Amazon Jacked Up Prime Day Prices, Misleading Consumers, Says Vendor (foxbusiness.com)

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.

Comments

And So It Begins

[cunina]

Amazon ran their retail business at a loss for years in order to gain market dominance. We always knew the day would come when they'd use their immense power to start extracting higher profits out of their customer base. That day has arrived. And, don't think for one minute that they won't do the same with AWS if they ever achieve the same level of dominance. (Giving us all a rare reason to root for Microsoft.)

Re:And So It Begins

[Overzeetop]

"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

[TheFakeTimCook]

"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...

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...?

Re:And So It Begins

[Anubis IV]

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

[danbert8]

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.

Sneaky bastards

[AlanObject]

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.

Re:The Cheaper Assumption

[Penguinisto]

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... 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.)

Re:camel camel camel

[rikkards]

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

Re:The Cheaper Assumption

[Penguinisto]

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. ;)