museums.
Popular forms of invidious discrimination include distinctions by gender, biological sex, sexual preference, race, skin color, religion, nationality, ethnicity, ability, age, socio-economic class, marital status, and body size.
Invidious discrimination implies the distinguishing factors are intrinsically irrelevant to the decision being influenced.
The State of Israel is often accused of discrimination against Palestinians; this topic is discussed in the article on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Because of the potential for a relatively low price, the broad scope of products and services available, the ease of access, and the social benefits of the auctions process, there are a large numbers of bidders.
Because of the large number of bidders, the potential for a relatively high price, reduced selling costs, and ease of access, there are a large number of sellers.
Dutch auctions is a type of an auctions where the auctioneer begins with a high asking price which is lowered until some participant is willing to accept the auctioneer's price, or a predetermined minimum price is reached.
Despite this, some retailing sectors flout this regulation, especially in areas of very competitive, commodity products such as personal computers, where the fine print of an advertisement states "prices already cash discounted -- surcharge for credit card".
Australia is currently acting to reduce this by allowing merchants to apply surcharges for credit card users.
In the United Kingdom, merchants won the right through The Credit Cards (PriceDiscrimination) Order 1990 to charge customers different prices according to the payment method, but few merchants do so (the most notable exceptions being budget airlines and travel agents).
