Amazon Says It Puts Customers First - But Its Pricing Algorithm Doesn't (propublica.org)

ProPublica has a report today in which it warns Amazon shoppers about the results that they see on the shopping portal. It notes that people often hope that the results that come up first after a search are the best deals, and that's what Amazon will have you believe, but its algorithm doesn't work that way. In what may surprise many, in more than 80 percent of cases, Amazon ranks its own products, or those of its affiliate partners higher. From the report: Amazon does give customers a chance to comparison shop, with a listing that ranks all vendors of the same item by "price + shipping." It appears to be the epitome of Amazon's customer-centric approach. But there, too, the company gives itself an oft-decisive advantage. Its rankings omit shipping costs only for its own products and those sold by companies that pay Amazon for its services. Erik Fairleigh, a spokesman for Amazon, said the algorithm that selects which product goes into the "buy box" accounts for a range of factors beyond price. "Customers trust Amazon to have great prices, but that's not all -- vast selection, world-class customer service and fast, free delivery are critically important," he said in an e-mailed statement. "These components, and more, determine our product listings."

Comments

Only its "Prime" customers come first...

[kbonin]

My own data points as a non-prime customer...
- Not that long ago items purchased using "free shipping" arrived at my door 2-4 days after order; now its 2 weeks.
- Free shipping orders seem to sit in a queue for up to 10 calendar days before being shipped now.
- I've seen items in shopping cart suddenly get flagged as 'we're sorry, this product is now only available for Prime customers' and moved to the second cart.
- With paid 2-day shipping, my items hang around 2-4 days before being shipped.

For me, this all happened RIGHT as I was about to finally purchase Prime. Since I noticed this, I will never purchase Prime. And I've started shopping around for all my large purchases again, which are now made mostly elsewhere.

As long as they aren't increasing prices...

[swb]

...to repeat customers.

Maybe I'm misremembering this, but wasn't there a similar but more scandalous Amazon pricing technique where they were actually tracking customers and jacking up prices to repeat buyers?

Maybe they gave that up due to bad press or maybe they weren't doing it all.

I'm pretty sure airlines have done this -- I've looked at flights a couple of times and when I was ready to book, bam, price had gone up. Checked from another device where I hadn't looked at flights (using a different browser) and I had the original price.

I know Dell did something like this years ago, too -- logged into their site with some corporate credentials and priced a server, did the same thing from another computer/browser which had never used them and the price was a lot lower.

Re:Nor shipping

[mrchaotica]

Several years ago, everything I ordered off Amazon with "free super saver shipping" would arrive in a day or so anyway, despite my picking the slow option. Then after they started really pushing Prime, the super saver shipping got much slower (I think because they'd just wait for a week before sending it out). Funny, that.