[somethingwitty1]

This goes both ways. Numerous people (companies?) have setup arbitrage businesses. They post products on Amazon at a markup over Walmart and vice-versa. They leverage the APIs to dynamically adjust their prices based on how the prices move on each store. It technically isn't a rip-off, when you think about it. They are taking advantage of people not searching for the best deal. You get what you ordered, they make money from scouting prices and putting at a price you are willing to pay for said product (I assume otherwise you wouldn't order).

Don't get me wrong, when this happens, I get that feeling of rip off, but the reality is, I didn't price shop. And someone did some work to get it to show up for me where I was looking.

[patrick451]

When I was an undergrad, me and buddy had what amounted to an arbitrage scheme (I didn't realize that was the name for it back then)selling laptops on campus. We would buy them from ebay, and sell them to local students with posters on physical bulletin boards around campus. At some point, the market flipped, and we could no longer turn a profit this way. So we started buying student's laptops on campus and selling them on ebay.

[Klinky]

It's fine if you think markets are intended to be hostile to consumers instead of bettering people's lives. I don't think incentivizing deceptive middlemen is really a net benefit to society.

[fragmede]

Personally I don't think it is either, but people need money to exist in this world, and we can't all be researching the cure for cancer.

[rbanffy]

Welcome to capitalism, where everyone is trying to rip off everyone else and everyone has to defend themselves against everyone else.

Definitely don’t recommend.

[HWR_14]

> You get what you ordered

Not if you're trying to avoid Amazon for moral boycott reasons (as the OP was). In that case, people are willing to knowingly pay an additional fee to avoid Amazon, but that money is just being pocketed and the rest of the money is being turned over to Amazon on their behalf.

[rbanffy]

Boycotting Amazon and buying at Walmart seems strange. The moral reasons are there in both cases.

[UIUC_06]

I was going to say "arbitrage." I thought of the pizza place guy who discovered that DoorDash or GrubHub was charging customers less than they paid him. Promoting the delivery business, you know.

So he'd just order pizzas for himself, and pocket the difference.

[Bluecobra]

I remember this also being a thing with eBay as well. Not sure why someone would go to eBay first and not check Amazon, but then again some people still pay for AOL.

[tedmiston]

I have noticed a number of inexpensive small items (say < ~$7) being cheaper including shipping on eBay compared to Amazon.

[klondike_]

So they don't have to pay for prime

[fragmede]

ebay's cheaper than Amazon, that's why.