Amazon Jacked Up Prime Day Prices, Misleading Consumers, Says Vendor (foxbusiness.com) 233
An anonymous reader shares a report: A Charlotte-based startup says e-commerce king Amazon jacked up their suggested retail price during the company's annual discount event -- Prime Day -- to deceive consumers into thinking that they were getting a deal, when in reality, they weren't. Jason Jacobs, founder of Remodeez, a small company that specializes in non-toxic foot deodorizers and other odor stoppers, says he had an agreement with Amazon since 2015 on a suggested retail price of $9.99 for his products and was shocked after the tech giant almost doubled that on Prime Day to make it look like people were getting a discount, when they were actually paying full price. "They showed the product at $15.42 and then exed it out to put '$9.99 for Amazon Prime Day.' And on the final day, the price was like $18.44. So, we put a support ticket in right away and I rallied some friends through social media to go to their complaint board and complain," Jacobs tells FOX Business.
And So It Begins (Score:5, Interesting)
In some ways, Amazon is insufficiently managed. (Score:5, Informative)
Playing games with prices is EXTREMELY self-destructive. People buy much more from companies they know they can trust. When a company can't be trusted, customers must spend time thinking carefully about every item before buying.
Amazon abuses employees, according to news reports:
Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace [nytimes.com] (Aug. 15, 2015)
Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers [salon.com] (Feb. 23, 2014)
Amazon Under Fire Over Alleged Worker Abuse in Germany [bloomberg.com] (February 19, 2013)
Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, owns a spaceflight company, Blue Origin [wikipedia.org]. Would you fly into space with a company whose owner makes abusive web pages?
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Exactly this. I know too many colleagues who thought it would be mega-cool to work for Amazon, only to discover to their horror that they went to work for a giant, angry boiler-room with shit management.
I've lost count over how many direct and blatant job offers I've seen in my mailbox (via linkedin)... Unless I find myself unemployed, I just shitcan them without a word. I prefer my sanity, thanks much.
Re:In some ways, Amazon is insufficiently managed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Always always always check historical prices on Amazon before buying anything. CamelCamelCamel is a good resource for doing that.
More about Amazon insufficient management: Drones (Score:2)
Remote control over drones can ALWAYS be eliminated or hijacked [google.com] by radio frequency interference.
Technology ALWAYS has failures, like those at Three Mile Island [wikipedia.org], Fukushima Daiichi [wikipedia.org], and Chernobyl [wikipedia.org].
Amazon drone delivery: nine ways it could go horribly wrong [telegraph.co.uk] (March 26, 2015)
I don't want drones near where I live. Will drones be allowed near where Jeff Bezos lives?
Re:In some ways, Amazon is insufficiently managed. (Score:5, Informative)
Every web page, for example, tries to sell you something else before giving full information about a product.
Only because it works. Every pixel is fine-tuned for maximum sales, and continuously validated. I'd rather see the product details above the other products, but then I'm a geek and so hardly representative of the greater shopping public. (I've heard it doesn't matter: most people just ignore everything and scroll down to the reviews.)
Playing games with prices is EXTREMELY self-destructive. People buy much more from companies they know they can trust.
This part of your post has been proven false by experiment. Oh, sure, it sounds truthy, but experiment trumps opinion. JCPenny has it's entire business built on this sort of deceptive sale. A CEO came along and tried to end the practice, start having non-gamed sale prices, and the business cratered. Shoppers wanted the "sales", even long after everyone knew the game. Not sure why, not what I would have expected, but you can't argue with reality.
People just aren't strictly rational as consumers, and have all sorts of oddball preferences.
Re:And So It Begins (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, this basically means that they're now working like every other retail business in existence.
When I worked at a grocery store as a teenager, I must have marked up items hundreds of times only to "discount" some of them 10 to 25% off a week later. Basically, the item was only a few cents less than the old retail price, which then went back to the new marked up price a week later.
The number of items that went up in price every week vs the number of items that went down every week was like 10 to 1. Basically, they just used the sales to generate price confusion so you were less likely to notice that your total grocery bill was creeping up about 6% every year.
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Re: And So It Begins (Score:3)
"They're actually worse. In a traditional brick and mortar store, every customer sees the same price on the shelf. But e-Commerce stores like Amazon are increasingly turning to customer analytics to fine tune pricing on a per customer basis."
In my country, many "brick-and-mortar" shops (stores) have moved from paper price labels to smart price labels (yay, IoT), and the vendors selling the solutions have been talking up the ability to do the same thing (with WiFi hotspots or bluetooth beqcons tracking shopp
Re:And So It Begins (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, this basically means that they're now working like every other retail business in existence.
Well not really. It means that they're working like every shady retail business in existence. In most countries this is illegal to do. It doesn't matter if it's pennies or thousands of dollars difference. Hiking the price before a sale, at least here in Canada falls afoul of federal consumer protection laws [competitionbureau.gc.ca] and provincial consumer protection laws in every province and territory. If you live in Canada, you should file a complaint. You can do so at this link here. [competitionbureau.gc.ca] Then click the "complaint form" section or you can call this number: 1-800-348-5358 and file a complaint directly.
The government does investigate this stuff, they do levy fines over it. One of the big problems is, some people don't notice it or believe it's simply the market forces at work. A few years ago, there was an entire chain of gas stations in Quebec for exactly this. And there's currently an investigation into one of the big food chains here in Canada over sale manipulation.
Re:And So It Begins (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if it's illegal, it's still widespread. I've literally gone back to a Best Buy with receipt in hand for an item bought NOT on sale trying to exchange it for the same item ON SALE for $5 more than it was the previous day with the "regular price" $15 above what my non sale price was the previous day. I had to fight with a manager to let them do the exchange without me paying an additional $5 sale price.
Re: That's Just Wrong (Score:3)
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I pay sales tax on everything sold directly from Amazon (probably with an exception or two) and even many of the things that are not sold directly from Amazon. I think this was a valid attack on Amazon a few years ago, but it's not really applicable anymore.
Re:And So It Begins (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, Amazon has been forced to collect sales taxes, even in states where it has no physical presence [cnn.com] (at least as of April of this year). The only exceptions would be the five states e.g. Oregon) which do not charge sales tax.
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I'd be mildly interested in this if it weren't way out in New Hampshire.
I hope you guys have enough success to get a similar movement going for a state out west. I enjoy the sun.
Re:And So It Begins (Score:5, Interesting)
Is that still the case? Amazon started collecting sales tax a few years ago in all states where it has a physical presence. I believe they even collect it on behalf of third-party sellers if those sellers ship their products to Amazon's warehouses so that the products can be "Fulfilled by Amazon".
Even so, I quite agree with the sentiment you're espousing that Amazon is far more threatening than most people give it credit. One of the smartest things they've done is play the part of benevolent monopolist while slowly becoming a more and more abusive monopsonist (i.e. the sole buyer) in a variety of markets. They made their margins razor thin so that they could drive both online retailers as well as brick and mortar stores out of business. Having succeeded in capturing a large swath of the retail market, we've now seen them start to squeeze both sides of the market for profit: they're turning the screws on sellers who have no one left to sell to, driving those sellers to unsustainable pricing while capturing the savings as profit for themselves, and they're simultaneously raising the prices paid by consumers who have been trained to shop only at Amazon, again capturing the increase as profit for itself.
By playing the long game like this, they've managed to avoid any sort of major public outcry, given that consumers tend not to complain about cheaper prices, and it's only as prices have started going up that consumers have started to take notice. That said, anyone paying attention has seen the writing on the wall for years, given that monopsonies are just as dangerous as monopolies, and Amazon began abusing its monopsony positions much earlier. Antitrust regulations are designed to protect against both, but American regulators tend to be slow to pursue monopsonies, given that they have a far less direct impact on consumers. Now that Amazon is starting to take advantage of its near-monopolies and engage in other deceptive practices, however, maybe we'll finally start to see some regulatory intervention.
Re:And So It Begins (Score:4, Interesting)
"you buy from amazon for the convenience and the pre-paid 2 day shipping you signed up for with amazon prime"
Yes, and the painless returns. You have to shop smart, but Amazon has one of the best direct/3rd party systems. Have you seen the dumpster fire that Newegg has turned into, or - God forbid - have you every looked for something at Sears/Kmart or Walmart online? Those last two are case studies in making a 3rd party marketplace a total clusterfuck on your site.
Re:And So It Begins (Score:5, Interesting)
"you buy from amazon for the convenience and the pre-paid 2 day shipping you signed up for with amazon prime"
Yes, and the painless returns. You have to shop smart, but Amazon has one of the best direct/3rd party systems. Have you seen the dumpster fire that Newegg has turned into, or - God forbid - have you every looked for something at Sears/Kmart or Walmart online? Those last two are case studies in making a 3rd party marketplace a total clusterfuck on your site.
I agree that Amazon has the logistics down "pat".
Newegg always WAS a dumpster-fire. I haven't tried to order online from Kmart/Sears, but Walmart isn't THAT bad. Nice touch that you can avoid shipping costs if you have a Walmart nearby.
For "tech" stuff, I often prefer B&H Photo over Amazon these days. Generally better prices, no sales tax, often free shipping, fast service (they even shipped something ON July 4th!), and there doesn't seem to be the issue with "counterfeit stuff" that is getting to be rampant on Amazon.
For example, Apple recently studied all the supposed "Genuine Apple" AC adapters and cables on Amazon, and I think they found that some 90% of them were counterfeits.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com]
OTOH, B&H is a much smaller target for those people, and has been in the mail-order business since the mid to late 1960s, at least, decades longer than Amazon; so, IMHO, they have as much, or even more, experience in this business, at least as applies to "tech" items. As for groceries...?
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Half the stuff I'm looking for that shows up on Walmart is something sold by Zoro, not Walmart, which means it comes with exactly zero CS support should something not go right (and 9 times out of 10 stuff from Zoro is horribly overpriced, though I'v also gotten my share of deals directly from their website).
Oh, hey - look - your capacitor came from Zoro. Surprise (not). Might as well go straight to their store.
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Alternate headline: (Score:3)
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Quel Surprise! Not!
Use Amazon? Caveat Emptor.
Nothing new... (Score:2)
See Kohl's and just about any other brick and mortar retailer too...
Diligence folks...
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Rush tactics, pretty shady way to do business, there's your first clue something is up...
" and frankly we shouldn't be in a constant state of trying to make sure companies aren't ripping us off."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, Used car salesmen love folks like you. What color is the sky in your world?
The Cheaper Assumption (Score:4, Informative)
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Amazon has the stock advantage.
That oddball movie? They have it
A Nintendo Switch? They have it
Some obscure part? They have it
HMV just shuttered its stores across Canada 20 years ago they were a good place to shop for music and movies, they maintained a comprehensive stock as of last year they had walls (WALLS) of new release only material plus a mountain of other crap that wasn't music or movies.
The future is massive efficiently managed warehouses tied to a delivery infrastructure with a catalogue dump onli
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"The future is massive efficiently managed warehouses tied to a delivery infrastructure with a catalogue dump online"
I see someone has already failed to observe and learn from history. We had this back in the day - it's called the Sears & Roebuck catalog.
Wanna know why it died? Brick and Mortar stores.
Nothing beats the convenience of being able to have the item in your hands THEN AND THERE, NO WAITING.
This is why I rarely shop online.
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Amazon has tackled that, too. I live in a warehouse city, so there are many items I can get the same day.......so I don't have to leave the house and I can have it just as fast as if I got dressed, drove to the store, hoped they had it, bought it, and returned home.
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Amazon has tackled that, too. I live in a warehouse city, so there are many items I can get the same day.......so I don't have to leave the house and I can have it just as fast as if I got dressed, drove to the store, hoped they had it, bought it, and returned home.
I agree that that is cool.
I also live in a city that has an Amazon warehouse in a nearby town. It was Thanksgiving day, and i found that my digital meat thermometer had decided to die.
Got on Amazon, and a couple of HOURS later, there was a knock at the door... Same day delivery (via a Courier service), and on a HOLIDAY!
There's a lot not to like about Amazon; but delivery is rarely one of them...
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"The future is massive efficiently managed warehouses tied to a delivery infrastructure with a catalogue dump online"
I see someone has already failed to observe and learn from history. We had this back in the day - it's called the Sears & Roebuck catalog.
Wanna know why it died? Brick and Mortar stores.
Nothing beats the convenience of being able to have the item in your hands THEN AND THERE, NO WAITING.
This is why I rarely shop online.
You didn't just seriously compare a periodical paper catalog, with 4-6w shipping/return time with a service that provides same day delivery of well more than what was ever in an S&R mail order catalog, did you?
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He did - granted, back in the day(TM, pat. pending), mail-order was literally the only way many folks could even get anything, let alone have that much variety to choose from. Sure, you could have the local general store do it for you, but you paid the markup, and odds were good that the store just used the same catalog to order the stuff.
BUT... timelines aside, it's the same mechanism, minus the Internet/computer bit, and with a slightly longer timeline.
Now pricing/monopoly-wise, a better analogy would be
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Catalog sales were much less efficient.
There is no "search" option in a catalog. You had to manually flip through a bazillion pages looking for what you wanted, THEN write out an order form in pen, mail a check, and wait the somewhat standard "Allow 4-6 weeks for delivery".
With Amazon I can go online and for anything under the threshold where I'm going to comparison shop, I can find it in under 30 seconds, click a few buttons, and it'll show up to my door within two days.
There are VERY few things that I ne
Re:The Cheaper Assumption (Score:5, Interesting)
Catalog sales were much less efficient.
There is no "search" option in a catalog. You had to manually flip through a bazillion pages looking for what you wanted....
Back before the days of search DB stacks and Index servers, paper catalogs (and even a lot of non-fiction books) had this thing in the back called an Index. It's that section of the book or catalog where every item was listed in alphabetic order, then listed the page number that contained that item's price and description (and maybe even a picture). If you couldn't find it directly from the index, you flipped to the right section (sporting goods, jewelry, whatever), started leafing through it, and if they sold it, odds are perfect that you found what you were looking for within that section.
Depending on the individual's level of literacy at the time, it took like a minute or two, tops.
Regards, ;)
An old fart who remembers having to find stuff without typing a word/phrase into a search box.
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And the advantage to Sears, or even Costco today is that the company has vetted the products it wants to sell. Even Ebay does a better job of vetting the products on its platform.
Case in point, Ebay forces similar products (that are clearly the same item) from different sellers to be grouped together. Compared to Amazon which obfuscates such things. For example, on Amazon do a search for portable fan, sort by price highest to lowest, the same fans will start to appear at the $100ish price point, and will co
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It's actually quite comical to see the 'instant gratification' generation(s) happier with 2-day delayed gratification over the inconvenience of shopping!
Granted it does let people be even more lazy...I mean save the time they'd spend shopping.
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Its a matter of what you're looking to optimize for. Most of us hate shopping, and don't actually need the item immediately. Shopping takes time, effort, expense (gas and wear/tear on a car, or bus fare). Online shopping takes a shipping fee. I'd far rather pay 4 bucks cash than an hour of time.
Re:The Cheaper Assumption (Score:4, Interesting)
Jut the opposite for me... I live in the sticks, so places like Amazon, Newegg, etc have the selection that the (relatively) local stores do not. Prices are generally lower as well (even when you factor in shipping).
It's a tradeoff I know, but I'm okay with it given my locale.
That said, There's lots of specialty websites out there as well, and Amazon ain't the only game in town when it comes to online shopping (e.g. water well filters [filtersfast.com]... kicks the crap out of Amazon's prices, which in turn easily beat the prices found at the local suppliers. Unlike Amazon, the specialty websites also know the products far better.)
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I've almost given up on brick and mortar shops because the never seem to have what I need. Beyond some basic daily life stuff and food, I either have to travel a long way or order online in the UK.
In Tokyo some shops are offering 1 hour delivery to your door now. Actually the first was Yodobashi, which has several massive physical shops in Tokyo anyway, but some online retailers with warehouses in that area now offer it too.
Having said that, Yamato Transport, which does deliveries for Amazon, has decided to
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Nothing beats the convenience of being able to have the item in your hands THEN AND THERE, NO WAITING.
This is why I rarely shop online.
Yes, this is one of the reasons why I do most of my shopping from real, physical stores.
But I do buy a fair amount from Amazon, because they usually carry whatever doohicky I'm looking for and can't find locally. But I've never been too fussed about the amount of time it takes for the goods to arrive. I usually just pick the cheapest shipping option. I particularly like the "free shipping but it'll take a month" option when it comes up.
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Except there are millions who disagree because their use case differs from yours:
Those who live in large/busy cities where driving isn't convenient (or NYC where car ownership is just uncommon)
Those times when you don't need something immediately
Those times when it's easier to wait 2 days (or less) than spend the time to go to the store
Those times when you simply CAN'T go to the store (kids, sick, busy, traveling, etc.)
Things you can't get locally ...and so on.
Now, I've seen plenty of cases where amazon is
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A Nintendo Switch? They have it
If you want to pay 3rd party scalper prices, sure.
If you just want a Switch at the normal price, nowinstock.net and brickseek.com are your best bets.
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Yup, you need price comparison extensions in your browser if you want to only shop Amazon. If you can't install those, then you really need an extra tab open to a price comparison site. The irony is that their worst prices are for typical household items that they are pushing with their "Dash" buttons and subscriptions. Cleaning products are typically 50-100% more expensive than at Home Depot.
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Amazon is no longer reliably cheaper than some brick and mortar options. I have run into this trend more and more in the last couple years.
You don't use Amazon for the prices anymore, you use it for the selection and "free" shipping.
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This seems to be mostly a result of Prime.
Prime is great, but it seems that it's led many people to just buying a ton of random one-off items by themselves that they otherwise would have batched into a larger purchase.
As a result, even if they're taking a loss sometimes, Amazon is pricing many items such that they'll take a smaller hit on the "free" shipping. Items that Wal-mart sells for $4 might be $7-8 at Amazon, because they have to account for the shipping.
On more expensive items it's a crap shoot. W
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True in many industries. I have found some items cheaper at specialty stores than in chain stores. The same is true for Amazon. The differences are many and, in effect, you are comparing apples and oranges. I have to drive to the brick & mortar store, wait in lines, pay, and drive home. Whereas with Amazon, I shop in the comfort of my own home and Amazon brings my purchases to me. The B&Ms are just stores, while Amazon is a shopping & delivery service. The difference is important for folk who cannot leave home.
You also have to account the time for Amazon delivery. For store front, you may use it when you urgently need something. For Amazon, you may have to wait. If you don't want to wait, pay extra for their service plan that they will deliver the goods at your location in a couple hours (if available).
camel camel camel (Score:5, Insightful)
At risk of sounding like a cheesy advertisement: That's why I use camel camel camel!
For those who don't know; it tells you the price history of any product on amazon - so you can see if they've hiked the prices before putting it on sale or just in general if the price is lower or higher than normal.
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Indeed. If it looks too good to be true, I check C3 . Sometimes it really is a deal, sometimes it isn't.
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Ummm, I'm not aware of a non-shady reason. I suppose fire sales on overstock, but since they are moving away from owning the items in the store, instead just doing fulfillment, even that risk is going away.
Re:camel camel camel (Score:5, Interesting)
Came for this
It actually saved me about $40 when they decreased the price $40 a day after I bought something. Basically went like this:
Me: Hey I bought this yesterday and you dropped your price
Amazon: We don't price match
Me: Ok I want to return my order with free shipping paid by you (50lb item BTW) and order a new one
Amazon: ok we will match the price just this once
Damn straight I will try again if that happens
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LOL.
Back in the day I had a flip-phone with one of those nub antennas that had broken off. I walk into the Verizon store and ask the guy at the counter to fix it as I had the phone insured, and guy says he can't do that because it still works. I look at the dude and say "I'm going to go outside to the parking lot and have a horrible accident and then I'll be right back for my new phone".
He fixed it
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Indeed, and actually Camel can also be used to show that the complaint in this story is actually mostly a non-issue.
https://camelcamelcamel.com/re... [camelcamelcamel.com]
The complained about the price spiking right before prime day. However if you look at that product's history, you can see it also has a history of the price spiking once a month for the last 5 months. Granted all of those spikes were in the $15-$16 range, while the pre-prime-day spike was at $19. So it may have been a bit more extreme, but it's not particularly
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I think CCC only picks up changes that affect an item's price for at least a day - most of those prime lightning deals are 4 hours max. A thing to keep in mind with those, if the item isn't a name brand, check it's competitors... frequently a lightning deal is a discount on a no-name-like product that is overpriced, and has competitors that sell an equal or better product at the same sale price (potentially less) every day.
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You can use it to see if the current price is actually low compared to its average price. You can't use it to track Lightning deals, and part of that might be how limited of a time the price is valid - but probably more because the sale price doesn't change.
Sneaky bastards (Score:5, Interesting)
I needed a USB drive yesterday and when I went online to get one I noticed Amazon said that since I had a Prime account it was eligible for free same day delivery. On top of that their price was about $15 less than the local retail. (This was a 5TB Seagate, now in service backing stuff up).
So I ordered, scheduled for delivery in the afternoon, and it came and I thought pretty amazing.
What I didn't notice until later is that although there was no shipping charge there was a $12 tip for the driver ordered by default. Even had I noticed I don't pull tips from working guys/gals so the end result is that the "free" shipping cost me more than had I just gone with Amazon's regular next day free shipping.
Caveat emptor and all that. I am all for regulated free market capitalism and I don't think Bezos/Amazon is evil but it is sort of ironic that real the effect (whether it was the intent or not) of AP delivery was to get me to pay the low-end worker directly for work that Amazon now doesn't have to pay for.
And that's all I have to say about that.
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I've had mixed success with same-day shipping around here. The first time I used it Amazon had the same price as Best Buy but free one-day shipping instead of me driving 15 minutes each way to Best Buy seemed like a good deal. I needed the item that day. It still wasn't here at end of day, and they didn't seem to understand that's a big problem.
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I've never seen this 'tip' fee you are referring to. However, the 'free 1 day delivery' only applies if you have at least $35 in total items that are all eligible for free 1 day delivery. Otherwise, 1 day delivery does have a fee which depends on a few different factors, but I've seen this fee from $3 up to $20 or more. I never do it however, because I usually have something on my wishlist that qualifies that I'll add in, or I'll default back to the 2 day shipping.
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What I didn't notice until later is that although there was no shipping charge there was a $12 tip for the driver ordered by default.
That sounds like a shipping fee to me.
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Know your prices... (Score:2)
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I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon but I don't keep a running list of prices. Newegg is a different story. Most of their promotional prices are the same prices they charge every day, and the promotional discounts are just enough to reduce the sales tax being charged. A good deal is once in a blue moon.
Newegg is, and has always-been, one of the worst, slowest, most unscrupulous mail-order retailers in history.
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You're about the size of a small moon, so it fits.
Have some Spam with Cheese [amzn.to] for your whine.
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BestBuy lost my business the other day for worse. (Score:3, Informative)
You guys seem to think that this is bad. I was in BestBuy the other day to buy a new keyboard and mouse. I decided to look up reviews while i was standing there and noticed that the price on the BestBuy website beat the one in the store for the keyboard by $30, the mouse by $15, and the mouse pad I was also grabbing by $5. I HAD TO ASK THEM TO PRICE MATCH THEIR OWN DAMN WEBSITE!
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You guys seem to think that this is bad. I was in BestBuy the other day to buy a new keyboard and mouse. I decided to look up reviews while i was standing there and noticed that the price on the BestBuy website beat the one in the store for the keyboard by $30, the mouse by $15, and the mouse pad I was also grabbing by $5. I HAD TO ASK THEM TO PRICE MATCH THEIR OWN DAMN WEBSITE!
I want to be clear that my response is not a joke. You actually found a worker to complain to? The last time I was in Best Buy I had to go to the greeter guy at the front of the store and demand that he send a drone to the only cash register they had open so we could actually check out. The 2 guys in front of me apparently had been there for 5+ minutes waiting for somebody to actually work the cash register. I saw maybe 5 or 6 workers in the entire store. One of the big problems of retail now is that t
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In all fairness, by now everyone should know that Best Buy is usually the worst possible place to buy anything.
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Prime day sucked this year (Score:2)
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Depends on what you wanted. $399 for the Oculus Rift, controllers, and a $100 Amazon gift card (net $299 for the Rift+Contrl) was pretty sweet considering I already order a bunch of stuff from Amazon and that $100 was as good as cash to me.
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Not sure if it sucks more and more every year or what... last year's Prime Day was pretty good, though. This year really didn't have many sales...
I thought last year's Prime Day was garbage, but this year, I bought a PS4 Slim w/Uncharted 4 [amazon.com] for $229, and it came with a free download code for The Last of Us Remastered [amazon.com]. I was able to convince my wife to let me buy it since I told her we'd drop Comcast & get PlayStation Vue instead.
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Depends on what you were looking for. We got a California King Memory foam mattress for $450, a memory foam topper for $100. About a third the cost of an American name-brand mattress ($1500+), and about 25% discount on the mattress regular price. Suguru at half price, among other smaller ticket items.
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Amazon Is Just Fulfillment (Score:4, Insightful)
Any manufacturer of sufficient size should be able to put up a web-based order portal where end consumers can buy their products. All they need is fulfillment. The maker of a product should easily be able to undercut any price offered by a retailer. In the past, they never did that because distribution was extremely difficult. This is no longer the case. Wholesale pricing. Distributor pricing. Retail pricing. Bugger all that! Make your product, accurately determine your costs and sell it directly to consumers for 10% more. Charge for shipping. Don't be fooled, shipping is never free. It may be included in the price so it's somewhat hidden, but it's never free.
Granted, Amazon does fulfillment extremely well. But all you (as a manufacturer) has to do is ship your stuff. Give reasonable delivery times (5 - 7 business days, for example) and people will buy it. Save lots of money or get the product tomorrow? People will almost always choose to save $$.
Cutting out the middle man has never been easier.
Pretty short sided of you to think that's it (Score:2, Informative)
There are a ton more reasons manufacturers dont want to sell directly to the public. Source, I work for a manufacturer.
1. Invoicing - invoices don't reconcile themselves automatically.
2. Logistics - all these one-off deliveries don't package and label themselves.
3. Returns - these things require a ton of manual intervention to process, rectify and account for.
4. Partner Relationships - Many existing distribution contracts have clauses to prevent direct to consumer sales. Even if they dont have such a clau
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A certain return percentage is inevitable. To account for it you have to build the systems your retail customers already have in place. Now you are in the widget selling business, and the widget manufacturing business.
It makes more sense to ask one of my retail partners *cough* Amazon *Cough* to provide me a branded web presence and sell the product within 5% of my retail customers. This way I'm still in only the widget manufacturing business and have another avenue for good will among the populace.
Camelcamelcamel is your friend (Score:2)
https://camelcamelcamel.com/remodeez-Footwear-Deodorizer-Charcoal-Moisture/product/B016ZZWL6E [camelcamelcamel.com]
Fine Print (Score:2)
camelcamelcamel probably won't notice that....
Saw this. (Score:2)
Raspberry Pis listed as $50 or so "regular price" but marked "down" to $35 their actual price.
Interesting. (Score:2)
The big story is the people who are fooled by this. About 15% of the population is incredibly stupid. Let us stop fucking up the world trying to drag these fuckers with us.
Breaking news! (Score:2)
The major retailer Amazon is engaging in the underhanded tricks that nearly all major retailers engage in.
Rule #1: Don't believe a retailer when they claim they're giving you a great deal. Comparison shopping often reveals the lie.
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"Shady" (Score:4, Insightful)
Disclaimer: Not talking about this particular case.
Many of the comments talk about "shady" practices. What many here are failing to understand is that if it's not illegal, it's legal, and businesses are going to do it in order to maximize profits. It's the rare case when they won't act that way...typically when there's concern about some sort of bad press that could affect the bottom line. But in general, if we don't want businesses doing things we consider shady, they need be made illegal, or regulated...especially when it becomes monopolistic.
And FWIW, I'm saying this as a conservative, small government fan.
Amazon "Subscribe and Save" another scam .... (Score:2)
My wife has tried, time and again, to order household goods we use often with Amazon's Subscribe and Save service. The idea is nice.... Just have the system auto re-order what you need on a set schedule so you never run out of toilet paper or shampoo or deodorant or ??
The problem is, when we find a product on it we want at a price we like, the re-orders often stop after the first or MAYBE the second time we get a shipment. The reason? Amazon claims the item was discontinued. That or we purposely cancel the
Gullible (Score:2)
Old trick, yes.
But does it work if you have an ounce of common sense? I was quite interested in Prime day - I give Amazon a LOT of business and Prime is worth it just on postage costs alone, let alone the freebies thrown in.
However, everything I looked at on Prime day didn't look... anything near amazing. A bit Meh, if I'm honest. I didn't buy a single thing, even the things already on my wishlist. Because nothing made me say "Oh, that's a good deal" or "That's come down in price" or "I better get that w
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Still didn't buy anything. There were a couple games I thought about buying but decided the odds of me actually playing them were low enough that I'd just hold on to my cash. I've gotten more play time out of a couple bucks spent on Terraria than almost any other game in my library. Most huge budget AAA games have to get down to below $5 before I'll seriously consider buying them, because I know I'll likely only get a few hours out of them if I ever bother installing them to begin with.
maybe do some research? (Score:2)
Amazon? Or Third-party? (Score:2)
What I couldn't glean from the references was whether it was Amazon selling, or a third-party, where the historic price was jacked up. I looked at products from the company complaining and found third parties selling for much more than the $9.99, from $18 up to $40-something. I've seen that often on Amazon, for small things, with third parties offering at 10x the price.
One explanation I'd heard was someone's dynamic pricing reacting to another's dynamic pricing, causing a price spike.
What I'm not clear o
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I like the "Buy two for the price of two!" specials.
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The worst is some third party sellers on Amazon.ca
What costs USD$1.25 ends up costing CAD$3.75 + CAD$30 shipping.
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No one would ever dare defy the law!
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Not for long, if this keeps up...
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Not always top notch.
They have a policy that refunds are only done to the original purchasing card (note: I am not from the US and this was on Amz UK).
I had a warranty return made 1 month before the full warranty ended (details: fitbit dislodged itself from the bracelet, and lucky me, they had no more stock ). Problem: I use virtual prepaid cards, and that card was no longer associated with my account. I am in the process of contacting my bank to get letterhead from it stating the associated refund transfer
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You mean to tell me Amazon follows the same business practices of virtually every single retail business when having big "sales"!? Say it ain't so, lol.
I always think back to a Mad Magazine piece called "What they say (and what it really means)". One of the "panels" showed a supposed "Sale" sign that sc reamed in gigantic type:
Prices Slashed by 50% !!! ...and then below it, in much smaller print...
(on things we increased the price by 50%)
That economic lesson has stayed with me since I was about 12 years old.