Why Two People Pay Different Prices for the Same Product

Why do two people pay different prices for the same thing? Shops increasingly calculate a price for you personally, from your data - your browsing history, your precise location, the items you left in your cart, and, according to the FTC's own study, the movements of your mouse across the page. In a field test of around 400 shoppers ordering identical baskets at the same moment, nearly 75% of items came back with more than one price, and the gap reached 23%. On 1 October 2026 the first US law against the practice came into force in Maryland. Six weeks earlier the FTC said it can require a label but does not have the authority to ban it. This is how the system works, what the industry says in its defence, and the two-minute test you can run yourself. CHAPTERS 0:00 Same groceries, different prices 0:47 Personalized vs dynamic pricing 1:20 What the FTC study found 2:32 The grocery test: 400 shoppers 3:15 The older cases: hotels and test prep 5:00 The airline question 6:32 The case for personalized pricing 8:11 The new laws 9:45 The gap: a label, not a ban 11:01 The two-minute test you can run SOURCES FTC surveillance pricing study - what the federal study found https://www.forbes.com/sites/daraabas... FTC proposed enforcement policy statement on personalized pricing (19 Aug 2026) https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/pub... Surveillance pricing laws: Maryland, Connecticut, New York https://www.manageengine.com/insights... Groundwork Collaborative / Data for Progress polling https://groundworkcollaborative.org/n... Asians Nearly Twice as Likely to Get Higher Price From Princeton Review - ProPublica https://www.propublica.org/article/as... The FTC's Personalized Pricing Disclosures Would Cost Consumers Their Discounts - CCIA https://ccianet.org/articles/the-ftcs... #pricing #economics #consumer #data #explained