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Comment by barbariangrunge | Hacker News Reader

Dells online store is a nightmare of dark patterns. Everything on there is 2-3x as expensive as it should be, except it’s always on a huge sale that is changing all the time

It’s too much, I can’t shop there

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When my wife worked for Dell, she got a 17% employee discount on all Dell branded products on their website. But it was 17% off list price, not current "sale" price. So using your employee discount often would cause you pay more for the product than if you didn't use it.

This has been my experience with nearly every "discount" program. You always pay more because it's anchored to some other price.

My son's 10% employee discount at Target seems to work as you'd expect, as it stacks with any other discounts and sales on an item, including the 5% loyalty card discount they offer. The only real limitations are on certain heavily in demand items, and there's a per item limit so you cannot run a discount Target eBay store.

Sounds like hotel bookings. So many “hurry up, 246 people booked this exact room in the past 14 seconds”

Yup. Remote small roadside motel in Nowhere, Wyoming, for a single night in May of 2024.

"19 people have looked at this room today, book now!"

Think Lenovo does the same.

And for some reason some tech journalists don't account for it. "Ah, but this Thinkpad has an MSRP of $4,395, so it's much more expensive than the competition" when approximately nobody would purchase it for that price, and the consistently-on-sale price would be right in line with competitors.

Seems fair game to use fake MSRPs against them.

Not sure that's on reviewers. Lenovo is using anti consumer tactics to improve sales (the elevated MSRP with a constant "sale"), should they be praised?

I'm rather glad that journalists don't take that into account. Comparing MSRPs is fair. Perhaps it provides some pressure discouraging companies from engaging in that sort of shenanigans.

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