Amazon Admits Prime Day Deals Not Necessarily the Cheapest (bbc.co.uk) 113
Shoppers taking part in internet giant Amazon's Prime Day are being told that the deals on offer may not be the cheapest available. From a report: Amazon said it has never claimed that Prime Day is necessarily the cheapest time to shop on its site. It comes after consumer group Which? warned customers that apparent bargains are not always as good as they seem. It said some goods can actually be cheaper at other times of the year, and advised shoppers to do their research. The 36 hour sale -- aimed at subscribers to the Prime shopping service -- offers discounts on a range of goods. The deals are time-limited, with shoppers being told that some items are only available while stocks last.
Common sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
Good news topic for, I don't know, Cosmopolitan magazine? Not a tech site or generally anywhere where there is no lack of common sense among the audience. We've known this as long as there have been "sale events" in retail. The fact that it is an online store does not suddenly make it different and certainly not "news for nerds".
Next thing you will tell us, it is not really worth it to stand outside stores for hours for them to open on Black Friday...
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Hey editors, if you wanted a tech story for this audience, how about it might be that it's not the best idea to sign your managed service contracts while in the VIP room at a Vegas tech conference. Or that white papers (and anything else planted on Slashdot) are mostly bullshit developed by marketing departments with a friendly customers (who is usually getting a price break to put their name on a piece.) And also, hello and welcome to IT - w
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I think the Cosmopolitan version of this story is "What you should be buying RIGHT NOW on Amazon Prime Day!", with a bunch of near-paid endorsements of products whose price is either unchanged or actually up.
The local TV news channel did a piece on this last night that was almost indistinguishable from a commercial for Prime Day, about as close as they got to something resembling news was to say that "not everything is on sale" and "supplies may be limited".
What would make this a news-for-nerds story would
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Like CamelCamelCamel [camelcamelcamel.com]? Never shop Amazon without it!
HoverHound [hoverhound.us] is also a decent cross-site comparison for Amazon, Newegg, and one or two others.
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Good news topic for, I don't know, Cosmopolitan magazine? Not a tech site or generally anywhere where there is no lack of common sense among the audience.
Welcome to Slashdot! It is always nice to see new users on here. I hope you enjoy your stay here and find plenty of insightful and common-sense filled posts.
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Amazon is starting to (has already?) eclipsed the online sales of all other online retailers combined, which is making this old tactic potentially more relevant. You could certainly say that they've got a monopoly of online sales for online-only retailers, but possibly now that they're 50%+ of online sales including brick-and-mortar retailers like Walmart, you could make the argument that they're unfairly duping customers or wielding monopoly power in an unfair way. (That's not quite true, I'm just saying t
camelcamelcamel (Score:5, Informative)
Try camelcamelcamel to check the price over the last year and set alerts for the price you want. I have been using it for years.
(note: I am not associated with them in any way, I just find ti a really useful site!)
Re:camelcamelcamel (Score:4, Informative)
You can use the chrome extension I made that puts the camelcamelcamel graph above the "add to cart" button, as well as fakespot details. Here's the source code :
https://github.com/mlsad3/AmznHistoricChart
Here's the already packaged up extension :
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/historic-price-shopper-am/epopkendmjlkmkmcdmbmfnnndfbfdhbc?hl=en
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Beware of camelcamelcamel scams though.
The way they make money is to tell your price alerts to the sellers. They can see that X people are willing to pay âY for this product, and use that to set their selling price.
Unfortunately scammers can buy this information too and do fake sales where they offer the product at exactly the price you want it. Then they just run off with the cash and you eventually get a refund from Amazon. They sometimes take over existing Amazon shops, other times they set up a new
outrage (Score:3, Insightful)
What? A retailer puts something on sale but they might put it on MORE sale some other time? Unheard of! Nobody in retail EVER does this.
Oh wait, this is normal practice. But "Amazon" - so somehow we need a mob with pitchforks.
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Oh wait, this is normal practice. But "Amazon" - so somehow we need a mob with pitchforks.
Well, we do need a mob with pitchforks, just not for this particular reason.
Re:outrage (Score:5, Funny)
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You will have to provide the mob yourself but pitchforks are available here https://www.amazon.com/Pitchfo... [amazon.com]
You're behind the times - AmazonMob is currently being rolled out in select cities nationwide.
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You've been able to do this since 2005 with Amazon Mechanical Turk!
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Personally, I heard enough of those kids in the cave in the past week and Musk (not only in the past week) to last me more than a lifetime, maybe we can last for a week without hearing about him?
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Then why would I wanna hear it here, too? I come here because it's not just another news outlet that drones the same bullshit as all the rest.
At least that's what /. used to be. A long time ago.
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So we need one more? Whatever. But this isn't the firehose, wrong subpage.
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Then I guess you could submit the story and if it's interesting it will be upvoted.
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Musk shows up very briefly to get his photo-op and then has the nerve to bullshit and say, "I didn't see him there!" when talking about the diver.
And Musk has his panties in a twist just because the diver - someone who actually knows what he's doing - pointed out the fact that Musk's "sub" was impractical for the caves and the truth that it was all a publicity stunt.
The Thai's NEVER asked Musk for help. It was some twitter uses who asked Musk - I think the Twitter account that posted the request for help was Musk's.
Musk is mostly all show.
Musk is definitely in the wrong here- and you don't go and call the hero of an hour a peado without any evidence of the sort, just because you're angry.
Yeah, the diver was far from polite in his comments to Musk and might very well have a bit of a twat-side to him; but Musk was well out of line here and deserves a big smack around the ears. In general, I like Musk, he has popularized various aspects of science and brought technology to the news and public ear... but Musk is just being a massive douchebag o
Duh? (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to do pricing at Best Buy. 9 times out of 10, when something was put on ad, the only difference on the price tag was that it said "As Advertised" above the price, the price itself didn't change one cent.
The phrase 'on sale' doesn't actually mean 'cheaper', just that special attention is being brought to it. Yes, sometimes the special attention is a price reduction, but if you regularly watch prices you see that frequently it just means that they're featuring it in ad material.
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The phrase 'on sale' doesn't actually mean 'cheaper', just that special attention is being brought to it.
"On sale" means "available for purchase." Pretty much everything on Amazon is on sale. Declaring it "on sale", like you say, is just drawing attention.
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The UK now has permanent sales. Some companies, like DFS (shitty over-price sofas) have become the butt of jokes, using the end of the DFS sale in place of hell freezing over for events that are unlikely to ever happen.
The law actually requires products to be for sale at full price for at least 28 days before they can be described as discounted, but they get around it by having one insanely expensive shop somewhere in the country and then permanent discounts at all the others.
Some places are just over-price
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That's a pretty standard furniture store thing here in the US too.
Perpetually "going out of business" is their excuse, never seem to actually close though.
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I think they went bust multiple times and eventually all the assets were sold off... If they still exist it's probably not the same company.
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At Home Depot, we printed out yellow price tags to put on the shelf for items that are "on sale". Regular price tags are white.
99.99999999% of the time, the yellow price tags had the same price as the white tags we removed from the shelf. They'd just raised the "regular" price in the computer so that they could put it "on sale" for the same price.
The unfortunate part is it worked very well. A lot more of the items would be bought when we put it "on sale".
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99.99999999% of the time, the yellow price tags had the same price as the white tags we removed from the shelf. They'd just raised the "regular" price in the computer so that they could put it "on sale" for the same price.
This practice is illegal [ftc.gov].
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And I'm sure our Republican overlords will get right around to enforcing that very soon.
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You worked there. Did you report it? Did you document it? Did you raise a stink to the public? Or did you just collect your paycheck and move on?
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Come on down! (Score:2)
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Yeah, no shit. (Score:1, Interesting)
Some of Amazon's prices are just nuts. A cooler that I bought for $10.99 at my local supermarket goes for $24.99 on Amazon.
And most of the other seller's that use Amazon market place have ridiculous prices. A box of Oat Bran cereal is $6.00 plus S&H whereas that exact same thing is $1.99 at my local Kroger with no S&H. And the prices change all the time too; which royally pisses me off.
Prime is just psychological - to get people to impulse buy without shopping. And at $119/year, it is definitely
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How long does it take for you eat 10 boxes of oat bran?
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How long does it take for you eat 10 boxes of oat bran?
Depends on how badly you want to shit.
Re: The liar here is the parent. (Score:1)
Amazon's choice for "Hodgson Oat Bran" sold by Amazon
com, is a 12-pack for $28.20, or ~ $2.20/box
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B004IN28IM/ref=mw_dp_olp?ie=UTF8&condition=new
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Prime is just psychological - to get people to impulse buy without shopping. And at $119/year, it is definitely NOT a good deal.
Depends. For me, it's a OK (if not great) deal for the Prime video alone.
With the free two day shipping (with no minimum order required), it becomes a very good deal for the two things combined.
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I dumped my account when I realized that 90% of the "two day delivery" was always pushed back at least a few days; Amazon ANYTHING isn't worth it anymore.
Re: Prime video sucks (Score:2)
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Some of Amazon's prices
That is correct. You are referring here to prices that belong to Amazon, and indicate possession with the 's.
most of the other seller's that use Amazon
That is incorrect. The s by itself is used to denote plural, more than one seller. You have confused the possessive seller's with the plural sellers, which it is clear you intended from the context.
Minus 10 points.
truth is (Score:5, Insightful)
Just my 2 cents
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That jeweler may be running afoul of the law, since that sort of slimy practice is exactly why it's illegal in many jurisdictions (e.g. US, Europe, etc.) to use arbitrary list prices. Generally speaking, the item must have sold at the listed price at some point in the previous X days if the seller wants to use that price as the one that they're marking it down from. So, for instance, if you wanted to sell an item at a sale price of $50 while marking it as 50% off, someone else would have had to have paid $1
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Re:truth is (Score:4, Insightful)
You know what? Fair point. In fact-checking myself, it looks like this form of regulation is not nearly as widespread as I thought. Most places refer to this sort of practice as using "fictitious prices", and California has fairly strict laws against their use and there are a number of lawsuits (notably: NOT criminal cases, as I implied might apply) that have been initiated, but there isn't the federal level of regulation in the US that I thought there was, so thank you for calling me on that. As for the EU, I don't check any further, but given how off-base I was about the US, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that I was wrong there as well.
So, I was wrong. Very wrong. I got some things right, but not nearly as well as I thought. Thank you again for calling me out on it.
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So, for instance, if you wanted to sell an item at a sale price of $50 while marking it as 50% off, someone else would have had to have paid $100 to buy that same item from you in, say, the previous month.
There is no way that's correct. Say you order a bunch of widgets and figure you can charge double your cost (because you bought a bunch of them). A month later, none of them has sold. Nobody is going to tell you that you can't discount those widgets until someone buys one at your inflated price.
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Nobody is going to tell you that you can't discount those widgets until someone buys one at your inflated price.
That wasn't what I was saying. You can sell them for $50 whenever you want, but you can't advertise that $50 price as being "50% off" the $100 price at which you never managed to sell any. It's a truth in advertising issue, not a "what's a valid price" issue. You can set whatever price you want, but you can't advertise that price as being a discount from a fictitious value that they never actually sold at.
That said, it's worth pointing out that I was factually wrong about some of the other things I said and
What is Prime Day? (Score:3)
What is "prime" about today?
Its the 16th of July
Nothing prime about 16
Sure 7 is prime, , but that would make for a month long sale.
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being that i'm going to buy a few fire TVs, its probably a chance to get rid of old stock before the holiday shopping season
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Boycotting for the week (Score:4, Informative)
I saw something on Twitter where workers in some countries were going on strike for better working conditions, asking consumers to boycott for the week, which I happily did. I use Amazon and appreciate that I can get some stuff there that I can't find for love or money locally, but the conditions their workers have to endure sound like they contravene a lot of labour laws, and boycotting during a mediocre barely-sale is literally the least I can do. I'm trying to find other sources for the things I want (B&H Photo, Best Buy) but for some things, it's literally impossible to get them anywhere else. Even for items that I CAN get other places, the buying experience is so bad for so many sites. It's really remarkable that almost nobody else has created a purchasing experience even half as good. (For example, I'm in the market for a new iPhone stand, and there's a nice $10 aluminum one on Amazon and I haven't seen it anywhere else yet.)
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I think I might buy as much as once a month on average. However, this is a very specific time period for Amazon—their sale week—so the strike and boycott was timed to try to do as much damage as possible...if it's possible to slow the juggernaut at all.
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(For example, I'm in the market for a new iPhone stand, and there's a nice $10 aluminum one on Amazon and I haven't seen it anywhere else yet.)
What, this [amazon.com] one? If that's the case, you can buy it direct [lamicall.com]. Most things on Amazon are available elsewhere, like eBay, direct, or Asian market sites like AliExpress.
In other news ... (Score:2)
... items on "clearance" might not be super cheap!
(and might not be getting cleared out, for that matter)
Stay tuned to /. for more hot savings tips ...
Tons of stuff is cheaper in local stores (Score:3)
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I'll give you a weird example that makes me shop at Amazon but kind of hate myself for it.
On my boat, I have occasional use for 3M 4000 Marine Adhesive Sealant. IMHO, there is no substitute for its unique qualities.
The only local retailer for it is West Marine, and their price is about $15-16 locally. I can get it from other specialty marine product stores for the same price as Amazon (about $13) but I wind up cutting the savings by about half in shipping, plus it will take 2-3x as long to get it.
So Amazo
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If I used 5200, it would never come apart or be reusable. 5200 is a permanent adhesive.
4000 is ultimately removable and/or stuff can be separated if you want, plus it remains more pliable. Like bedding deck fittings, lights, that sort of thing, where you want a good seal plus some kind of flexibility. I've used it a lot for sealing screw threads -- tap hole oversize, fill with epoxy, let cure, tap to screw size, coat screw with 4000 and seat within a half-turn of flush. Seat flush 24+ hours after curin
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$13.99 at Meijer, and until Saturday was a BOGO50%off item - so 2 for $21. Amazon's best price for it was $14.99. I don't have links for another recent item, replacement sh
Even if it was cheaper, it's junk (Score:2)
Have you looked at what's "on sale"? I have seen less useless junk in 1-dollar stores. Just cheaper.
You know that you're a marketing genius when... (Score:3)
You can invent your own retail holiday, and people fall for it.
I got to hand it to Amazon, though... this is probably the smartest way I've seen to clear old inventory cluttering up their warehouses since the invention of the "Woot Off" on woot.com before Amazon bought them. Who knows... it might have been the same marketing guy who came up with Prime Day.
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You can invent your own retail holiday, and people fall for it.
They are promoting it with concerts around the world ... they really are going all out. It is a pretty amazing thing to watch.
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It was a direct copy of Singles Day, the highest-volume shopping day in the world. Singles Day was created by Alibaba IIRC, as a sort of joke on Valentines day, first on 11/11/11. It was wildly successful in China (and is one of Amazon's big days as well).
No surprise Amazon wanted a piece of that action, and it turns out people don't need a theme for a shopping holiday, just an excuse.
You have to watch shipping too (Score:2)
It's quite simple really. (Score:2)
The website and app are all crashing (Score:2)