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Comment by Pandabob | Hacker News Reader

I've never taken an Udemy class, but am sure there's quality content on the website. However, I've always felt that the way they show their prices is a little fishy.

Looking at their offering now, all of the courses are priced between 10 - 13 euros, but each one seems to be "on sale" with the actual price being in the hundreds of euros.

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There actually is a German DIY store that went bankrupt because of this practice. Their slogan was "20% off everything except animal food." Since it was pretty much always 20% off, nobody bothered going for any sale. Instead they only went when they really needed something or chose a different store because of their stupid slogan. Closed down a few years back. Having a constant sale doesn't seem to help your sales apparently.

Related lesson learned from JC Penny’s shift in pricing strategy: https://mmrstrategy.com/lessons-in-pricing-strategy-from-jcp...

However here in the states, Kohl's has been surviving kind of on this strategy alone. The quality of the clothes is actually quite low, but they price them at "normal" prices and then almost constantly have massive sales -- 20%, 30%, even 40%. My mom will in fact refuse to shop there until there's at least a 30% sale.

Meanwhile the value-accurate price of the clothes IS that prices that's actually 40% off, but she thinks she's getting a steal.

I noticed a course this weekend I was a bit interested in. And they said it was 94% off. 150 NOK ($16) instead of 2350 NOK ($250). It was some kind of offer that would expire this weekend, and I had "9 hours left" or something to get it at that price. I actually wrote it down because I had the same feeling of being manipulated.

You made me check, it's still 94% off at the 150 NOK price. Now it's some kind of offer that lasts until Feb 21. Will be interesting to see what the price is in two days..

Been following courses on their site for a while. Those 95% or $10 offers are around almost all year round. I have bought courses at random times and have never ever paid more than $20. They are fishy about the pricing but I personally did find the courses valuable.

An update to this: The offer expired yesterday. Then I however was prompted that the normal price was 2350 NOK, but as a new user I could get it for 150 NOK for the next X hours. So just a new offer with the same price lined up after the first expired.

Earlier today I checked, and then the price was back at 2350 NOK. However, checking again now a few hours later, it's again a new offer for 150 NOK as a new user. And if I log in, it's 250 NOK without any mention about why, just a "90% off!" tag.

So yeah, the full price is a fake one.

Update again: The last 150NOK offer is now over. There is however a new campaign where I can buy it for 163NOK for the next 4 days.

maybe they should understand the point that people who really want to buy courses don't look for sales.

I never bought a technical/educational book in my life till just because it was on sale

Also, opening their front page at the same time from different browsers can show completely different discount levels. And those will be different still from the prices that you see when you log into your account.

They used to be in the hundreds range, but for a few years now Udemy has been on a constant sale. They used to go up and down from the sale but I haven’t seen them go up anymore for ages.

I have stopped considering Udemy for my online learning exactly for this reason.

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