The rise of e-commerce leaves many wondering if they are unknowingly paying more for items they should easily purchase at an affordable price.
Bots can inflate, by up to 50 percent, the value of online prices. The company Soax has been considering how automated systems manipulate market values. This is based on actual data from Backpack.tf, and it leads to an uncovering of the mechanisms behind price hikes and their impact on consumers.
“Price manipulation through bots is a concern for not just online retailers, but also for the consumers who aren’t aware they are paying more than they should,” says Soax CEO & Co-founder Stepan Solovev in a statement provided to Digital Journal.
Online Shopping in 2024: By the Numbers
Shopping online shows no signs of slowing down and more people have been purchasing goods and services online. According to statistics for 2024, 79 percent of the U.S. population had engaged in online shopping, or over 268 million purchases from digital platforms.
This information underlines just how intrinsic online shopping has become in daily life. With such a significant number of shoppers, the stakes for fair and exploitative pricing tactics are higher than ever. Knowing what drives the dynamics of online pricing is critical for making well-informed purchase decisions.
How Bots Are Inflating Prices
The cogs of manipulation are apparent on digital platforms, driven by automated bots and software programs created to mimic human activity. According to a Backpack Forum, bots perform tasks on a scale and speed far above a human’s capacity and, therefore, easily tilt market dynamics.
Though designed efficiently, they are increasingly used for less legitimate ends.
Price Scraping
Bots scrape pricing data from various online stores, allowing sellers to change prices momentarily. This creates a domino effect amongst the other sellers, who instantly increase their prices far higher.
Generating Artificial Scarcity
By quickly buying items in bulk, bots reduce or eliminate stock. This comes at a premium, where genuine shoppers are left to deal with a sense of scarcity.
Competitor Sabotage
Some bots purposely trip their competitors’ price-tracking bots, prompting them to heft the price up in retaliation.
Solovev affirms: “The role of bots in the market is a double-edged sword. While they bring efficiency, their misuse for price inflation can undermine consumer trust and market fairness.”
As digitization has crept into shopping, consumers have become very vulnerable to sophisticated price manipulation tactics run by bots.
