Forget the price of tea in China. I want useful information \u2013 what is the price of beer in Singapore? One can only answer with a question: What time is it?<\/p>\n
I have to admit to a very bad habit. I often buy things without looking at the price. It\u2019s certainly laziness on my part, but also an assumption that the prices of certain standard items don\u2019t vary much from place to place, and the differences in price are small enough to fall into the \u201cdon\u2019t care\u201d range. I found out in Singapore how wrong that assumption can be.<\/p>\n
I was ordering a beer during my third or fourth visit to a brewpub on the Clarke Quay when I finally looked at the prices. I couldn\u2019t believe it. The price of a beer varied by almost a factor of 4 depending on the time of day! From noon till 3pm, a beer costs $2.25 (US). It rises to $4 till 6pm, then $5.50 until 8pm. From 8pm till close, a beer costs $8.00! Variable demand-based pricing. Charge more when the bar is most crowded. Of course, we\u2019ve seen happy-hour pricing before, but this raises the bar (and the price) on how to fine-tune charges to cope with demand. <\/p>\n
Is this the future of consumer pricing? I can see what\u2019s next. An automated counter looks at the number of patrons in the bar (coupled with constantly updated current and historical buying data) and adjusts the price of a beer in real time. A stock market-like ticker displays the current price on various walls of the place for all to see. Astute drinkers may notice a trend towards bigger crowds and higher prices and order several beers now in anticipation of higher prices momentarily (a strategy hampered only by the inevitable beer-warming factor). Of course, the better brews, with higher demand, will cost more. Novices will watch the moves of veteran buyers hoping to pick up on the latest beer-tips. It\u2019s brilliant! A Harvard MBA\u2019s dream come true. Except for one thing. I didn\u2019t come to the bar to buy beer. I came to relax. And there is nothing relaxing about being constantly on guard against the latest business theory of how best to empty my wallet. Ah well. There is bar just down the street run by a dinosaur of the business world \u2013 he has only one price for beer. I think I\u2019ll go there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Forget the price of tea in China. I want useful information \u2013 what is the price of beer in Singapore? One can only answer with a question: What time is it? I have to admit to a very bad habit. I often buy things without looking at the price. It\u2019s certainly laziness on my part, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}