
Amazon Prime Day deals 'not what they seem' - john58
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44846356
======
AdmiralAsshat
I recommend consulting CamelCamelCamel before making any purchases on Amazon
today to verify that there wasn't a price hike _before_ the drop. CCC lets you
see the pricing history on any of the items on Amazon.

It even has a Chrome extension.[1]

[0][https://camelcamelcamel.com/](https://camelcamelcamel.com/)

[1][https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-
camelizer/ghno...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-
camelizer/ghnomdcacenbmilgjigehppbamfndblo?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon)

~~~
elorant
Wonder how that service works. Amazon explicitly forbids keeping track of
their pricing history. I knew a few guys who tried it and got a C&D warning at
some time. Does ccc have a special agreement or something equivalent? Beats
me.

~~~
thinkmassive
Anyone can send a cease and desist. How would that be enforceable though? The
information is available publicly to anonymous browsers.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
The risk is not that the results will be impossible to gather and publish, but
that they will be _unprofitable._

CamelCamelCamel makes money off users clicking Amazon affiliate URLs to go to
Amazon from their site. It's easy for Amazon (or anyone else, really) to
determine from these URLs the Amazon account which is tied to these links and
'enforce' the C&D by canceling/refusing to pay that account's affilate link
revenue.

------
djhworld
I don't really have that much in the pipeline that I need.

Whenever I browse these Prime Day "sales" I just end up scrolling through a
list of products I don't really intend to buy, nor am that really interested
in. Most of it is junk I'd probably use once anyway, and I never buy clothing
off Amazon.

Amazon have nailed the transaction experience when you know exactly what you
want, it's very slick from purchase to delivery.

But the 'window shopping' experience is so poor, the interface doesn't seem to
have changed that much for years, it's the same layout, the same endless ream
of products.

~~~
thirdsun
> Amazon have nailed the transaction experience when you know exactly what you
> want, it's very slick from purchase to delivery.

> But the 'window shopping' experience is so poor, the interface doesn't seem
> to have changed that much for years, it's the same layout, the same endless
> ream of products.

Exactly my opinion. Even when you need a product from a certain product
category and have a general idea of you want, I consider Amazon useless.
Research and exploration is just abysmal with Amazon and the amount of subpar
products doesn't help at all. I consider it a huge mistake to open the amazon
marketplace anything and enyone, including third party sellers. If I that kind
of shopping experience I'd browse eBay.

From Amazon I expect at least some degree of curation and the intention to
sell only decent to exceptional products. Amazon should feature all the
advantages of a specialized niche store with the difference that it's able to
serve all of those niches.

------
ratsmack
Amazons 'tactics' are no different than any retailer of consumer goods. You
see the deceptive practices applied especially in clothing where items are
marketed at inflated prices and then suddenly dropped 50% or more for a
'sale'.

~~~
pixl97
>You see the deceptive practices applied especially in clothing where items
are marketed at inflated prices and then suddenly dropped 50% or more for a
'sale'.

JCPenny's discovered that the consumer demands this behavior.

~~~
kgermino
>JCPenny's discovered that the consumer demands this behavior.

Which really disappointed me. I was thrilled when they announced the no sales
model and switched all my clothes buying to them - it’s so much less
stressful. Several people I know were similar.

Unfortunately “all of my clothes buying” was like two pairs of pants, while
the people I know who love finding a “deal” go shopping every weekend...

~~~
jonlucc
If I'm not mistaken, the then-CEO said it would take something like 6 years to
cast off the old customers who are looking for sales and acquire their new,
younger, less sale-seeking customers. The board agreed, then sacked him much
earlier than the time he said it would take.

------
matty22
As always, use something like camelcamelcamel to do price history comparisons
for you before buying anything on Prime Day or Cyber Monday (or any other time
for that matter).

~~~
Marsymars
Depending on jurisdiction, raising the regular price to create the appearance
of a sale price isn't legal.

e.g. from Canada's Competition Act:

> They prohibit the making, or the permitting of the making, of any materially
> false or misleading representation, to the public, as to the ordinary
> selling price of a product, in any form whatever.

[http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-
bc.nsf/eng/00...](http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-
bc.nsf/eng/00522.html#sec01)

~~~
westmeal
Hey in the land of the free it's completely A-OK :)

This has been done for a while and it's extremely effective.

~~~
freditup
This is not completely accurate, the FTC has rules against deceptive pricing
practices [1]. I'm not sure how often these rules are enforced and what the
penalties are though. They specifically give an example where raising a price
before a sale is not allowed:

> The following is an example of a price comparison based on a fictitious
> former price. John Doe is a retailer of Brand X fountain pens, which cost
> him $5 each. His usual markup is 50 percent over cost; that is, his regular
> retail price is $7.50. In order subsequently to offer an unusual “bargain”,
> Doe begins offering Brand X at $10 per pen. He realizes that he will be able
> to sell no, or very few, pens at this inflated price. But he doesn't care,
> for he maintains that price for only a few days. Then he “cuts” the price to
> its usual level—$7.50—and advertises: “Terrific Bargain: X Pens, Were $10,
> Now Only $7.50!” This is obviously a false claim. The advertised “bargain”
> is not genuine.

[1]: [https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-
idx?SID=f8c45f090a32596673...](https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-
idx?SID=f8c45f090a32596673aef12b405c46f6&node=se16.1.233_11)

~~~
westmeal
That's pretty interesting I had no idea. Thanks

------
ajoy
Shopping online is easier if you know exactly what you are buying. But when
you are browsing (shoes, glasses, clothes etc), the ideal experience is the
ability to filter by a hierarchy of attributes specific to that category. This
requires tedious data collection and categorization.

Eg. Shoes - there are different kinds of attributes - high level shape,
specific stylistic shapes, material, usage, price, brand. This categorization
needs to be done cleanly. It can get messy fast. If I start seeing sandals
when i searched for leather boots, I will get confused and refuse to trust the
results.

My theory is that this is why online retailers focussing on certain verticals
are able to get some level success vs amazon (Eg. Zappos), largely due to the
level of detail available for the browsing experience, even if their prices
are higher. Amazon's UX/UI is too generic and sometimes frustrating.

~~~
larzang
Sure, just look at buying parts on Newegg vs Amazon. Newegg has amazing search
capabilities tailored to what they're selling, while on Amazon it's a
crapshoot whether electronics stuff will even be in the right broadest-level
category, so even brand new builders still get pointed to Newegg for their
shopping.

~~~
L1quid
I would much rather deal with Amazon for returns and replacements though.
Their customer service is streets ahead of Newegg's.

~~~
thirdsun
> streets ahead

Maybe you used it intentionally but it's mildly fascinating that you
subconsciously used a fake expression that a fictional character from a comedy
show failed to coin/establish.

------
trevor-e
One thing I find very disingenuous from Amazon is how they promote older
products. I was looking to buy a dash cam for my car and settled on a Rexing
V1. It was recommended as Amazon's Choice and on sale for $99.99 (from
$149.99!). I was just about to complete the purchase when I read the fine
print and saw this model was a few years old. Turns out there is another,
newer model (Rexing V1 3rd gen) being sold for $139.99. Somehow the older
product has a higher price which makes the sale price look like a better deal,
and the older product is promoted in the search results. I felt like Amazon
tried to trick me into buying their older inventory.

~~~
dmoy
Counterpoint, there are some times where the older model is actually
preferred, either due to being just as good and cheaper, or rarely better than
the new model. I don't know how their choice algorithm comes up with those
labels, but a cheaper older model isn't always a bad deal.

Unless the $150 base price is what it normally sells at, and the $50 discount
was truly a one time deal... In which case idk what is going on there lol.

~~~
trevor-e
In fairness to Amazon I'll let you judge for yourself since they still list
the prices as 149.99 and 139.99:

\- Rexing V1:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X528FNE/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X528FNE/)
\- Rexing V1 3rd gen:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077B25H9K/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077B25H9K/)

Half-way down the page there is a comparison with some other Rexing products,
but it's not obvious IMO with the price confusion they create. I've seen it
"on sale" for at least the last few months.

~~~
dmoy
Yea I definitely dislike the habit of retailers from showing MSRP as the list
price despite the fact that no retailer has sold that product at MSRP for like
3 years. It's no longer a useful comparison for the consumer, and just behaves
like a shady anchor point to make it seem like a good deal.

------
dawnerd
It’s the same thing that’s happened to Steam sales. Start them off really
strong then every year after slowly make them not as good but people come back
for more anyways.

~~~
mkirklions
Speak for yourself, I got 4 games for 17 dollars, I'm really happy about
getting Mount and Blade for 7 dollars.

Especially when you compare to anything on the consoles.

I think the developers have gotten smarter and wont give 1 year old games 66%
off on top of their already lower price.

EDIT: Also, prime day has always sucked. Not really comparable.

~~~
Jach
I think I had to wait 2 years instead of my expected 1 year for some games I
wanted to play to come out with all their DLC at a good discounted price. Some
games also never go below a certain amount no matter how old they are.

The demand for refunds killed the classic Steam sale. They're still good (I
got a few games too in the recent one) but feel mediocre to what used to be;
they can't do anything fun like they once did like community-voted flash sales
where something will be super-duper discounted for an hour while for the rest
of the two weeks it'll only be merely super discounted. This last summer sale
was a nice improvement though since they added the game giveaways (though I
don't know anyone who won one, there weren't that many available).

Agree about Prime Day, it was never good. Usually don't buy anything...

~~~
detaro
> _The demand for refunds killed the classic Steam sale._

how?

~~~
Jach
>> they can't do anything fun like they once did like community-voted flash
sales where something will be super-duper discounted for an hour while for the
rest of the two weeks it'll only be merely super discounted.

Flash sales were an important part of the classic deep-discount Steam sale,
but it's easy to upset people with them. Put another way, you buy at 60% off,
then tomorrow it's 80% off. What do you do? What _can_ you do in some
circumstances (e.g. you already started playing for a few hours)? I guess I
should clarify that this wasn't the only factor (the increase in alternate
distribution and visibility channels is another) but it contributed. A side
effect is that because of there being little you could do, wiser gamers would
wait until the last day to make sure none of the games they wanted ended up on
one of the flash sales, then buy things. Valve makes a lot more money if
people are buying throughout the sale -- and they've since added a lot of
search, filtering, and discoverability to the platform that flash sales once
had a role in that encourage those impulse buys.

~~~
detaro
Ah, now I get what you mean. The refund case seems solveable: at least once
you've downloaded the game to your PC they don't auto-refund, so they could
just hold refund requests during the sale, or explicitly block people from
rebuying cheaper. But I see how the waiting pattern would be bad for them.

------
runevault
I should double check, but last I knew anything you've put on a wish list
shows the % change in price since it was added to the list, so if there are
specific items you are interested to see if change/you want to grab if they
are on sale, worth putting them in a list to track the price shifts relative
to when you added.

------
rando444
While I like to hate on Amazon as much as the next person, I think the case
could be made that sales tactics like this are common at nearly all major
retailers.

Either the consumer is savvy and spent the requisite time considering their
purchase, or they haven't. Retailers will always attempt to capitalize on
this.

~~~
zajd
> I think the case could be made that sales tactics like this are common at
> nearly all major retailers

That's why these sorts of tactics need to be made illegal. The US desperately
needs better consumer protections, the amount of scams and misinformation
flying around is dizzying.

~~~
lotsofpulp
What is the harm if a person pays $50 for something, and $50 for something
with a 50% off sticker next to it? The latter just releases some chemicals in
the purchaser’s brain maybe making them feel better.

~~~
zucan
Vendors don't put the 50% off sticker on it to make those happy who would have
bought the item anyway. They put it on to trick people who would _not_ pay 50$
for the article into doing so.

~~~
lotsofpulp
The fact that they paid $50 for it seems to negate the claim that they
wouldn’t pay $50 for it.

------
Waterluvian
The article is not wrong. But it seems to be pointing out something all sales
like this do. Black Friday is full of fake deals that encourage you to act
fast. Same with Boxing Day.

------
Nursie
AFAICT most of the stuff offered on UK's prime day is pretty crap.

I wanted a kindle fire hd 8 anyway, so I've taken advantage of the price drop
there. Otherwise the best thing I can find is an SSD that's maybe £10 below
market but claims to be reduced by over £150.

~~~
Havoc
>AFAICT most of the stuff offered on UK's prime day is pretty crap.

Their office 365 subs are discounted a fair bit (<50 for the 5 PC install
one). Plus there is a buy 80 quid voucher get 10 free thing

------
logfromblammo
Prime Day? More like Same-As-the-Rest-of-the-Time Day. It has always been a
highly-hyped disappointment of a store-wide sale, and this is not news to
anyone except people who have never before shopped on Amazon's web store.

I have never found anything even close to a good deal on Prime Day, and it has
been several years since I even bothered to check prices.

You're better off marking a product you might like to buy, checking its price
history on another site, and possibly setting an alert to notify you when the
price drops below a threshold on a third site. If that alert happens to go off
on Prime Day, you got very, very lucky that it somehow managed to be chosen as
a loss leader.

~~~
compcoffee
> _Prime Day? More like Same-As-the-Rest-of-the-Time Day. It has always been a
> highly-hyped disappointment of a store-wide sale, and this is not news to
> anyone except people who have never before shopped on Amazon 's web store._

The headline is misleading insofar as the real story is that the site is
completely broken right now, and people (me) are unable to order anything.
Kinda dumb for an infrastructure company.

------
duxup
Prime Day has always been a couple of publicized deals .... and a lot of
garbage.

I checked my camelcamelcamel list ... SQUAT that I want on sale.

~~~
mrep
But sometimes you find stuff you might want and if the price is good, try out.
I bought a robotic vacuum cleaner on black Friday (practically the same thing)
last year for $130 and I consider it one of the best purchases I have ever
made.

Literally only $50 more than the manual one I bought and it saves me so much
time.

~~~
duxup
I've found Black Friday deals to be far FAR more widespread and higher quality
than Prime Day...

------
djhworld
> However Amazon said its website was transparent, and consumers could compare
> price changes over time.

Do Amazon provide this service, or are they referring to CamelCamelCamel?

~~~
gonesilent
12 years ago Amazon provided such data. Now a few sites that provide such
info.

------
downrightmike
According to CCC, most of what I want will be on better sale at back to
school.

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Bromskloss
I feel the title could have been more informative.

