Moreover, the segmentation is crummy UI, like coupon codes at checkout. Dell (at least once in the past) prices out the same laptop at different prices, depending on if I'm a 'home' user or a 'business' user. That's bullshit, no matter how you slice it

If Business.Price > Home.Price then it would seem that they (manufacturers) are targeting big companies that aren't going to haggle laptop prices too much.

If Home.Price > Business.Price then it would seem that they are hoping businesses will see the lower price and do all of their computers & accessories through that manufacturer. Or, of course, they know that home buyers aren't as tech savvy and aren't going to notice.

Whenever I think about market segmentation and prices I think of Joel's great article on it: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie... (2004)

With respect, how sure are you that it was the "same" laptop? I've done that before too, but just because you have the same processor, hard drive, etc. doesn't mean you have the same motherboard, antenna, case, and a variety of other things you can't customize.

Between certain models, the Dell Inspiron and the Dell Latitude had interchangeable motherboards, had the same integrated graphics, and sourced the same LCD panel. But the actual 'same-ness' is irrelevant in this case - the real issue is my impression that I'm going to get 'ripped off' if I don't sit down for hours and compare their entire product lineup every time I want to buy another Dell laptop.

That's a terrible customer expectation and experience vs. Hey, I want an Apple laptop. Oh, I want the Macbook. Look, it's $999 + some basic options. Done.

I was once told that the 'home' and 'small business' sections of the Dell website were managed by different internal business units which set their prices independently. Thus, an identical laptop would differ not necessarily (though sometimes) in base price, but in add-ons, included options, free upgrades, or bundles.

I recently purchased a monitor from dell and they definitely have different prices for home, smb and government.

It's the same monitor, same model number and the same specs.

They also seem to have different discounts in different segments.

I'll weigh in as a consumer, not a programmer--I'm a writer and photographer, and ordered a 16-inch Toshiba (Satellite A500-ST6647, based on reliability surveys) on Monday. I spent about three weeks revising a spreadsheet, trying to figure out just this, how they differentiate their consumer, business, gaming and multimedia lines. But even harder was trying to calculate actual price.

As I'm sure you've seen, there are insane discounting schemes, and base retail price means nothing. And then after scouring for coupons and coming up with a number, that number is only good for two days, because it was a Memorial Day sale and that's over, but wait, here come the Father's Day discounts.

> having 2-4 customizations of the same model and presenting them as different models.

That means YOU Dell and HP.

I think these companies thrive with a confusing market. If you can easily compare two products then the purchase is muddied. I've seen this often with different grocery store products in regards to volumes and masses on sale for fungible items.

I think it's best to have confusing figures and specs when you have all these manufacturers who are really trying to produce the cheapest of something (in this case PCs or cellphones). You put the money and the marketing in maybe one overworked detail (big screen, big HDD, fast video card) and then cheap out on everything else. So if they want a certain user to buy their product, they emphasize what they think that user wants.

It is especially infuriating in the grocery store when they "go to the trouble" of adding conversion information to the shelf label but then aren't consistent with the units on similar products. Thanks HEB, since you did the math I know that this juice is $0.03/oz. and that juice is $0.79/liter. That helps alot.

I once saw a (pre-packaged, junk food) product that was priced at "$0.35 per 100g" or some such, when the individual portions within the box were 75g each.

This is much more frustrating when they do it with nutritional information, showing you the nutritional values for 0.87 individually wrapped jam cakes.

Even more infuriating is when they don't even bother to do the unit pricing! two sizes of the same product- one says "18.00/unit" and the other says "everyday price $21.99"!

Exactly! The main idea is to prevent the customer to easily compare features, especially with the offerings of other manufacturers, which would force the company to compete with lower prices, which is obviously undesirable. So it's really intentional in different businesses and there's a word for it, even if it's formulated by a cartoonist:

http://riskman.typepad.com/perilocity/2008/12/confusopoly-or...

> I think these companies thrive with a confusing market

I don't understand why this is so common, that confusing and ultimately making people unhappy is somehow good for business. Does it actually work this way? I mean, it seems Apple is doing okay and makes customers generally very happy with their products - are they the only exception?

It's easier and cheaper. Apple's higher-margin prices allow them to spend more on things like design, usability and really great marketing.

If you're selling commodity products, the best you can do is make it difficult to compare to the other products. Go mattress shopping, you'll see what I'm talking about.

I think that the issue is that Apple spends the time to make quality products, while other manufacturers might just spend the time to make a product that is 'just good enough.' If someone were to be able to do direct comparisons between a 'good enough' and a 'great' product, they wouldn't even think twice about the 'good enough' product.