I've become more and more disillusioned by Amazon over the years. Prices are now almost never the best; I only buy from them when I need something quickly (and can't get it locally). NewEgg (nearly) always has better tech prices. Walmart often has better prices on everyday items and I can have it immediately. I just bought a pair of tweezers at my local grocery store for two bucks that was $6 on Amazon for the same make/model; sure, it's a terrible item to sell online because it's tiny and cheap and shipping it with prime shipping probably costs as much as the item itself, but I thought they'd solved that problem with "add on" items.
I mean, Amazon is still a very good customer experience, but when I'm buying something big I always comparison shop now. As recently as a couple years ago, I would just buy it. No thought to whether it might be cheaper elsewhere. The convenience of Prime, plus the reasonable confidence that the price would be competitive with everybody else, was enough to where I didn't bother comparison shopping.
Obviously, Amazon isn't hurting. But, I can't help but think that having more of their longtime customers starting to comparison shop is a bad thing.
Over and over again I've realized just before or after buying an item from Amazon that I paid way too much. I have finally broken the ingrained habit of leaping before looking. That can't be good for Amazon if too many people do that.
On another note, I am beyond tired of the craptacular deals that are >80% fly-by-night products with astroturf reviews. The gold box deals used to be a favorite bookmarked stop.
I have saved thousands of dollars thanks to Amazon. Not because I bought from them. No, but because I use their app to compare items and get a price match. Nearly every major store (Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Best Buy, Staples, Office Max/Depot) match or beat Amazon. With Amazons app I can instantly scan all my products at a store. I may only save 2-5 dollars per item, but I do it every time I shop.
The other day I save $40 on a price gun from Staples. It was 89 in store, and 49 on on Amazon.
Depending on the item, I almost always price compare either Newegg vs. Amazon or Walmart vs. Amazon. The Walmart ecommcerce experience is drastically improved to what it was 4 years ago... prices are good.. and the new shipping and ready to reorder feature.. its so hard not to comparison shop.
With Walmart drastically increasing their instore pay and providing better than retail avg. advanced scheduling + Amazons poor pay and working conditions for distro workers Amazon doesn't even even have a moral advantage. (According to my radio Walmart distro workers even start at above 16.50/hr, and thats in a rural area...)
As a long time customer I'm sick of having Prime constantly shoved down my throat. I use amazon, I'm a paying customer, stop bothering me. I've been getting a lot of Walmart. The shipping is great, the prices are competitive, and as someone else said, the whole experience has improved drastically in the past few years. Of course they don't have quite the selection that Amazon does though.
If you really want to save money on household type items, go shopping in the 'market' area at your local IKEA store. Compare that with Amazon prices for pretty much everything and you'll be blown away by how cheap IKEA is.
I've fallen for Newegg's slightly lower prices a few times, last two new items i ordered, both were opened up. 2nd one missing crucial parts that someone poked all of them out through the bag inside of the device's box.
2nd item was through a reseller though.
I don't use Amazon too often these days, but Newegg's lost me from these last few experiences. Their support basically said "meh" about both cases.
Another such change: charging more and more for Prime on the grounds that it now includes a lot of stuff I don't want, like videos. That might make it a better deal for some people, but I canceled it.
>Walmart often has better prices on everyday items and I can have it immediately.
But isn't the value in not having to travel to Walmart, select the item, wait in line, pay for the item, and transporting the item back to your home worth something?
I assume you already go to the grocery store, so picking up tweezers isn't much effort. But what about something that isn't sold at a grocery store?
To be fair, Amazon never claimed the lowest prices, that's Walmart's motto I believe. Amazon strikes for best customer experience, I think it tries to achieve the best balance of convenience, value and service.
Interesting. I also find myself picking up tech from NewEgg more often than Amazon. And I recently ordered most of the supplies for a cocktail party I was having at Walmart and Bed Bad and Beyond.
Amazon prices might beat local retail, but they are only sometimes competitive with other (often more specizlized) online retailers at this point.
Also, at least for me, shipping New Egg, Walmart and BBAB was faster than Amazon. I don't have Prime however.
I agree Amazon has dropped the ball, but I still prefer to buy from Amazon compared to literally every other site because of the superior UI.
Compared to other major retailers (Walmart, NewEgg) the experience is just so much more smoother on Amazon.
Sometimes speciality items are cheaper on manufacturer's website. But that requires me to make an account and fill a bunch of forms! Some websites allow guest checkout, but there's often some fuckup happening with that and then I can't even complain properly and/or have a good reference number without an account. And even without an account I still have to fill all those terrible, terrible forms.
Plus it always takes longer to receive my merchandise from random websites than amazon. Even if I pay for the super-quick option, which, by the way, is usually more expensive than the equivalent option on Amazon, I still get my merchandise later because the small store will more likely ship tomorrow while Amazon will gladly do night operations.
That makes me curious, does the US not have any good comparison shopping websites? Personally Prisjakt[1] (PriceSpy[2] in the UK) is pretty much always my starting point when I'm looking for something, just because their search and discovery tools are so much better than any stores I've seen.
For example, let's look at laptops. Here's a list from PriceSpy of 15"-18" 1080p laptops with AMD graphics, 16+GB of RAM, SSDs, and 3+ USB ports.[3] For comparison, Webhallen[4] and Inet[5] (enthusiast shops, comparable to Newegg) only let you filter by class, screen size, or a few manufacturers. Elgiganten[6] and Media Markt[7] (similar to Best Buy in the US) have a few free-form options, but still nothing even close to the organization or breadth offered by Prisjakt. There are also few to no sliders or groups, instead you're stuck either approving individual screen sizes or predefined buckets of CPU series. Oddly, Elgiganten lets you filter for Intel's CPU price classes (i3/5/7) but not generations.
Amazon seems to follow the same recipe as Elgiganten/MM, which definitely leaves me wondering how Americans shop for computers. Or perhaps that's why so many seem to give up and praise Apple's "simple" lineup...
I use Amazon now as an eBay replacement for specific hard to find items. I wanted a heavy duty cabana-style beach umbrella. Amazon was the best place to find it by far.
For just about everything else, Amazon doesn't really offer a great price and the "convenience" value isn't really worth it anymore to me. I can't order lots of routine stuff due to the fraud issues. Even books are usually cheaper at the local bookstore these days.
Where do you wind up going instead? I frequently wouldn't even know where to go to buy, say, a pair of lacrosse balls and adjustable sprinkler nozzles for a better price. I'm sure there's better deals to be had somewhere, but is there a go-to? Or a search engine that does particularly well deal-hunting?
even I noticed this and I'm in India. I buy second hand books now from an Indian startup. It has high quality second hand books for low prices & I don't mind second hand as long as there is no compromise on quality. I got 11 books for 1148 eight of John Grisham and rest are other authors
lol dude - you're paying for convenience - and that's alls there is to it - sit your fat ass down on a couch and blabber whatever you want at Alexa - then... THE SHIT SHOWS UP - this is why u pay more no??
I second the recommendation for 3camels, and not just for Prime Day. I bought quite a bit on Prime Day - all of which I'd had in my cart / wish list for months and all of which were well below their actual price (per 3camels).
I also saw quite a few products that were well above their normal prices, while showing as "80% off" because the prices were raised a week before. I didn't see anything that drastic from Sold-By-Amazon products. They were generally 3rd-party vendors.
One good deal was topping up on Amazon credit. There was a $5 Prime Day bonus, plus the other $10 for topping up $100. 15% for free can cover for prices that aren't necessarily the cheapest, especially when prime shipping fees are considered.
Not only is this not new for traditional vendors, it's not even new for the internet. Scummy sellers on Steam do the same thing right before sales every single year. Oh well. At least some quite nice Anker stuff was actually on sale. You can never have enough USB chargers these days.
Just like in the case of Steam, I'm more apt to believe it's sellers that are doing this than Amazon. While both stand to benefit, sellers stand to benefit much more overall.
Although it's never going to be perfectly accurate, I recommend anyone who shops Amazon for expensive stuff use a price tracking service, like CamelCamelCamel, to see exactly how good a deal on Amazon really is. Again, not perfect, but at least you can then get some context for what the price is currently showing up as.
It's clear to any layperson willing to do research that they did so - I looked up several items on a few price history websites, and found that while they did have lower than normal prices, it was more like a 4% discount off the bottom instead of the 40% they claimed. The Yeti microphones seemed to be the absolute worst - they have never ever been $150, more like $90, and they were on sale for $85 or so.
0.008%? Wow. I almost wonder if they went through the legal department and asked them "how small can we make our discounts before it becomes illegal to claim they are discounts?" Apparently, that small.
Shipping with prime has gotten much less appealing lately. It used to be seeing that logo meant it was coming tomorrow, or maybe the next day - now it's almost useless, as even third party sellers can show up as prime shipping. Lots more "available if you spend 30 dollars" prime choices now too, where that 30 dollars has to be in similar tier prime level products.
Trying to win free shipping as a paying prime member is now often a game of trying to be clever - the game they really, really want you to play. I'm growing more and more tired of it, but for now - the time saved going to places locally or site-hopping to find the best deal is still worth more to me, but "for now" means that it's basically under review - that game playing is really making me evaluate that convenience/cost balance..
This happens so often to me. I'll be expecting a package one day and 8pm rolls around and I check the order status and it says 'expected delivery: tomorrow' - when I was sure the delivery was today at the time I placed the order.
It makes me feel like I'm going crazy, but I'm sure there's some sort of bug during the checkout process which switches me back to two-day shipping after I've selected one-day.
Lest anyone not take you seriously, I noticed this when I first immigrated to the US, and every time I've returned from a multi-week trip: the first time I see a TV again I'm just flabbergasted at how nasty the advertizing is. When you're not used to it, it just seems especially manipulative and very negative towards the competition compared to other the other countries I've spent time in (which primarily other countries heavily influenced by the UK).
My issue with Amazon lately isn't just the prices no longer being the lowest, it's that a big chunk of their products are counterfeits. I honestly have no idea how they haven't tamped down on that. If I shop at Wal-Mart, Target, Footlocker, etc, etc I know the products I buy aren't going to be fakes; no so with Amazon. I have started buying less stuff on there after a number of products have come back as fakes. I use Prime Video more than any other service now, but there's only maybe 2 shows I even care about on there.
The solution is to purchase products shipped and sold by Amazon. Avoid third party sellers unless you either know the seller well or if the seller is the manufacturer of the product.
And remember: "SHIPPED by Amazon" isn't enough since Amazon assists third party sellers by storing and shipping products on their behalf under Amazon's fulfillment program. The product has to be "SOLD by Amazon" as well in order for the above advice to apply.
Er, is this not illegal in the USA? It is in Canada:
The Act prohibits false or misleading representations to the public as to the ordinary selling price of a product, in any form whatsoever. Ordinary selling price is validated in one of two ways: either a substantial volume of the product was sold at that price or higher, within a reasonable amount of time (volume test); or the product was offered for sale, in good faith, for a substantial period of time at that price or a higher price (time test).[0]
>Simpson says Amazon is breaking Section 5 (a) of the FTC Act that prohibits "unfair or deceptive acts or practices."
>“It’s strategy called ‘Price-anchoring.’ It’s pretty common across the board. Now as far as it being against the law or breaking any rules or regulations, it could be considered false and deceptive marketing under the FTC Section 5,” Kelly adds.
Many States call this practice out specifically as an unfair trade practice in their laws as well.
I think this practice mostly falls under state-level regulations. The government of California in particular seems to have gone after a slew of major retailers (including Amazon) for similar practices. Thus making your username doubly appropriate, I guess. It's hard to follow the outcomes in the hits I'm seeing, though.
Sort of. There are some rules. Note that this varies by state as well, federal law is probably nonexistent.
An old state law which for all I know was repealed ages ago or whatever was that an item couldn't be marked as on sale for half the year or more. You couldn't say it was 40% off for 300 days out of 365, that sort of thing. The easy workaround was to make it 40% off for three months, then have it on no sale at all but mark the sale price as the original price for the next three months, and switch back and forth whenever you want. So long as the item wasn't always marked "on sale" you were fine.
I don't think the US has ever had real evidence based tests like that, except in major class action suit which have largely ceased to exist thanks to mandatory arbitration clauses.
When I worked at a very large bricks/ecommerce retailer, the FTC had their eye on us for decades, so we had very complex pricing rules to make sure that we established "regular price" for a certain number of days before an item could be put on sale, and could only stay on sale for a certain percentage of on-sale days, then once "marked down" or "clearance" could never have the price raised again.
I'm guessing the FTC will have their eye on Amazon pricing soon.
Given the current political climate, it's more likely the FTC will be dismantled first. That is unless The Washington Post pisses off the POTUS enough.
If you look at revenue and profit analysis from Amazon, it's clear that they are still customer focused. It's just that advertisers are now a bigger customer than the "real" customers. Amazon makes more money off of sponsored listings than selling the item sponsored. Kinda crazy.
Back at an old startup when I had a lot of data from clothing retail websites, including historical prices and sale status, I ran some queries out of curiosity to look for this.
I'm pretty cynical but I was still shocked at the number of results. This seems to be a completely normal practice. Price and being on "SALE" seemed to be optimized or A/B tested almost separately. And the "regular price" field on sale items was garbage data that correlated with nothing.
Prime Day is essentially a farce at this point, giving customers really great prices on only their own products like the Fire Tablet and Echo, which allow the customer to easily spend more on Amazon. I bet they would love it to be like Singles Day on Alibaba but all the marketing in the world can only help it along so fast.
I suspect RRP/ MSRP have nearly always been useless. Comparison is the only way to get a true sense of what a regular market price is for something. Too often I will see something on a 50%+ off sale which might just be matching the market or actually 5-10% off where the rest of the market is at.
After all, why would a retailer ever discount more than 10-20% off what everyone else is charging, outside of a clearance?
Note that producers can't contractually force independent retailers to obey certain prices under antitrust rules. Hence MSRPs being merely "suggested".
For me, Amazon used to be synonymous with quality, convenience and peace of mind. That has now changed, it is now merely convenient and subject to increasing competition. This last year I cancelled my Amazon Prime and now using Amazon far less than I used to.
Not really newsworthy. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book. "Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it." -Publilius Syrus (1st century BC)
For some reason, I can't take this seriously coming from fox news. They seem to be having an agenda with the current president, and Amazon has been getting hit as a collateral for feuds against the Washington post.
Either way, the article concludes with the vendor saying he think its just an issue with tweaking their algorithms, and not an actual tactic from Amazon.
Off topic but I just picked up those shoe deodorizers for $10 at the container store and they have actually knocked down the stench emanating from my hiking shoes.
I bought a Brother laser printer with toner for $80 shipped in two days. Happy Amazon consumer here. You'll have to rip Prime out of my cold dead hands.
> Imo the upping of price after demand increase is awful.
What? This is economics 101 of supply and demand. When demand exceeds supply, the price will increase. [0]
Just look at the stupidity of video card prices recently if you want a concrete, non-sale example of why price increases when supply cannot meet demand.
FOX is fishing for how Amazon could be hurting consumers so as to get anti trust litigation going. It is not illegal to be a monopoly but if it is hurting consumers it is fair game.
My opinion Amazon is NOT hurting consumers but rather Trump and the Republicans want to hurt it. YMMV
Conservatives can be looking to hurt Amazon and Amazon can be hurting consumers at the same time. I don't see how you can argue that lieing to consumers is not hurting them
A few years ago, the word on the street was that bezos agreed to boost prices to reward the longtime shareholders/hedge funds/etc. And as expected, the prices on amazon have noticeably increased and the shares are at all-time highs.
Amazon is large enough now that they have a "captive market".
Maybe I'm in the minority here but I don't have a problem with this. If they raise the price based on demand, and I still deem it a good price, then who was harmed here? Sure I paid more than I needed to but I still paid less than I felt it was worth to me.
I don't know if anyone was harmed per se - it's just a dick move.
If you had a friend that had been trying to sell his car on Craigslist and manipulated the price right before offering to sell it to you "at a discount", I think you'd be pretty disappointed with your "friend".
Sure, Amazon isn't your friend, but I think it's short-sighted when corporations engage in sociopathic behavior and are hostile to their customers. Especially when their business model is predicated on customer loyalty.
They didn't raise the price based on demand. They raised the price so that they could "discount" it and make it look like a good deal when it wasn't.
If a product is normally $10, and then it's sold as "discounted 50% for Prime Day, now only $10," that's fraudulent.
If Amazon decides to charge more and people are willing to pay it, there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is when they lie to make people think they're getting more of a deal than they are.
I can tell you that for the first year of Prime, my wife and I never thought twice about the price when buying items on Amazon compared to the price we would pay locally. It seemed as if just about everything was comparable in price so why not take advantage of the convenience of having it shipped to our door.
Now i'm starting to question whether or not we're getting a good deal.
100% off is free, no matter what the base price is, so that's clearly not true. (Though, oddly, it's not uncommon online, with a “just pay (inflated) shipping and handling charge” proviso.)
SwellJoe|8 years ago
I mean, Amazon is still a very good customer experience, but when I'm buying something big I always comparison shop now. As recently as a couple years ago, I would just buy it. No thought to whether it might be cheaper elsewhere. The convenience of Prime, plus the reasonable confidence that the price would be competitive with everybody else, was enough to where I didn't bother comparison shopping.
Obviously, Amazon isn't hurting. But, I can't help but think that having more of their longtime customers starting to comparison shop is a bad thing.
ballenf|8 years ago
On another note, I am beyond tired of the craptacular deals that are >80% fly-by-night products with astroturf reviews. The gold box deals used to be a favorite bookmarked stop.
janesvilleseo|8 years ago
The other day I save $40 on a price gun from Staples. It was 89 in store, and 49 on on Amazon.
voidlogic|8 years ago
With Walmart drastically increasing their instore pay and providing better than retail avg. advanced scheduling + Amazons poor pay and working conditions for distro workers Amazon doesn't even even have a moral advantage. (According to my radio Walmart distro workers even start at above 16.50/hr, and thats in a rural area...)
vlunkr|8 years ago
johnm1019|8 years ago
jumpkickhit|8 years ago
2nd item was through a reseller though.
I don't use Amazon too often these days, but Newegg's lost me from these last few experiences. Their support basically said "meh" about both cases.
abecedarius|8 years ago
jostmey|8 years ago
clubm8|8 years ago
But isn't the value in not having to travel to Walmart, select the item, wait in line, pay for the item, and transporting the item back to your home worth something?
I assume you already go to the grocery store, so picking up tweezers isn't much effort. But what about something that isn't sold at a grocery store?
didibus|8 years ago
illegal_in_ca|8 years ago
Amazon prices might beat local retail, but they are only sometimes competitive with other (often more specizlized) online retailers at this point.
Also, at least for me, shipping New Egg, Walmart and BBAB was faster than Amazon. I don't have Prime however.
4ad|8 years ago
Compared to other major retailers (Walmart, NewEgg) the experience is just so much more smoother on Amazon.
Sometimes speciality items are cheaper on manufacturer's website. But that requires me to make an account and fill a bunch of forms! Some websites allow guest checkout, but there's often some fuckup happening with that and then I can't even complain properly and/or have a good reference number without an account. And even without an account I still have to fill all those terrible, terrible forms.
Plus it always takes longer to receive my merchandise from random websites than amazon. Even if I pay for the super-quick option, which, by the way, is usually more expensive than the equivalent option on Amazon, I still get my merchandise later because the small store will more likely ship tomorrow while Amazon will gladly do night operations.
Nullabillity|8 years ago
For example, let's look at laptops. Here's a list from PriceSpy of 15"-18" 1080p laptops with AMD graphics, 16+GB of RAM, SSDs, and 3+ USB ports.[3] For comparison, Webhallen[4] and Inet[5] (enthusiast shops, comparable to Newegg) only let you filter by class, screen size, or a few manufacturers. Elgiganten[6] and Media Markt[7] (similar to Best Buy in the US) have a few free-form options, but still nothing even close to the organization or breadth offered by Prisjakt. There are also few to no sliders or groups, instead you're stuck either approving individual screen sizes or predefined buckets of CPU series. Oddly, Elgiganten lets you filter for Intel's CPU price classes (i3/5/7) but not generations.
Amazon seems to follow the same recipe as Elgiganten/MM, which definitely leaves me wondering how Americans shop for computers. Or perhaps that's why so many seem to give up and praise Apple's "simple" lineup...
[1]: https://www.prisjakt.nu/
[2]: https://pricespy.co.uk/
[3]: https://pricespy.co.uk/category.php?m=s320733439
[4]: https://www.webhallen.com/se-sv/datorer_och_tillbehor/barbar...
[5]: https://www.inet.se/kategori/81/15-16
[6]: https://www.elgiganten.se/catalog/datorer-tillbehor/se_barba...
[7]: http://www.mediamarkt.se/sv/category/_b%C3%A4rbar-dator-5103...
kelukelugames|8 years ago
I saw ads for chrome extensions but I don't know if they are good.
Spooky23|8 years ago
For just about everything else, Amazon doesn't really offer a great price and the "convenience" value isn't really worth it anymore to me. I can't order lots of routine stuff due to the fraud issues. Even books are usually cheaper at the local bookstore these days.
sliverstorm|8 years ago
Maybe that's a sign they've trapped me.
unknown|8 years ago
[deleted]
mannykannot|8 years ago
Amazon's goal is to make that well-nigh impossible.
thewhitetulip|8 years ago
brreakdown|8 years ago
sokoloff|8 years ago
camelcamelcamel.com is your friend to research how good of a deal it really is. (no affiliation, just a happy user)
enobrev|8 years ago
I also saw quite a few products that were well above their normal prices, while showing as "80% off" because the prices were raised a week before. I didn't see anything that drastic from Sold-By-Amazon products. They were generally 3rd-party vendors.
curun1r|8 years ago
gyrgtyn|8 years ago
jchw|8 years ago
Just like in the case of Steam, I'm more apt to believe it's sellers that are doing this than Amazon. While both stand to benefit, sellers stand to benefit much more overall.
Although it's never going to be perfectly accurate, I recommend anyone who shops Amazon for expensive stuff use a price tracking service, like CamelCamelCamel, to see exactly how good a deal on Amazon really is. Again, not perfect, but at least you can then get some context for what the price is currently showing up as.
anilshanbhag|8 years ago
https://www.amazon.com/GMC-Denali-Large-63-5cm-Frame/dp/B00F... ($220)
Ended up buying on walmart ($170) https://www.walmart.com/ip/25-700c-GMC-Denali-Men-s-Bike-Whi...
So much for paying $99 to get prime. I have noticed of late that lot of items are cheaper on Walmart and they offer free 2 day shipping.
taurath|8 years ago
teach|8 years ago
https://camelcamelcamel.com/Blue-Yeti-USB-Microphone-Silver/...
I bought one on sale for $100 last summer, and according to CamelCamelCamel, it was a good deal at the time.
accountyaccount|8 years ago
cavisne|8 years ago
https://twitter.com/wirecutter/status/884900863218769920
Will have to wait for their full write up but there genuinely were a lot of quality items for the lowest price ever.
mtgx|8 years ago
snarfy|8 years ago
Hmm. OK. click
"Please review your order. $8.99 for next day shipping or free two day shipping."
Uh, OK. 'Check two day shipping. Submit'
"Your order has been placed. Delivery date - 5 days from now"
bbarn|8 years ago
Trying to win free shipping as a paying prime member is now often a game of trying to be clever - the game they really, really want you to play. I'm growing more and more tired of it, but for now - the time saved going to places locally or site-hopping to find the best deal is still worth more to me, but "for now" means that it's basically under review - that game playing is really making me evaluate that convenience/cost balance..
ben174|8 years ago
It makes me feel like I'm going crazy, but I'm sure there's some sort of bug during the checkout process which switches me back to two-day shipping after I've selected one-day.
unknown|8 years ago
[deleted]
Clubber|8 years ago
TallGuyShort|8 years ago
em3rgent0rdr|8 years ago
partiallypro|8 years ago
acuozzo|8 years ago
The solution is to purchase products shipped and sold by Amazon. Avoid third party sellers unless you either know the seller well or if the seller is the manufacturer of the product.
And remember: "SHIPPED by Amazon" isn't enough since Amazon assists third party sellers by storing and shipping products on their behalf under Amazon's fulfillment program. The product has to be "SOLD by Amazon" as well in order for the above advice to apply.
EADGBE|8 years ago
illegal_in_ca|8 years ago
The Act prohibits false or misleading representations to the public as to the ordinary selling price of a product, in any form whatsoever. Ordinary selling price is validated in one of two ways: either a substantial volume of the product was sold at that price or higher, within a reasonable amount of time (volume test); or the product was offered for sale, in good faith, for a substantial period of time at that price or a higher price (time test).[0]
[0] http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/02...
Sleeep|8 years ago
>“It’s strategy called ‘Price-anchoring.’ It’s pretty common across the board. Now as far as it being against the law or breaking any rules or regulations, it could be considered false and deceptive marketing under the FTC Section 5,” Kelly adds.
Many States call this practice out specifically as an unfair trade practice in their laws as well.
0xcde4c3db|8 years ago
anonemouse145|8 years ago
An old state law which for all I know was repealed ages ago or whatever was that an item couldn't be marked as on sale for half the year or more. You couldn't say it was 40% off for 300 days out of 365, that sort of thing. The easy workaround was to make it 40% off for three months, then have it on no sale at all but mark the sale price as the original price for the next three months, and switch back and forth whenever you want. So long as the item wasn't always marked "on sale" you were fine.
I don't think the US has ever had real evidence based tests like that, except in major class action suit which have largely ceased to exist thanks to mandatory arbitration clauses.
joshwa|8 years ago
I'm guessing the FTC will have their eye on Amazon pricing soon.
AlexandrB|8 years ago
ballenf|8 years ago
philbarr|8 years ago
freshhawk|8 years ago
I'm pretty cynical but I was still shocked at the number of results. This seems to be a completely normal practice. Price and being on "SALE" seemed to be optimized or A/B tested almost separately. And the "regular price" field on sale items was garbage data that correlated with nothing.
j79|8 years ago
tunetine|8 years ago
nerdshoe|8 years ago
1024core|8 years ago
robryan|8 years ago
After all, why would a retailer ever discount more than 10-20% off what everyone else is charging, outside of a clearance?
JumpCrisscross|8 years ago
bloaf|8 years ago
kbenson|8 years ago
What, have people never shopped in Sears/Macys/Mervyns or any other department store since the beginning of time?
Seriously, the only response I can come up with to this news is "Well... duh."
ZoFreX|8 years ago
This is illegal in many countries, so waving it off as "everyone does it" is not only morally weak, but factually inaccurate.
SeanDav|8 years ago
Amazon has dropped the ball.
em3rgent0rdr|8 years ago
cakedoggie|8 years ago
didibus|8 years ago
Either way, the article concludes with the vendor saying he think its just an issue with tweaking their algorithms, and not an actual tactic from Amazon.
Is there any other source that claim the same?
beluis3d|8 years ago
bdcravens|8 years ago
Quick check: yep. $10. "Set Yourself Apart - Keep your competitive edge with courses for $10—ends 7/31!"
Pretty sure by 8/3, there will be another sale for $10.
isubkhankulov|8 years ago
mtgx|8 years ago
post_break|8 years ago
nodesocket|8 years ago
EADGBE|8 years ago
People are just complaining to complain. It's also kinda cool right now to hate Amazon. It's gotten too big, ya know. They're evil, lol.
freewizard|8 years ago
vermontdevil|8 years ago
zitterbewegung|8 years ago
unknown|8 years ago
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losteverything|8 years ago
Also, i do not think those addicted to Amazon care about these types of things. They keep ordering and ordering. Convenience is the name of their game
kogepathic|8 years ago
What? This is economics 101 of supply and demand. When demand exceeds supply, the price will increase. [0]
Just look at the stupidity of video card prices recently if you want a concrete, non-sale example of why price increases when supply cannot meet demand.
[0] http://www.investopedia.com/university/economics/economics3....
adjkant|8 years ago
https://keepa.com/
camel_gopher|8 years ago
org3432|8 years ago
EADGBE|8 years ago
wynemo|8 years ago
SCAQTony|8 years ago
My opinion Amazon is NOT hurting consumers but rather Trump and the Republicans want to hurt it. YMMV
lovich|8 years ago
alexilliamson|8 years ago
awkwarddaturtle|8 years ago
Amazon is large enough now that they have a "captive market".
org3432|8 years ago
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dimitar9909|8 years ago
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jedberg|8 years ago
ryandvm|8 years ago
If you had a friend that had been trying to sell his car on Craigslist and manipulated the price right before offering to sell it to you "at a discount", I think you'd be pretty disappointed with your "friend".
Sure, Amazon isn't your friend, but I think it's short-sighted when corporations engage in sociopathic behavior and are hostile to their customers. Especially when their business model is predicated on customer loyalty.
mikeash|8 years ago
If a product is normally $10, and then it's sold as "discounted 50% for Prime Day, now only $10," that's fraudulent.
If Amazon decides to charge more and people are willing to pay it, there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is when they lie to make people think they're getting more of a deal than they are.
albeebe1|8 years ago
Now i'm starting to question whether or not we're getting a good deal.
grennis|8 years ago
dragonwriter|8 years ago