
Amazon Is Quietly Eliminating List Prices - tpatke
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/business/amazon-is-quietly-eliminating-list-prices.html
======
uptown
The thing I don't get about Amazon is they've allowed entire categories of
products to become unbuyable from their site. Batteries? Every review seems to
indicate what's sold is some substandard knock-off. Medical products like
thermometers? They're all reviews from people who got the product for free in
exchange for writing a review. Their brand is rapidly being tarnished in my
view.

~~~
tuna-piano
It's really an awful process buying a lot of items nowadays. It seems like the
exact same item will be sold under 30 different brands with different star
levels, with many reviews full of the "free product" in for honest (usually 5
star) reviews.

I wish Jeff Bezos would try buying a travel adapter (among many other items
I've tried to buy recently) and tell me that it's a customer friendly process:
[https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_pg_1?rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Atravel...](https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_pg_1?rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Atravel+adapter&keywords=travel+adapter)

There are approximately 5 actually different adapters sold under maybe 50+
brands, and all the reviews are so padded with 5* free reviews, it's tough to
know which ones are crap and which are good.

Reviews aren't as important for retailers like Wal-Mart that curate their
products. But for a marketplace like Amazon, reviews are absolutely critical
to prevent scams. I hope Amazon realizes the enormity of this issue and is
working on it.

I believe Amazon should:

1\. Fix the reviews. Disallow giving items for free or reduced prices in
exchange for reviews. This may have worked originally for books, but any
benefit received now is far out shadowed by the negatives. Alternatively, just
limit it to 5 total free / reduced reviews per product to limit the negative
effect. Police this policy heavily.

2\. For the duplicate products (where one identical product is sold under 10
different brands, like in the travel adapter example above): Group the
products together, and choose the brand like you might choose the color or
size on a t-shirt. I recognize that there isn't a UPC numbering system that
makes this easy - but there are probably only a few thousand items required to
group together to make the buying process a lot easier for a large percentage
of purchases.

~~~
deanCommie
Sorry I don't understand your point about travel adapters.

1\. I go to your link

2\. "Oh cool, there's a lot of travel adapters"

3\. Filter by free shipping

4 (optional). See the top 2 are Sponsored, which makes me less likely to trust
them, so ignore them. [NOTE: This is similar behaviour to using ANY search
engine]

5\. Open the top 3 links ([https://www.amazon.com/MX-UC1-Protector-Universal-
Charger-Ad...](https://www.amazon.com/MX-UC1-Protector-Universal-Charger-
Adapter/dp/B00E0FZSQC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1467713126&sr=8-4&keywords=travel+adapter),
[https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-Worldwide-Universal-
Converter...](https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-Worldwide-Universal-Converters-
Charging/dp/B01DJ140LQ/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1467713126&sr=8-5&keywords=travel+adapter),
[https://www.amazon.com/Grounded-Universal-Schuko-Adapter-
Ger...](https://www.amazon.com/Grounded-Universal-Schuko-Adapter-
Germany/dp/B004SY5O5K/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1467713126&sr=8-6&keywords=travel+adapter))

6\. Dismiss #2 because it's twice the cost of the other ones and has lower
reviews

7A. Pick #3 because it's a "best seller" \- which means it has been vetted by
other customers

7B. Pick #1 because it looks the nicest

Both have mostly good reviews with some bad ones, but hey it's a 7 dollar
piece of plastic that tries to work in 150 different countries, it's not going
to be perfect.

What is so customer unfriendly about this process?

Oh and by the way, this is a POWER user process who really wants to get the
best one. A layperson could have just as easily just went straight for the
"Best seller" and been satisfied.

~~~
germanier
About a year ago, I purchased one of the bestsellers on German Amazon (which
basically look the same as the bestsellers on the US store). It is flimsy, the
springs on one connector are likely to break after using them a few times. The
worst thing: one of the connectors didn't retract fully when not in use and
was connected to live AC. Yikes! It had tons of great reviews both on the
German and on the US store, including ones were you could see the bad
construction in the customer photos. After looking closely at them, one of the
three-star reviews casually mentioned sparks when used in one configuration...

I called customer support and wrote to the responsible regulatory body in
Germany. This specific model is not available anymore. A dozen identical
looking still are.

In the end I used one that is three times as expensive made by a reputable
company.

That is the problem.

~~~
pierrebai
Here's a list of possible solutions:

1\. Ask for referral from people your trust, like your friends.

2\. Buy locally in a physical store with a good return policy.

3\. Buy from brands you trust.

It used to be Walmart, now it's Amazon; people will impoverish their local
economy to save 50 cents.

Things I bought recently:

1\. A rake. I chose the 5$ more expensive one that looked more sturdy and was
made in Canada (where I live) instead of China.

2\. A old generation smartphone. I chose Motorola G because it's a well-known
brand and it had good reviews when it launched, two years ago. It's also got
one of the longest battery time.

3\. Jeans. I bought Lois Jeans at a local store because it's the last barnd I
know of that is still made in Quebec.

Buying is also a political action.

~~~
Fjolsvith
The adage, "Buy a cheap car, get a cheap car," applies to everything. Or, in
other words, "You get what you pay for."

~~~
nommm-nommm
It's hard to know of something is more expensive for the sake of being more
expensive or because it is actually higher quality.

I once bought a higher end item because I expected it to be good quality.
Ended up being one of the poorest quality items I ever bought, replaced it
with something that cost 1/4th the price and is better quality.

I have a $200 phone. $600 phones also exist but the $200 does everything l
need it to do perfectly. The expensive option isn't better for my needs.

------
kriro
I have actually come to the conclusion that Amazon has "trapped" me with
service not price. I often buy stuff that's a little more expensive on Amazon
just because I know I get a reliable shipment and know when it will arrive.
The "order until X and we grantee delivery on Y" is one of the key features
for me. I always hate guesstimating when things will arrive if they ship in
2-5 days etc.

I usually bulk order so stuff arrives on Saturday if they'd have a "worker
friendly" shipping service that delivers after 18h I'd be all over that.

I'm annoyed by a lot of stuff including the fact that pretty much everything
is "reduced price" and that you have to wade through 5* reviews for every
product but at the end of the day they are a brand I trust to deliver my stuff
on time and do the right thing when there's a problem with some shipment.

~~~
JohnTHaller
I've found Amazon to be less reliable the sooner it is promised in the last
year or so. Amazon's next day delivery will generally either go missing for a
couple days or not be delivered at all about 1/2 the time here in NYC
(confirmed by a couple other Queens residents). Then you have to wait 48 hours
before you can report it missing (despite it saying "delivered" but not being
here), then place the lost complaint with service, then wait for the next
order which doesn't ship next day. So, about 4 to 5 days for a "next day"
delivery. And the last time this happened, 2 out of the 5 items were supposed
to reship and I would get a refund and have to re-order 3 of them from said
missing package. Except 3 reshipped. So I wound up being charged for and
receiving two of one thing I ordered one of. Queue having to get on customer
service chat again, package up the duplicate item, walk it over to a shipping
location, wait for a refund.

For a company that's supposed to be all about logistics, Amazon kind of sucks
at logistics.

~~~
mafro
Thought I'd tag my opposing anecdotal data point onto your comment.. I live in
London. I've had maybe 50 next day Prime deliveries in the last year - none of
which have been late, lost or other.

They are very good at logistics for me!

~~~
soundwave106
Here in Tampa, the "standard" next day delivery services (where there usually
is a surcharge) is fine (using the standard Fed Ex or UPS option), and I've
never had a problem with the standard 2 day Prime service delivered via USPS
or the like.

However, for some products, Amazon offers a "free next day delivery" service
option. These services tend to be offloaded on sketchy "courier service"
companies with names like A1 Courier Services, Lasership, Ontrac, Dynamex,
etc. These carriers get generally _awful_ reviews (as seen here:
[http://www.amazon.com/forum/amazon%20carrier%20feedback/](http://www.amazon.com/forum/amazon%20carrier%20feedback/))
and you hear a lot of reports of missing packages, late deliveries, etc. I've
only used this option once, the item did arrive, but it was at quite a late
hour (10PM). Based on the reviews, I would not use this service again.

I still use Amazon a lot, but they have become _way_ sketchier over time.
Knockoff batteries are but one symptom of this.

~~~
JohnTHaller
It was indeed one of these sketchy courier services. They dumped my package by
the front door of our apartment building at 10pm on a Saturday night in NYC.
Or they claim to have. An hour later when I got home it was nowhere to be
seen. I waited home most of the day for it until I had to go out to a previous
engagement, too. The previous time I had a next day delivery, they claimed to
have attempted delivery mid-evening while I was at home but never even rang
the bell.

------
kristopolous
Wasn't the list price being nonsense marketing widely acknowledged?

I've had a fantasy of opening up a convenience store with absurd list prices.

Candy bar, was $1,200, now only $1.29! Save over $1,100! 99+% off! Maybe have
multiple numbers slashed down to get to the final price, etc.

Then when the person leaves the store with 5 items I'd say things like "You've
saved $94,650 today!"

~~~
eru
Lots of countries actually have laws against this.

(But you might get away with it, if it's outrageous enough to be clearly a
joke.)

~~~
dingaling
In the UK he would have had to have offered the candy bar for sale at $1,200
for at least 28 contiguous days in the last year.

But that's easy enough for retailers to work-around these days when they can
ask suppliers for multiple UPCs for the same item

~~~
roymurdock
Must be how Sports Direct operates. Everything was at least 60% off at all
times in that store when I was in the UK 2 years ago.

~~~
westi
I _think_ you can get away with not selling ever at full price if your
comparison price is the manufactures RRP.

You can't do this for "bespoke" products which is where the UK law seems to
most hit businesses - things like furniture which are specific to the
retailer.

Of course the $1200 candy bar price is never the RRP :)

~~~
kristopolous
oh man ... furniture stores. The one down my street has been going out of
business since the day it opened 20 years ago. Every few months they replace
the "We've lost our lease!" sign when it gets too disheveled.

I took some pictures in Portland once of the most extraordinary version of
this I had ever seen[1][2]. I thought they had taken it up as a high art, but
a few months later, they genuinely went out of business.

[1]
[https://goo.gl/photos/FvZ3r8mRR9KrtiGm9](https://goo.gl/photos/FvZ3r8mRR9KrtiGm9)

[2]
[https://goo.gl/photos/MktLKzD4E3bqkkaG7](https://goo.gl/photos/MktLKzD4E3bqkkaG7)

------
intopieces
I've learned over the years to completely ignore the 'list price' and simply
check camelcamelcamel.com, a website that tracks the prices for most items on
the site. If it's within 10% of the lowest price from the past year, I bite.
Else: I shop around.

I think consumers are getting savvier over all, and the list price is losing
its effect.

~~~
oneloop
Interesting. Amazon has rules on their affiliate program against storing price
information. They have recently kicked out a big player in the space for this
reason. Any info on why camelcamelcamel has been allowed to stay?

~~~
intopieces
I'm not sure there's anything Amazon can really do. AFAIK, it's a script that
just scrapes the information on a timer, like Internet Archive does. It's no
different from checking it yourself and making a spreadsheet, right?

~~~
oneloop
Depends. Amazon's terms and conditions for participation in their affiliate
program explicitly states that doing that is breach. What they can do, and
like I mentioned do do, is they close down your account and keep your money,
and now you're out of business.

------
mdip
I read this article, puzzled, thinking ... Amazon provides the list price? How
haven't I noticed? I had to do an image search to remind me of an example of
that. Of course, once I saw the page, I understood what they were referring to
but apparently my brain has been filtering that part of the page due to years
of conditioning.

For all practical purposes, the list price on American e-commerce sites is a
worthless bit of information on a product page. I don't think in somewhere
around 20 years of purchasing things online and from catalogs I've _ever_ paid
anything close to list price and I've never felt like I got a "good deal"
simply because the gap between list and actual was large. In fact, I'd
probably be disinclined to purchase a product with too large a gap between
list and actual, making the assumption that something must be horribly wrong
if they're trying to get rid of the thing at such a steep discount.

Though I'm very glad this deceptive practice is being targeted, if only from
the perspective of eliminating one more useless bit of noise from product
pages (can we also filter out the two word reviews?), I'd imagine _very few_
people[0] actually believe that price represents a realistic product price for
99% of products[1].

[0] In the US this is a _ridiculously_ common practice with the worst
offenders being auto dealers. They'll list MSRP along-side a nearly impossible
to qualify-for manufacturer incentives (unless you're active military,
employee of the brand, have the brand's credit card points maxed out, are a
previous owner of the brand ... in one case I discovered the discounts
couldn't actually be combined making the deal truly _impossible_ )

[1] About the only time this _is_ true is when the product provider has a
minimum advertised price requiring an extra step to see the price only once
the item is in your cart (somehow, that's a loop hole?). Or Apple products...

------
wittekm
Most likely, they A/B tested it and liked what they saw. Interesting
development considering Nordstrom's failure with the same experiment.

~~~
mahranch
> Interesting development considering Nordstrom's failure with the same
> experiment.

Not really. I think the customer bases are different enough that it's an
apples and oranges comparison. Not only do you have a different type of
customer on Amazon (people shopping for groceries, or carpentry tools or even
computer parts and hygiene products. While on Nordstrom, you have people
shopping for not clothing, but high-end clothing.) but the scale itself is on
an entirely different level. Amazon has millions of people buying stuff from
them every single day. The volume of traffic and orders on Amazon is like
comparing the entire economy of the United States with that of Kobe, Japan.

------
christianmann
Didn't JCPenney try this? Didn't it go very poorly for them?

~~~
colechristensen
No, JCPenny went from very frequent "sales" which took "normally" overpriced
items and drastically reduced them to a consistent fair priced model.

Before this, it wasn't that there was a constant sale... prices went up and
down wildly with whatever coupons or sale you could get to work...

It turns out that their customers really liked the up and down sales. They
went back.

------
bfuller
I am going to let my prime membership expire for the first time in years
because of this.

Honestly I think I will miss the video streaming service the most at this
point

------
open-source-ux
I've noticed on the Amazon UK site that books are discounted far less than
they were in the past. Now, only major titles and bestsellers are offered at a
discount, anything outside that category has no discount or minimal discount.

If you're in the UK, an alternative to Amazon for books is
[http://www.wordery.com](http://www.wordery.com)

~~~
shaurz
I would also recommend Book Depository:
[http://www.bookdepository.com/](http://www.bookdepository.com/)

~~~
germanier
Which is actually owned by Amazon. But I don't know how much they cooperate
internally.

------
ebbv
This is interesting but I think based on a false assumption. Speaking only for
myself I currently buy a lot from Amazon, but it's based entirely on whether a
given product is a good deal or not. I have no particular loyalty to Amazon
(even though I'm a long time Prime member.) Anything that isn't a good deal, I
don't and won't buy from Amazon.

~~~
yaacov
That's what they want you to think ;)

~~~
ebbv
That's a silly response. Amazon is an online retailer, they are the absolute
most vulnerable to cross shopping. If I'm at a local grocery store or farmer's
market and see something I like I'm much more likely to buy it there since I'm
already there.

If I'm shopping for something on Amazon it takes basically zero time to look
at what the price is on Costco, PC Part Picker, my local stores, etc. and be
sure I'm getting the best deal. I'm not a compulsive shopper who just buys
things instantly when I see them.

~~~
exhilaration
_Amazon is an online retailer, they are the absolute most vulnerable to cross
shopping..._

The 60 million+ of us that have bought into Amazon Prime are very unlikely to
cross shop very often; we've happily locked ourselves into the Amazon
ecosystem.

~~~
veridies
"Happily" may be an overstatement. I'm a Prime member, but some of the more
recent changes have felt like they're designed to cheat me out of what I payed
for. From "add-on items" (designed to avoid having to pay the cost of shipping
them to Prime members for free) to wildly deceptive definitions of "two-day
shipping", Amazon is more unpleasant to use than it's ever been for me.

~~~
DiabloD3
This is largely why I quit Prime. I liked it when I paid $69/yr and Amazon had
competitive pricing. All these programs they're rolled out ("free" Apps,
"free" Netflix clone, "free" iTunes Radio/Google Music All Access clone,
"free" "unlimited" photo storage) that I have no interest in, and don't want,
plus the whole add-on item thing you mentioned, plus most items being unable
to Subscribe & Save to, plus the intersection of Subscribe & Save and Prime
Pantry being absolutely retarded (can't S&S PP-able items, can't PP S&S-able
items).

Walmart is eating Amazon's lunch now, and I'm laughing my ass off. Good job,
Jeff Bezos, you just destroyed your company.

------
tempodox
How many brick-and-mortar shops have “Discount” in their title? That trick is
probably as old as capitalism.

------
dsjoerg
aren't list prices stupid and shouldnt we be glad amazon is getting rid of
them?

------
conjectures
> "Amazon doesn’t have to seduce customers with a deal because they’re going
> to buy anyway.”

If Amazon are so comfortable they don't need to price compete, when can we
expect another online department store to get big?

I'm not loyal, my £ will go to whoever sells textbooks and bike gear cheapest.

~~~
adventured
If Amazon relaxes on pricing, most likely Walmart, Target, BestBuy and similar
large retailers will benefit first and foremost. The cost to build out a large
selection online retailer is so vast, and the profit margin so mediocre, we're
unlikely to see another Amazon-like company in the next 20 years. Amazon's
survival was practically a fluke to begin with, the dotcom bubble and the
capital it afforded them was the only reason they made it out alive and were
able to scale as they did to get out in front of old-line competitors. Had the
bubble ended maybe just six months earlier, Amazon goes bankrupt.

------
lolptdr
Horrible for the book lovers who like to do price comparison with discount
book sellers like Half-Price Books. looks like I'll have to use Barnes-and-
Noble or Half.com to get sale prices now.

------
Havoc
Thats why I end up checking the items price history anyway...the list price is
meaningless.

------
amelius
I just wish we could somehow eliminate this middle man.

------
known
I've just noticed AMZN is also filtering/rigging search results e.g. "car
battery 45Ah"

~~~
joelthelion
Could you explain a bit more?

