The same item. The same website. A different price.

You may have seen this after sending someone a hotel room, flight or product link. They open it and find a higher rate, a different delivery fee, or an offer that has already changed.

For shoppers, that raises a fair question: why can two people look at the same thing and see different prices?

What Makes Prices Shift

Some changes are easy to explain. A hotel room on Longboat Key may cost more during a busy weekend, while a flight can get more expensive as seats fill. An online store may also raise a price when stock runs low or a sale ends.

Where you live can affect the total too. A Sarasota resident ordering patio furniture may like the listed price, only to find a much higher delivery charge at checkout. Someone living closer to the warehouse could pay less for the same item.

Taxes, stock, and regional promotions can also change what appears on the page. Websites can estimate a visitor’s general location through an internet protocol address, better known as an IP address.

Personal data may play a role too. In January 2025, the Federal Trade Commission reported that pricing companies could use details such as precise location, browser history and shopping activity to help businesses tailor what consumers see.

The FTC calls this surveillance pricing. Even so, timing, demand, stock and delivery costs still explain many of the price differences people notice online.

How Businesses Check the Difference

The same issue can be tricky for businesses because they need to know what customers in other places are seeing.

A Sarasota hotel may run a winter offer for travelers in Chicago and want to make sure the correct rate appears there. A retailer selling across Florida may need to check that customers see the right stock and delivery details. A marketing team may want to confirm that an ad aimed at one city is showing where it should.

Mobile and residential proxies can help with those checks.

A proxy sends an internet request through another IP address, allowing an authorized user to view public online content as it appears from another location. Residential proxies use IP addresses linked to home internet connections, while mobile proxies use addresses linked to cellular networks.

A business could check how a booking page appears through a home connection in New York, then view the same page through a mobile network. Without a proxy, it would need someone in both places to carry out the check.

How ProxyEmpire and ResiProx Help

ProxyEmpire offers mobile and residential proxies, as well as data center proxies, for work such as checking prices, reviewing ads, testing websites and researching different markets.

Its location controls include country, region and city targeting, which can help a business see how a public webpage or offer appears elsewhere.

ProxyEmpire also provides mobile proxies connected to 3G, 4G, 5G and LTE carrier networks. These can help businesses check mobile pages, apps and ads through the kinds of connections customers use every day.

ResiProx also provides mobile and residential proxies. Its services support regional research, ad checks, website testing and the collection of publicly available information.

Both services give businesses a practical way to check what people in other places are seeing and spot incorrect prices, missing offers or location-based issues.

For shoppers, the takeaway is simple. Compare prices across reputable websites, check delivery fees, taxes and booking terms, and remember that a link may show a different offer by the time you open it.

The price you see first may not be the price you end up paying.