They presented a meaningless price when in situations where potential customers would compare them with competitors. Only when they can be sure that a customer would likely not check the price anymore (because they think they already know it or because of psychological reasons), they show the actual amount.
That's a very clear case of improving their own situation (better conversion rates) by worsening their customers' situation (higher likelihood of overspending, reduced ability to compare prices) and making them act against their own interests. This would be manipulation by the all of article's criteria.
Of course as a company you can decide do use that strategy - it's not your job to think for your your customers. But don't be surprised if consumer advocacy groups flag you and at some point you find people demanding a law against that practice.
More generally, I'd draw the line to "marketing" if you supply information to the customer that's either meaningless or misleads the customer, but could not possibly help them reach their own goals. (As in this case presenting an amount in the search results that has no practical relevance.)
I'd draw the line to "manipulation" even earlier, if you make a person act in a way that's against their own conscious interests in the moment. As I said, there can be rare cases in which that manipulation could even be wanted by the person, but I don't see that changing the fact that it's manipulation. It's different from "persuasion" where you make the person change their interests.
You're starting with the prior that buying stuff is bad and should be discouraged in general. This is quite arguable.
Nope. Otherwise people should absolutely love my approach of forcing them to buy at gunpoint - perfect conversion rate!
Even if you assume that the data implies customers prefer the fee at the end, you'd also have to research why they do so - and solve the mystery of why your statistic suggests they prefer the fee at the end, yet direct user feedback suggests the opposite.
>It is just as irrational to not buy the product as to buy it in either scenario, since the price is the same.
That kind of rationality requires perfect information. But it is likely that the price appears lower in the fee-at-end-case, because that is the only effect that the change has - so perfect information is not given. As the price is in fact the same as you say, that would make fee-at-end the case with irrational behavior.
>You're starting with the prior that buying stuff is bad and should be discouraged in general. This is quite arguable.
No, my premise is that buying stuff while you don't know the price is bad, which I think is a commonly accepted sentiment.
Say people come to the store after having seen the advertisement, but when they arrive they decide that after coming here all the way, they don't care to save $100 and they buy the car.
It is conceivable (even probable) here that if I had honestly advertised it as $20000, few would have come. Therefore, making this change would increase my conversion rates on my advertisements. The argument stated by you would mean that my behaviour is defensible, and that I should advertise prices I do not intend to deliver, allowing advertisement conversion rates to be my guide.
However, that's a classic bait-and-switch scam, a kind that is illegal in the US, and I doubt you'd find anyone who'd support it.
In stubhub's case, they are being super-sketchy, and they offer a fig leaf of opting in to showing fees:
http://time.com/money/4018864/stubhub-fees-all-in-ticket-pri...
Trying to do business honestly is hard when your customers are too ignorant and irrational to appreciate honest business.
That instance seems very clearly manipulation. When the cost is known people don't buy, only when they've sunk time on the process do they buy - probably because they have to assume other sites in the field are equally manipulative.
Unless the full cost is available without going through the sales funnel I'd say it's fraud.
The problem is the definition of "manipulated" is not black and white. Consider the relatively recent change in StubHub's fee model. Consumers will always tell you they hate having a service fee tacked on at the last minute when checking out. So, for a while, StubHub tried all-inclusive pricing on their search results, and consumers said they liked the change. However, it ended up tanking their conversion rates. When they A/B tested putting the fee on last, they immediately saw an increase in shoppers willing to buy.
Is this manipulation? The fee was still clearly stated on checkout, but I imagine the subconscious thought process of shoppers was "well, crap, I've already made it this far, I just want these tickets now."
I agree some of the outright "tricking" examples from the article are over the line, but most forms of marketing are manipulation in some respect. When does "persuasion" become "manipulation"?