
Amazon to Let Shoppers Bargain for Lower Prices with New “Make an Offer” Option - shk
http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/09/amazon-to-let-shoppers-bargain-for-lower-prices-with-new-make-an-offer-option/
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stronglikedan
Maybe I'm weird, but I feel slightly offended if a vendor is not offering
their lowest price to begin with. A lower price from a different vendor
doesn't bother me, but knowing that someone else can pay a lower price for the
same product from the same vendor just irks me a little. Especially in these
times of fierce pricing competition. It just feels disingenuous.

Of course, this is just from _this_ consumer's point of view. I _can_ see the
added value to the vendor, but since I'm only a consumer, it is only the
consumers' perspective that affects me.

~~~
dhm
In many situations the actual cost to a vendor does fluctuate over time, but
continuously updating prices has costs that outweigh the upside demand and
perhaps brand loyalty that comes from transparency. Some example costs include
(a) customer frustration from unpredictable prices and (b) consumers deterring
purchasing decisions waiting for prices to reach some threshold they are
hoping will arrive one day.

~~~
collyw
Try a holiday in India, Nepal or Morocco. Nothing has a set price. Its
annoying at first, but after a while you may appreciate that you pay for what
you value, not paying based on some price set by someone else.

~~~
smeyer
Or if you're American and want to try it closer to home, buy some tickets from
a scalper.

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3pt14159
Oh please no. I hate haggling. My time shouldn't be spent worryin if I left
10% on the table. This is the reason Amazon is killing eBay, and now they to
introduce the same tired tactics.

~~~
coldpie
Yeah. I really dislike the "not sold by Amazon" stuff, complete with seller
ratings. I really don't want to have to comparison shop sellers and choose the
one least likely to fuck up my order. I just want to order from Amazon, who I
know won't give me hassle.

~~~
adventured
I love it. I buy a lot of used blu-ray discs for $0.01 or $0.99, with the
$2.99 or $3.99 shipping fee of course to compensate for the overly low price.
Ultimately I find incredible bargains versus paying $12-$20 for the same disc
new. The ratings make it easy to find sellers that are reputable to buy used
discs from. I also personally find this to be far less chaotic than digging
through eBay.

~~~
GuiA
I do the same with books and vidoegames.

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DominikR
> Importantly, this gives also buyers somewhat more transparency on pricing

How? I'd try raising prices and allow offers, hoping that most customers don't
even try to bargain for a lower price.

~~~
GotAnyMegadeth
But then you competitor will show up higher in the list on sort by price.

~~~
DominikR
Sure, that's something you would have to experiment with. But I still don't
get the "transparency" argument.

How is it more transparent to have products in your store where one customer
pays the full price, another one pays 5% less and someone else pays 10% less.

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jerf
It's close to a feature I've been waiting for, which is "Buy When Price Drops
To...". I want to enter a price and go ahead and let them ship the item to me
when it hits that price.

There's a lot of items whose value tends to go down over time, or are
virtually guaranteed to go on sale, and they can price-segment me to their
hearts content on them if they'd just let me enter the price I'm willing to
buy at. You'd think that this signal would have significant value to them. I
mean, I get the counter arguments too, but it still seems like they could work
some selling magic on this and win back the profit in the end.

Pieces of this are there; Subscribe and Save lets you save money if you pre-
commit (sorta, it's easy to drop out of) to buying certain items, and now this
"Make an Offer" option... they seem to be working their way up to this, why
not go all the way...?

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rscott
I doubt they would do this as it would reduce their already razor thin
margins. And there is little incentive for them. I don't think many people
would be willing to shop like that either, since the mindset of a purchase
like that is sort of the anti-Prime - "just let it arrive whenever", as
opposed guaranteed 2 day air. Long story short I just don't see that as a very
Amazon-like move. That said, I would probably use it once or twice a year if
such a feature existed.

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aethertap
It sounds like they're expecting this to mostly apply to items where there
isn't much seller competition, which I'd agree with. If you're selling the
same thing as a bunch of other people, you're already in a price game as far
as an Amazon shopper is concerned, so it doesn't seem like it would make sense
to use the make an offer option. People would just lowball all of the sellers
and see who comes back with the best counter. That would be a hassle for all
parties, but more for the sellers than buyers because they're now responding
to n times more traffic in order to secure the same number of sales.

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epaulson
This could get really interesting if they extend it to all of their products.
It's not just about what margin should Amazon take on this product, it's what
margin should Amazon take on the entire basket, and what margin should Amazon
take on this customer right now, given the customer's shopping history with
Amazon and the potential future purchases.

The nice people working the registers at Target or Walmart have no authority
to haggle with me, even if I wanted to do so. If there was an algorithm behind
the scenes, either online or flat-out at the register, maybe haggling could
make a comeback with big merchants.

~~~
cdent
That's a future that sounds horrible to me. It's injecting yet another layer
of uncertainty into the process of acquiring goods. I already feel like I'm
being ripped off all the time. With this model unless I do the hard work of
bargaining I _know_ I'm being ripped off.

Great.

No thanks.

~~~
adventured
If you agree to buy an item at an understood price, why do you feel like
you're being ripped off?

Isn't fairness of price decided by the property owner that is offering their
property up for sale? That is, they're deciding what it's worth to them, what
is fair to them, such that they'd care to part with their property.

~~~
hobs
Because people have only so much cognitive load, adding to that to the list of
things they would have to do on a daily basis is simply daunting.

This just seems like another way to rip off people who don't know better and
are disadvantaged; imagine the haggling difference at the poor shops vs the
rich shops. The rich person may be able to afford the extra cash and you may
think the poor person would be incentive to haggle harder, but the rich can
also afford to leave to go to another shop with the car they own instead of
spend another hour on the bus to get to another place. They can also afford to
be informed of the prices.

~~~
adventured
It's a fair point certainly, in regards to poor shoppers. Most American
consumers aren't poor, have Internet access and can easily compare prices, and
most of Amazon's customers also are not poor.

In fact today it's extraordinarily trivial for the average person in the US
(Amazon's core demographic still) to price compare. It takes seconds via
Google or directly via Amazon.com or Walmart.com etc.

I don't believe price comparison is daunting or overload, for the same people
capable of consuming hundreds of status updates on social networks ever day.
In fact, the history of the American consumer indicates price comparison is
extremely easy and natural, said shopper has been price comparing and seeking
out deals since the birth of modern shopping.

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brb3
I'm a developer at a company called PriceWaiter[1] that provides a similar
“Make an Offer” service to existing eCommerce stores. Our API allows retailers
to add a button to any product on their site to get offers from customers.

We welcome Amazon into this space, and are really glad to see this idea
catching on.

Check out our developer docs and integration plugins[2], or feel free to ask
any questions you have here.

[1] [https://www.pricewaiter.com/](https://www.pricewaiter.com/)

[2] [https://docs.pricewaiter.com/](https://docs.pricewaiter.com/)

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EGreg
Great. Prices going up for everybody. Did they hire Ron Johnson?

[http://mobile.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-10/lessons-f...](http://mobile.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-10/lessons-
from-j-dot-c-dot-penney-dont-mess-with-coupons)

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susi22
They've also just started including external websites such as Dell.com to be
listed right at their offers. Note, that this will take you to the external
website and not go though Amzons checkout:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-
listing/B00I053ICY/sr=8-1/qid...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-
listing/B00I053ICY/sr=8-1/qid=1418136104/ref=olp_tab_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new&qid=1418136104&sr=8-1)

You can see that it sends you to Dell's website.

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yc1010
All of the personal and my business purchases in the last year for me (running
into 6 figures) have been thru' Amazon

Their system is simply much nicer to use and their support is great, even when
buying from 3rd party merchants on their platform. There were cases where
something wouldn't work (example a phone a month ago) and i was refunded first
and then given several weeks to return the broken phone!

Best of all I no longer have to deal with Paypal and their whims or worry
about being scammed on their Ebay site. Hell now that I think of it I have
barely used paypal in the last year.

Also I can buy giftcards at 3% discount on the likes of gyft.com (10% last
black friday weekend) with bitcoin. Amazon sort of indirectly accept bitcoin
via their giftcards which is fantastic + discount on top. And of course the
Prime programme is great with free deliveries.

I hate the way on Ebay something is listed with a low price but by time you
get to checkout mysterious high delivery fees appear, that in my opionin is
sneaky. Neither is their 90s interface nice or user friendly to use.

edit: wow i sound like i got brainwashed by Amazon lol! Oh well one happy
customer here :)

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bitL
Given that Amazon takes already ~15% off end-price of most items and the
competition is pushing most margins to <5% territory, I wish them good luck
having any sort of success on "Make an Offer". Probably good only for slow-
sellers or used items...

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ianlevesque
All the appeal of buying a car at a used car dealership brought to ecommerce.

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adrow
If they expanded this to general products (and in the UK) this could kill my
usage of Flubit. I regularly get 10% or more off Amazon stuff through them,
but their delivery is nowhere near as reliable.

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doug1001
i'm imagining someday well into the future (about 9 months from now) i'll surf
to Amazon.com and, click around until i find what i'm looking for--eg that
Disney Frozen merchandise for my daughter's birthday--and add it to my cart,
followed by a voice that reminds me of Lilith Sternin-Crane:

LSC: so how much do you want to pay for that

me: $49.99, like it says right next to the item on your Site

LSC: we'll let you have it for $85 and throw in free one week shipping

me: that's unethical

LSC: okay $80 and thanks for the compliment.

me: look, $55 is all i can afford to pay, that's all i have on me, i swear--so
take it or leave it.

LSC: unlikely, in fact almost impossible--let's see, your median cumulative
Amazon purchases by month for the past 24 months is just under $450; plus you
have a cumulative balance of $216.34 on three Amazon gift cards in your name.
You must be doing pretty well, sir.

me: i'm just a programmer--overworked and underpaid, etc.

LSC: yes we know. Now let's see...according to your shipping address and zip
code, you live in...downtown Palo Alto!

me: well yes, but towards the dodgy end.

LSC: no you don't. So the median household income in your neighborhood is....

me: no idea where that figure came from, anyway, you can't tell my salary
based on a neighborhood average.

LSC: well technically i could...but why should i in this case when i know your
exactly how much you earn.

me: you're lying

LSC: you'll regret that. how's this for lying...remember about six months ago
when you, persuaded by the 10% off the total in your shopping cart we
promised, you clicked on our Amazon credit card offer and filled out the
application right before you checked-out--giving us access to your entire
credit history...

me: oh god

LSC: tell you what, i'll let you have it for $90, you pay for the one-day
shiping and sign your family up for Amazon triple prime, and we'll say good
night. Deal?

me: oh god

LSC: what's the problem? you soulnd depressed.

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barathvutukuri
Does this apply only to amazon.com or amazon.in too??

~~~
shk
I don't think it's going to roll out on amazon.in until they experiment with
the model extensively in US.

~~~
Xophmeister
That said, it's something that _may_ work better in some cultures rather than
others. (Not to pigeonhole Indian culture; I mean completely in general.)

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fyoorer
I will make them an offer they can not refuse

