商业。

　　Personalising online prices.

　　个性化网购价。

　　How deep are your pockets?

　　你的钱包有多鼓？

　　Businesses are offered software that spots which customers will pay more.

　　能发现愿意多付钱客户的软件现可供企业使用。

　　IN MANY types of face-to-face retailing, it pays to size up your customer and tailor your offering accordingly. In a 2006 study of Fulton fish market in New York, Kathryn Graddy of Oxford University found that dealers regularly charged Asian buyers less than whites because the Asians had proved, over time, more willing to reject high prices, and readier to band together to boycott dealers who ripped them off.

　　在许多面对面的零售过程中，揣测客户需求并对其进行针对性销售往往会得到应有的回报。根据2006年牛津大学Kathryn Graddy对纽约Fulton海鲜市场的研究，跟白人相比，卖家经常以更低的价格卖给亚洲人。因为经验显示亚洲人更容易对高价产生反感，而且更愿意很快地联合起来抵制奸商。

　　The internet, by allowing anonymous browsing and rapid price-comparing, was supposed to mean low, and equal, prices for all. Now, however, online retailers are being offered software that helps them detect shoppers who can afford to pay more or are in a hurry to buy, so as to present pricier options to them or simply charge more for the same stuff.

　　具有隐身浏览和快速价格比较功能的互联网，本应代表着所有人都能享用低廉，平等的价格。然而现在，网上零售商可利用软件帮他们筛选出更有承受能力或急着埋单的消费者。对应地，零售商可推荐更昂贵的商品或直接将同样的商品标更高的价格。

　　Cookies stored in shoppers' web browsers may reveal where else they have been looking, giving some clues as to their income bracket and price-sensitivity. A shopper's internet address may be linked to his physical address, letting sellers offer, say, one price for Bel Air, another for Compton. Doug Bryan of iCrossing, a digital-marketing consultancy, explains that the most up-to-date “price customisation” software can collate such clues with profiles of individual shoppers that internet sellers buy from online-data-aggregation firms. All this is fairly cheap, he says.

　　存储在消费者浏览器内的小型文字档案（Cookie）可能透露了他们曾经逛过哪里，并提供了估算他们收入状况和价格敏感度的信息。一名消费者的网络地址可以跟所在地地址联系在一起，这让卖家给贝沙湾（Bel Air洛杉矶富人区）可标一个价，给康普顿（Compton肯塔基州穷人区）标另一个价。数字市场营销咨询公司iCrossing的Doug Bryan解释称，时下大多数"个性化价格"软件可以使用自身收集的数据对网络卖家从其他在线数据汇总企业的数据进行校验。而且他称这一切都十分便宜。

　　One of the few big online firms to admit to using such techniques is Orbitz, a travel website. Its software detects whether people browsing its site are using an Apple Mac or a Windows PC and, since it has found that Mac users tend to choose pricier hotels, that is what it recommends to them. Orbitz stresses that it does not charge people different rates for the same rooms, but some online firms are believed to be doing just that, for instance by charging full whack for those assumed to be willing and able to pay it, while offering promotional prices to the rest.

　　其中一个少数承认使用该手法的大型网络旅行社企业是Orbitz。公司使用的软件检测用户究竟是用苹果电脑还是普通电脑浏览公司网站。因为公司发现用苹果电脑的用户更倾向选择更贵的酒店，所以网站也应势推荐给他们。Orbitz强调他们绝对没有同房不同价，但是人们相信一些网上公司就是这么操作的。例如对那些有能力也愿意付全价的用户则收全价，而对其它用户打更多折扣。

　　Allocating discounts with price-customisation software typically brings in two to four times as much money as offering the same discounts at random, claims Ravi Vijayaraghavan of [24]7, a Bangalore-based firm that develops and operates such software. One way to do this is to monitor how quickly shoppers click through towards the online seller's payment page: those who already seem set on buying need not be tempted with a special offer. Firms like [24]7 and RichRelevance, another price-customisation software firm, from San Francisco, are somewhat keener to talk about their software than the internet retailers who are trying it out. Mr Vijayaraghavan names United Airlines, for example, as among his big clients, but the airline declined to comment for this article.

　　基于班加罗尔开发和运营这种软件的公司[24]7，该公司Ravi Vijayaraghavan称，通过个性化价格软件来分配折扣，通常可以带来比随机分配折扣多两到四倍的营业额。其中一个方法是监测消费者在网站点入付账页面的速度：那些看起来已经决定了的买家不需要通过特价来吸引。另一家来自三藩市的价格个性化软件公司RichRelevance和[24]7公司一样，它们跟尝试软件的网上零售商相比，感觉更愿意畅谈这类软件。Vijayaraghavan称联合航空（United Airlines）便是他们其中一个大客户。然而该航空公司拒绝对此文章置评。

　　Andrew Fano, a consultant in Accenture's Chicago office, reckons that at least six of America's ten biggest web retailers are now customising prices in some way, but it is hard for shoppers to spot when this is going on. If they knew, many would feel that it is "pushing the boundaries" of fairness, notes Werner Reinartz, a University of Cologne marketing professor and consultant to two Fortune 500 companies that use customisation techniques.

　　埃森哲咨询公司（Accenture）芝加哥分部的顾问Andrew Fano称，美国最大的十家的网络零售商中，最少六家现在或多或少地在使用个性化价格，但消费者本身很难发现自己所在的处境。如果他们知道，很多人将感觉在试探公平原则的底线。这是由Cologne大学市场营销教授Werner Reinartz提出的，他同时也是财富500强里两家使用价格个性化技术公司的顾问。

　　Mr Reinartz preaches caution lest companies be dragged through an ordeal pioneered by Amazon in the autumn of 2000. Word broke that the internet giant was selling DVDs at differing prices, to see which web browsers happened to be favoured by shoppers least concerned about cost, former executives say. The resulting backlash prompted it to refund those who paid more, and Amazon now declines to discuss its pricing system.

　　Reinartz提醒公司要预防陷入2000年秋亚马逊为此成为先烈的经历。时任总裁称，在网上流传这家互联网巨头以不同价钱卖DVD，用来分析哪个浏览器的用户更不在意价格。引起的反弹致使公司给多付钱的客户退款，亚马逊现已拒绝对其标价系统置评。

　　Users of price-customisation software have so far been reluctant to peep at potential customers' social-media pages, for fear that this would provoke a privacy backlash. But the operators at the call centres [24]7 runs for its clients are beginning to scan Twitter for gen on the shoppers they are talking to—and sometimes, says Mr Vijayaraghavan, their tweets give useful hints about whether a discount is needed to clinch the sale.

　　个性化价格软件的用户至今还不敢窥视潜在客户的社交网页，因担心这将引起关于私隐的反弹。但24[7]公司客服中心的客户代表，已经开始代客户在Twitter上追溯消费者聊天的关系网。Vijayaraghavan称，有时候用户的微博会透露究竟是否需要折扣来达成交易。