'I Tracked Amazon's Prime Day Prices. We've Been Played' (msn.com) 83
"Next time Amazon hypes its Prime Days savings, remember this: The prices during the sale aren't always better," writes a Washington Post technology columnist. "I've got the receipts to prove it."
I would have saved, on average, almost nothing during Amazon's recent fall "Prime Big Deal Days" — and for some big-ticket purchases, I would have actually paid amore. For the sale that took place Oct. 7 and 8, my family went in prepared. We had a shopping list with prices we'd been tracking... A TV stand he'd been watching jumped 38 percent to $379, from $275 on Oct. 2. Same story for a few other big-ticket items on his list — another console went up from $219.99 to $299. Those products weren't listed as "big deals" on the site, but we certainly didn't expect their prices to spike during Prime Days.
And in other cases, Amazon marketed discounts that turned out to be the exact price it had charged in recent weeks. One example: an Oral-B electric toothbrush was listed as 39 percent off, but actually the same price as in August... Other consumer advocates have warned one common trick is for Amazon to feature artificially inflated "before" prices to make discounts appear larger than they are. Ahead of Amazon's 2017 Prime Day, the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog reported that 61 percent of reference prices on Amazon were higher than any price the company had charged for those items in the prior 90 days... I found products listed as Prime Day discounts that cost the same as I'd paid less than a month earlier. For example, a pack of coronavirus tests I bought on Sept. 12 was the same price on Oct. 8, but listed as "39 percent off." Amazon said I'd gotten a particularly good deal in September, and the Prime Big Deal Days price offers "meaningful savings compared to the typical price customers have paid on Amazon over the last 90 days...."
To actually get a good deal on Amazon, go in with a plan. I use a free website called CamelCamelCamel, which tracks Amazon's historical prices. You can see what's really a discount — and set alerts when prices drop to your target.
The reporter checked every non-grocery purchase they'd made on Amazon for six months. Purchasing the same products on Amazon's "Big Deal Days" would have brought savings of just 0.6%. "And that doesn't include the $139 annual fee to be a member of Amazon Prime."
And in other cases, Amazon marketed discounts that turned out to be the exact price it had charged in recent weeks. One example: an Oral-B electric toothbrush was listed as 39 percent off, but actually the same price as in August... Other consumer advocates have warned one common trick is for Amazon to feature artificially inflated "before" prices to make discounts appear larger than they are. Ahead of Amazon's 2017 Prime Day, the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog reported that 61 percent of reference prices on Amazon were higher than any price the company had charged for those items in the prior 90 days... I found products listed as Prime Day discounts that cost the same as I'd paid less than a month earlier. For example, a pack of coronavirus tests I bought on Sept. 12 was the same price on Oct. 8, but listed as "39 percent off." Amazon said I'd gotten a particularly good deal in September, and the Prime Big Deal Days price offers "meaningful savings compared to the typical price customers have paid on Amazon over the last 90 days...."
To actually get a good deal on Amazon, go in with a plan. I use a free website called CamelCamelCamel, which tracks Amazon's historical prices. You can see what's really a discount — and set alerts when prices drop to your target.
The reporter checked every non-grocery purchase they'd made on Amazon for six months. Purchasing the same products on Amazon's "Big Deal Days" would have brought savings of just 0.6%. "And that doesn't include the $139 annual fee to be a member of Amazon Prime."
Fandango has a pretty good system for this (Score:3, Interesting)
Recently spotted on Fandango when they issue a markdown, the original price before markdown is noted as the median price over the last 30 days. This gives you at least a bit of information on the reality of the price drop.
Sure, you could still game it and wait 15 days after markup before putting it on sale. But at least the consumer knows you had to hold a listing at elevated prices for a couple of weeks first.
Re:Fandango has a pretty good system for this (Score:5, Informative)
According to European Price Indication Directive, stating that the discount amount must be counted from the lowest price the item has had during the past 30 days.
Must be that Euroean socialism, protecting consumers' rights.
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Camel. Camel? Camel! (Score:5, Informative)
Price tracker CamelCamelCamel [camelcamelcamel.com] offers browser extensions [camelcamelcamel.com] which allow you to get charts showing price history. Go to an Amazon page and the icon appears in the address bar, click it and the chart pops up. (This is how the Firefox extension works, anyway.) We ordered one of those Solar "Generator" units (I hate it when people or companies call them that, they are not that, but anyway) from Amazon during their sale because it actually was cheaper.
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Re: Camel. Camel? Camel! (Score:4, Funny)
Just keep it deactivated and only use it on hump day.
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I had forgotten about this add-on. I tried to install it just now and Firefox says it's a corrupt package. Right from the Firefox Add-on site even.
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That's weird, that's where I got it and I'm still running it successfully now.
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Nevermind. The problem was my /tmp ramdisk was full. I guess Fedora uses tmpfs by default and it's a fixed size. This has bit me before. Wonder if I can change it back to a normal directory on the disk.
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Ha! I've been through this on Debian! Where I don't think it actually does even use a small tmpfs, but I set it up that way. I decided to keep it that way and make use of TMPDIR, which is how I discovered that Nvidia is a little bitch. You have to both set TMPDIR and pass --tmpdir=$TMPDIR in order for the Nvidia Linux installer to unpack into TMPDIR. Make that make sense.
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No, tmpfs is not ramfs. It's called tmpfs because it's a self-resizing RAM disk - it takes more RAM the more stuff you put in there, and shrinks when you delete stuff, which is great for /tmp and other temporary file storage. It does have a limit of up to half the physical RAM installed, but that shouldn't be
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It does have a limit of up to half the physical RAM installed
Some of us set smaller limits because we have 64GB in our system and don't want 32GB of tmp if something goes bananas.
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Keepa and Camel may not work as you think (Score:1)
These add ons may not work as you expect. They do not scrape your browser session on Amazon to keep track of prices.
They just ask Amazon for the prices. It's Amazon's price history.
Has anyone mentioned that a lot of "instant coupons" are now being used to hide price history?
Anyone using these services notice how every single item on Amazon got listed suddenly brand new about a year ago?
Maybe don't trust the merchants to tell you the true prices of things.
Incidentally, neither service especially hides this.
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I think I misused in vitro. Then again, did I?
Re: Keepa and Camel may not work as you think (Score:2)
Recording over time and later studying the actual prices from the real-world subject (Amazon) would be in situ.
Relying on self-reported info from that same clearly biased subject is just an unreliable study.
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They just ask Amazon, but they can cache results once you're retrieving them. So they depend on people checking prices on things to record any of their own data.
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Washington Post (Score:5, Funny)
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We've known this for years. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, why is the press only catching up on this now??
Re: We've known this for years. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: We've known this for years. (Score:4, Insightful)
How is this news?
Because it's a fraud that is committed by a well known company. That it isn't new, meaning the fraud has continuously been committed for several years, makes it even more newsworthy.
Re:We've known this for years. (Score:4, Informative)
Honestly I have seen prices change when refreshing my browser. Besides Walmart and other big box stores did similar things in the day.
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Officer! Officer! Why am I getting a speeding ticket? Look at those cars, they're clearly speeding too and you've stopped me!
Step away from the vehicle and calm down, sir.
Re:We've known this for years. (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously, why is the press only catching up on this now??
Here's an article from 2015, 'Fake' Sales Trick Customers at Major Stores, Study Says [nbcnews.com] -- (link to study, Sale Prices Are Rarely Real Deals [checkbook.org])
A consumer group says some well-known stores seem to have perpetual sales on certain items, so the “discounted” price is really the regular price.
I think I remember Haynes Furniture, here in Virginia, getting in trouble for this kind of thing a while ago.
Re: We've known this for years. (Score:2)
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Exactly. This is an old retail tactic and you see it more around the holidays. Sometimes they will even raise the price a few weeks prior. Why would Amazon or any company be any different?
Old books are worse (Score:2, Offtopic)
If you try to buy an old book, i.e. out of copyright, you will often be given a long list of various prices. ESPECIALLY for a digital download.
For example you can buy Adam Smiths' Wealth of Nations for $40 hardcover. or $25 also in hardcover. Or free via Kindle Unlimited or Amazon Music or Audible.
Trusting a 'deal' in modern america is foolish.
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They're also never actually free on the scamazon store, it's just a subscription that you don't ever own.
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No of course not. I am sure thy put in there 'special' illustrations, their 'special' footnotes, and their 'special' forward with commentary. They might even have acid free alkaline paper that lasts 1,000 years.
But I would be shocked if somebody buying on Amazon wants any of that.
You buy Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations to learn what real capitalism is - and how he is perfectly fine with Labor Unions (groups of people organizing to sell their service at a set price? That's called capitalism!) and governme
This isn't even an online-retailer thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't even an online-retailer thing, or an Amazon thing, this trick is as old as sales themselves.
in the weeks leading to the sale, slowly mark it all up. Sale comes, 25% off. People flock to your store.
In reality, due to the slow ramp up of the prices in the weeks prior to the sale, the purchaser's actual savings were much less than the advertised 25%
Sales are scams, meant to drive traffic in. Always has been, always will be.
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This isn't even an online-retailer thing, or an Amazon thing, this trick is as old as sales themselves.
Absolutely. What I'm taking home from all of this is:
Don't buy anything within a month before Prime Day because the price may be artificially inflated.
Don't buy anything on Prime Day because it rewards their price-manipulation.
But seriously, these articles keep coming up - and I supposed that's good - but everyone should always be price-conscious at all times. Buyer beware.
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Absolutely. What I'm taking home from all of this is:
Don't buy anything within a month before Prime Day because the price may be artificially inflated.
Don't buy anything on Prime Day because it rewards their price-manipulation.
Keep it simple: Don't buy from Amazon.
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There's a running store near me that does this.
They have a 50% OFF! rack out front, I remember looking at the sale price and thinking it looked pretty much like the retail price...the saw they marked all the items up 50%.
Pays to watch prices. And not shop at sleazy spots.
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Sales are scams, meant to drive traffic in. Always has been, always will be.
You must shop at different stores then I do as I've never seen this at a physical stores and I'm a pretty price conscious person who pays attention to such things. Regardless though this is definitely not an "always" thing.
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Watch in amazement as 2025-ers learn ... (Score:2)
I am shocked. SHOCKED! (Score:3)
"Your winnings, sir."
"On, thank you very much!"
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I would really like to see the catalog operators be held responsible for the new products that are sold through their publications, even if those are third-party sellers.
Yes, I am aware that this would cause a lot of headache for a whole lot of people. Frankly at this point I don't really care. These catalogs are not performing due diligence on what they're offering, and while it costs money to actually perform testing to ensure good products and it limits the number of function-alike competing products o
I thought this was known to all for many years now (Score:3)
I have been using keepa browser extension for years and it lets me check price history of any product on amazon. And what I have been seeing on the price history for many years now, is that there really is no special price. Infact sometimes they jack up the price and call it a lightning deal. Funny. Even edge browser comes with an inbuilt price tracking app, which shows up in the URL bar as a blue tag.
But wait there is more (Score:2, Informative)
Re:But wait there is more (Score:5, Interesting)
None of that is accurate. You may see different "featured offers" in the buy box, but all you have to do check the "Other Sellers on Amazon" right under that to get the lowest offered price.
You may occasionally see (seemingly) cheaper prices when you're not logged in, because Amazon doesn't always show listings with prime/free shipping as the featured item when you are not logged in. The actual available sellers and prices do not change. As someone who has sold on Amazon for a number of years, I can confidently state that none of those are anything more than urban legends. More than half of all sales on Amazon are from third party sellers, like myself. We have no way to granularly price our items based on geographic location, or logged in status, outside of sellers who charge calculated shipping.
Ignore Prime Day (etc.) (Score:5, Insightful)
I ignore Prime Day, Black Friday and other such affairs.
I don't play those games.
I order from Amazon weekly, or damned near. I order when I want to buy. Sometimes it seems like daily, or even multiple times per day.
I usually don't bother comparison shopping. I generally only do that for high dollar items. I'm not going to spend an hour clicking on websites trying to save a quarter or whatever. I got other shit to do.
I may not always get the best price, but as far as I can tell, I always get the most convenience. I'll pay for that.
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Black Friday is an attempt to clear specific product lines, and shops seem willing to take a massive loss on personal computing products.
Prime Day is a month before Black Friday and has no visible purpose. It is obvious marketing that helps only Amazon. It is an attempt to inflate their sale numbers in the new financial year.
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None of which has anything to do with what I buy or when I buy it.
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Black Friday is an attempt to clear specific product lines, and shops seem willing to take a massive loss on personal computing products.
No, they used to seem etc. I haven't seen a decent black friday deal in years.
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It's just another example of enshittification. (Score:3, Insightful)
Before the Dot Com era, startups that succeeded transitioned from growth stocks in to blue chips. They settle down, focus on becoming more efficient at executing what is now proven business mode.
But modern tech stocks are expected to act like growth stocks *forever*. When they grow to their natural potential, they begin to turn to dubious practices to generate the next tranche of growth. They undermine their services in order to squeeze a bit more revenue out of them. Or they let their successful business stagnate while the rock star founder beguiles stockholders with visions of transforming into a block chain or AI company.
Back in the early 2000s, when Amazon first transitioned from being a book store to an everything store, and they just introduced Prime membership, you used the site and thought "this thing is great." Nobody thinks that anymore; it's slower, more opaque and less reliable, cluttered with knockoffs, sponsored results, and astroturf reviews. Fake sales events with phony markdowns? Who is surprised?
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This would be true, if it were ever not true. The pattern of raising prices to lower them again in the form of a "sale" is as old as...sales.
Not Obvious? (Score:2)
Historically, all brick-and-mortor stores did this. It's right up there with the perpetual "Going Out Of Business" and "Fire" sales. I have always assumed that Amazon did this, too.
I did however buy some BIG DAY DEAL items this week, which actually were considerably cheaper than normal. One was my regular order of laundry detergent, and the other was cheap headphones. I threw in some USB sticks, which may or may not have been much cheaper, but were not overpriced.
Not counting that Amazon threw in an offerin
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amazon is not competitive (Score:2)
You can play hardball with Amazon (Score:2)
I purchased A NVMe and there was a 30% price drop so I called customer service who informed me Amazon didn't have price protection (script) so I asked if I could refuse delivery and be credited for a return and order the item at the lower price. The CSR told me I could. I politely asked to speak to a supervisor and the CSR put me on hold and came back in a few minutes and asked if I'd accept a gift card for the amount of the difference, which I, of course, agreed to. Be polite and be strategic and you can p
Consumer Protection Bureau (Score:2)
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No, not exactly. And the correct acronym is CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It was designed to protect against fraud and anti-consumer practices in the financial industry specifically, things such as mortgages and other loans, credit cards, credit reporting agencies, and the like.
The agency that's supposed to regulate stores and online marketplaces, is the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). But it has always taken a lot to get the attention of the FTC.
Isn't this basically every wshop's strategy ever? (Score:2)
Always compare and wait (Score:2)
Use a price comparison/history service. Set an alert with the desired price for the product you want. Wait until it reaches that price. There you go! It's not that complex.
DUH! (Score:1)
Not a bargain (Score:2)
Ruthless People (Score:2)
This was explained in the comedy movie, Ruthless People (1986): It is not new.
JCPenny (Score:4, Insightful)
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and customers flocked to the stores again.
That is clearly not true. JC Penney just sold their headquarters and are closing all of their stores.
Anyone paying attention knows this. (Score:2)
Played (Score:2)
they're starting to game the no.1 seller now too (Score:2)
they are trying some new stuff/techniques now where they'll drop the price low enough and just long enough to get on the best seller list for the duration of the prime days sale. (noticed this with certain power tool manufacturers)
Most sellers also didn't get the message that the prime days sale lasts longer than a few hours... and tons of sellers were just changing the prices up and down every few hours... with a bulk of the items going to prices even higher than when the sale started just 24 hours later
alternate universe (Score:2)
Um, Amazon offered me prime deals based on what I have bought in the past. I know the typical prices of these items. Not all were deeply discounted, but some were. So, I bought the deeply discounted ones *that I actually needed.*
It's not only Amazon. (Score:2)