The Odd in Ken Dodd

I'll leave it as an exercise in creative thinking to come up with reasons I might have been buying a Ken Dodd triple album:

That aside, is there a problem here?

The Guardian (amongst others) has been enjoying in-store pricing oddities for a while and, on the face of it, there's something not quite right about this Amazon item either.

But would you simply chuckle and shout bug?

Let's make it an exercise in creative thinking to suggest scenarios where it's reasonable for it to be cheaper to buy the CD and the MP3s than to buy the MP3s alone. Stick 'em in the comments if you like.
Image: https://flic.kr/p/9Xzstx

Comments

Karlo Smid said…

Hi James,
very interesting post. It could be used as advocacy why is it wise to have context driven software tester as part of software development team. Or as part of interview question.
I first did research what is Amazon AutoRip service.
"Two-day shipping is fast, AutoRip is faster. Thousands of CDs and vinyl records now come with free MP3 versions that are immediately uploaded to your Cloud Player. This is your music, anywhere. Browse all eligible AutoRip CDs and vinyl."
Here is what could be reasonable scenario why CD price with AutoRip feature is less than MP3 alone.
It is worth to notice that vinyl are also included. My heuristic is that Amazon wants to "get rid off" specific CDs and vinyl from their stock.
Another heuristic is that Amazon wants to boost usage of their Cloud service because mp3s are available only in their Cloud service. User will have to log in to the Cloud service and would probably see advertisements for other Cloud service features (maybe they will buy Amazon Kindle that has integrated support for Amazon Cloud service).

Regards, KArlo.

April 21, 2014 at 5:29 PM

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