Psychological tip (and maybe an idea for a browser extension?):
- Never look at the sale percentage, just look at the price.
Yes, it might be "75% off!!", but is it still worth 200€ to you?
It takes some mental trickery and fortitude to drag your mind away from the "OMG IT WAS 800€ and now it's only 200!!" and only look at the current price vs features.
I taught my children how to interpret some discounts.
"Dad! It says here the 2nd item is 50% off! That's a bargain!"
"So, what are you actually paying in total compared to the original price in total? And do you really need that 2nd item?"
In relation to this, I really hate the South Korean convenience stores’ aggressive 2-for-1 on many of the most basic things, because you know you’re essentially being forced into buying the second item you didn’t need.
When I lived in a tiny apartment, and had a tight budget, I felt completely unseen at the supermarket—I have no place for the surplus, and to get the discount I have significantly increase my spend. Thank goodness for “dollar stores”, who shift the other way to decrease the items value to keep it at the same price point (ie. 1/2-sheet paper towels in single packs).
Some places regulate this better. "Buy one get one" is what is sounds like, "2 for $x" means you can, by law, get one for half that price. Unfortunately, even in places that such laws exist, retailers don't know this and it's poorly enforced.
Isn't that pretty easy to get around with better wording? eg. "2 for $x, min 2"
Not if the same law doesn't permit minimums in order to get a discount. People on HN like to pretend that the people who write laws are completely clueless, but they've been doing it longer than we've been alive and know exactly what they're doing.
It helps to read the infinitesimally small print on the sale tag on the shelf. As I've moved from state to state and city to city you can tell where this sort of thing is regulated or not.
I shamelessly pull the tags off the shelves to read them. If the stores don't want me damaging the tags, they can simply make them in a size that's readable.
>Not if the same law doesn't permit minimums in order to get a discount. People on HN like to pretend that the people who write laws are completely clueless, but they've been doing it longer than we've been alive and know exactly what they're doing.
Are there any jurisdictions that actually have such laws? This is basically bulk pricing and it's essentially impossible to outlaw without getting rid of it entirely, which come with other issues. Legislating "2 for $x = $x/2 for each item" is the most you can realistically implement. Moreover any such laws are trivial to bypass by gluing multiple packs together (like they do at costco) and selling that as a separate sku.
Are there any jurisdictions that actually have such laws?
Yes. You can tell because the tag will read something like "SALE! $5 when you buy 2!" and then have smaller print reading "Individual price: $2.50."
Moreover any such laws are trivial to bypass by gluing multiple packs together (like they do at costco) and selling that as a separate sku.
But that's not what we're discussing here. We're discussing discounting existing items when bought in bulk, not creating new items.
To your point, though, creating a new SKU is not without its costs, both for the manufacturer and the retailer. If you're selling something in someone else's store (supermarkets are the example this thread is dealing with), you don't get to just make up SKUs and products on a whim. Think about the logistics involved.
I’ve heard that if you use the convenience store’s app, you can just take one and“save” the extra item for free pickup at a later time. Never verified it myself though.
Multiplied by all customers, it could be quite a bit. It's may be better than having to take both items home and wasting one, but I bet the accountants are quite happy about their little free money fund.
It's also quite a "safe" loan to have because not only is it free to hold, you're probably never going to need to repay it all at once.
>It's may be better than having to take both items home and wasting one,
???
How is taking both items home, possibly wasting one, better than taking one home, and taking the other in a few weeks and having no wastage? You're just hurting yourself (by possibly wasting an item) just to deny business some fraction of a cent worth of interest, which in ironic given that convenience stores are high margin businesses and you're choosing to buy from them in the first place. Whatever margin they made on the sale far exceeds any "interest-free loan" you gave them.
No I mean it's better that they give you the option to come back later than not allowing it and you wasting one in (failed) pursuit of the "good deal", but overall they've engineered a few million in a distributed free loan by doing that. It's a smart move and works out well for everyone (but not as good for the customer as just selling the one at the average price, of course).
There's a reason so many companies like to make it easy for you to top up some kind of prepayment account or otherwise hold benefits for you. Not only is it a free float, but it keeps bringing customers back.
I would extend that to packs of sausages and whatever. The price of a sausage varies wildly with how well package size and amount of dinner guests matches ...
I'm good at ignoring these "deals" but oh man my kryptonite remains "spend X more to get free shipping" -- Prime has ruined me for valuing shipping cost.
Literally in buyer remorse right now because I overbought about $80 worth of very lightweight aircraft parts from Wichita to score the free shipping. Shipping of a few ounces of aluminum.
I don't buy stuff on Amazon just because it's on sale, but I do have a few things in my Wish List that I want to buy but only when they're at a price I'm happy with; many of them have been there for years.
Whenever I see a price change, and I'm not ready to buy, I add a note in the wish list notes with the current price, essentially tracking every price I see it at "by hand".
During sales I check back, and for ~90% of items in my list, they're higher not just than the lowest price I've recorded, but also many of the previously higher prices.
At this point I'm not even bothered about really ever buying much of this stuff on there, but it's fun to track the data even at a small scale like this.
I also use that 3 humps website regularly but they actually don't closely track fast changing prices day-by-day for all items. Therefore, I also track price changes manually myself.
Those blind spots happen for many items and my reverse-engineering guess is that they simply don't have the compute infrastructure to track/scrape all the millions of ASINs. Therefore, many price changes are completely missed. I'm sure they're doing the best they can but it seems like the only 100% accurate way to track price change history is for Amazon.com itself to offer it. Amazon likes to say they're "customer-oriented" and providing an official price history dashboard would help shoppers.
I also ran into the same issue where CamelCamelCamel doesn't check prices frequently enough. I started an an app that checks the price every few hours, and also works on stores other than Amazon - https://PriceLasso.com
I do, but I read some while ago that there was some "deal" with Amazon that prevented them from tracking real sale prices, and it also can't account for voucher codes that apply at checkout.
I'm not sure if the former still stands, but on the whole, I've found CCC doesn't always have the actual best price I've recorded.
That's the reason I don't have scruples to scam Amazon by saying that I haven't received the package when the deliverer just throw it in the first stock of the apartment building without giving notice.
The camelcamelcamel site is always my go to for "is this actually a deal" on Amazon. There's also an extension called keepa that will draw the graph on the Amazon website for you.
You can also make a list on Amazon, then share that list with camelcamelcamel and set your prices and get an email and in the email see if it is a good deal or not. Very handy.
A few years ago I moved to a country that didn't have Amazon. At first it was frustrating as I didn't know where to shop but now I see it as a benefit with some downsides. Before trips back home I'll look on Amazon for some stuff I can't get here and I'm flooded with Aliexpress junk and sponsored placements for Aliexpress junk. Amazon is hideous in so many ways.
Most people (including me) perceive Amazon based on their 20-year history with it; same day delivery for free, exceptional delivery and service, good prices, etc.
But that is the past; the current reality is boring or expensive prices, crappy shipping and service tending toward shitty, and better deals to be found elsewhere; either target or Walmart on the “high” end or Temu or Aliexpress on the cheap Chinese shit end.
The most important thing for me to break the bonds was to cancel prime. Every time they try to coerce me back in strengthens my resolve to check everywhere else first.
Hah, I quit Prime and they just gave it back to me. No charge. I can't cancel it. I can't figure it out, but perhaps they realized that their margin on me before I canceled was well over the cost of Prime? I'm not sure, but I still only use it a fraction of what I used to...
The problem isn’t that journalists don’t have what it takes to do that, the problem is that those people have been steadily resigning in protest or burning out for a while and eventually they’re all replaced.
I was surprised to see that. I wonder how long it'll stay up.
Why would you be surprised? Something similar is written in every single Washington Post article that touches an Amazon or Amazon-related property.
It's called "disclosure" and is Journalism 101m and not disclosing is a firing offense. It's one of the major differences between legitimate journalism and internet randos cosplaying journalists.
That's pretty rude to the journalist who wrote this article and made this analysis? What makes you think they're a clown or criticize the system "in a controlled way"?
Subscribe for 30 years and form your own opinion, it’s cosplay journalism. If you insist on thumping your chest about your independence, you become a clown.
>If you insist on thumping your chest about your independence
Isn't that just basic conflict of interest disclosure? If he didn't say anything, that would be deceptive. As it is, I can make up my own mind and be aware of the link. Or should they just never write anything about Amazon? Your take seems to lack any nuance and present a false dichotomy. I can dislike the influence of large corporations over jocularism and also recognize that bias and influence do not mean 100% control over what every journalist writes.
I think you will have been through a pretty thorough vetting process to get to work there (private schooling, university, connections in the industry, etc)? Or do you think they are there on the merit of their writing?
Nepobabies such as you describe certainly exist and have “unfair” advantages, but it’s not as if all people working at such places are in that category. Merit can certainly also get you there.
What do we read. We was at the Wall Street Journal before the Washington Post.
He can ask National Security Agency folk to hack his phone so he can write an article.
His (unnamed) father was professor of medicine at University of South Carolina, his (unnamed) mother a librarian. He himself went to Harvard, a Ledecky Fellow. What did he study? Anthropology and Afro-American studies, ffs. Then on to Cambridge, Trinity College. He gets an internship at the WSJ, no Starbucks barista job for him!
"His first day of work was September 11, 2001; the paper’s office, located beside the World Trade Center, was severely damaged and filled with ash. Fowler, on his way to work by subway, rushed back home before the towers collapsed."
ok... just an average guy, right?
Harvard (Anthropology) -> Cambridge (Anthropology) -> WSJ -> WaPo. Doesn't everyone have this sort of career? lol
I feel like my move to Amazon over the last 25 years has been little to do with price and more a symptom of my lack of free time when shops are open. I simply can't get to most physical stores during the week. And my weekends are rammed with all the things I didn't get to do during the week...
Then there is the issue of what physical stores have done to become more competitive. In many cases they have reduced their range. So now I'm worried that they simply won't have what I need.
Yes a lot of urban retail seems to be in a death loop.
Between online competition, wages, rent and shoplifting you see fewer locations, with a less convenient shopping experience, less staff and shorter hours.
The whole concept of buying something because it is cheap is weird.
I have a small list of items I think I will need in the near future; if it's not on that list, I'm not buying it, from anywhere, at any price. Maybe I'm a bit more ascetic than the average person, but I find it hard to imagine people just browsing lists of "cheap" stuff for hours to just buy stuff they don't need. And then being happy that they won because they paid less than some imaginary "full price".
I know people who behave as if they had to spend money as quickly as possible every time they receive a paycheck. Their wish lists are just "ideas to spend money".
Sometimes you need to buy stuff, because you.. well.. need it.
Need a new blender, because the old ones sounds like a woodchipper? 5 days until prime day/cyber monda/black friday/christmas sale... well, let's wait and we might get a deal. Now you know that you didn't have to wait, because you're not getting a deal.
How is this news, seems more like an ad for a price tracker? Sales from online ecommerce to Black Friday in stores have been facades for well over a decade. Amazon has been marked-up AliExpress garbage for a long time as well.
Can you name anything? One of the biggest complaints I've read about Amazon from the seller side is that they can be punished if they offer a better price somewhere other than Amazon.
The only items that seem to skirt this is repackaged items/junk from AliExpress, but they are or are pretending to be different companies.
Is it accurate these days? I recall there was some point where Amazon locked them out of deal prices etc, and I guess it also doesn't account for vouchers that apply at checkout?
I was looking at one of the GMKTek Ryzen AI Max boxes and it's overpriced by ~£1000 with a ~£1000 voucher to apply at checkout; or is this part of some other "scheme"?
I use these for various European Amazon (often cheaper to buy from the Amazon next door - and shipping is still free) and it's astonishing how bad they are. It's the new Amazon systems of vouchers (in € or %), temporary offers etc that these sites can't keep up with. I saw some products before prime day with a 20% voucher that were more expensive on prime day (10% reduced but no more voucher) but the price trackers showed them as cheapest ever.
Honestly at this point I compare rather with bol, idealo, guenstiger and tweakers and am then usually better off not buying from amazon.
I wonder what the scheme is here though; Why overprice something by ~50% and add a voucher for the same amount off; is it some sort of anti-deal tracking thing?
It always puts me off from buying something expensive because I wonder if somehow I could end up worse off (in terms of returns, or warranty or something) because I bought something that was X but only paid Y due to the voucher.
Realistically, I probably wouldn't buy a high-end computing product from Amazon anyway, unless is was notably cheaper than the specialists I'd normally buy from. Something like a £2000+ mini PC isn't the sort of thing the typical UK PC retailers I buy from would stock.
Ah that would make sense. I suppose if there's limited stock of them in the Amazon warehouse, it prevents people buying up lots of them and not leaving any for other people.
I think they were locked out during Covid. Something something stock level.
A lot of dodgy shit happened during Covid. Like Google and iOS rolling out the largest tracking network in human history. Your phone sends a Bluetooth beacon every 30 seconds and any phone in the vicinity will pick it up and vice versa. Because of Covid. Track and trace. Guess what, it's still happening.
They said only government health institutes would get access to it. Right. Right?
Think what you will about Amazon, but they proved their usefulness to me last week.
It was two days before a birthday and I needed a present, which interestingly was as unusual as a spotting scope. I found it on Amazon, paid a tiny amount extra for express delivery, and it arrived the next day at lunch time. Fully functional, no scams or trickery.
Before I bought it, I checked with all shops in mine and nearby cities, no luck. I went on PriceRunner, where the cheapest option was 30% more expensive and everyone had (at best) 3-5 days delivery. Then as a last check, I went on Amazon.
I don't love Amazon, there seem to be a lot of things that doesn't seem right. Plus they easily push out small shops everywhere.
I agree. I would just like that they didn't have to exploit workers. It seems something that could be done. Have more people taking smaller or less frenetic shifts and pay them the same or more. It can be doable, seeing the amount of money Bezos amasses, right? I love the service but despise how the workers are treated. And nothing compares, there's no real competition.
The whole point of Amazon is to extract as much wealth as possible from everything and everyone except bezos. Thousands of people breaking themselves so he can go to space. Just like the olden robber barons.
I've always wondered what would happen with a shop that never has sales. A shop where the prices are always the same, although they may occasionally increase them due to inflation, etc.
Such a shop will not get the surge of "oh look a discount, let me buy it" consumers, but people will probably realize that this way when you need something you can buy it on the spot, and it will always have the best price no matter when.
>I've always wondered what would happen with a shop that never has sales. A shop where the prices are always the same, [...] Does a shop like this exist, or existed?
An ex-Apple executive who ran the Apple retail stores tried that strategy with JC Penney and it didn't work:
I don’t know of a shop that doesn’t have some sales at some time. Sales are just such powerful selling tools.
Factorio is a counter example. Factorio never goes on sale, which is kind of nice because when you buy it you know you couldn’t have gotten a better price, but without sales you aren’t as motivated to buy it for a lower price than usual.
Costco are pretty unobtrusive with their discounts. They have random coupons on things, but only for a small amount. Except, of course, for the famous inflation proofed loss leader $1.50 (£1.50 in the UK) hot dog.
Business oriented stores can run this way. Places like McMaster Carr?
Walmart tried to advertise this for decades as “always low prices” which worked pretty well, but even they have clearance (need to rotate shelf space or excess inventory) and rollbacks (price matching someone somewhere).
They do not have Kohls style “50% off everything if you jump through these hoops”.
rollbacks = raise the price then reduce it and pretend you lowered prices.
clearance = stuff that's been on the shelf for years for barely discounted prices.
Their tech clearances are often ridiculous. Things like 2GB sd cards for $25, marked down from $30 but that $30 price was from 10 years ago when 2GB was considered a large sd card.
That's exactly the point. It has nothing to do with a monopoly - retail is all about cashflow. Walmart has 2.8% net margins, and do it with a maniacal focus on cost control and vendor management.
A manufacturer with a unique product can control pricing and manage demand. The business is the "vertical", they don't live or die with retail. Apple discounts through authorized third parties only. Rolex constrains supply, controls retail price & experience, and generates demand with the secondary market premium. People buy a watch for $15k because it's "worth" $20k. It's inferior as a tool compared to a watch that costs $50, and there's a whole spectrum of fancy watches that don't have the same cachet.
JC Penney doesn't have that. They're stuck with a warehouse full of low-margin pants and need cashflow, so they discount to get cash in, then jack the price up at different part of the demand cycle. Khakis that are $40 for back to school are $75 right now, and coupons are used to keep the cost conscious folks coming.
Lots of shops run similarly to this in American/canadian/Japanese made men’s fashion. Example stores include Self edge, standard and strange, brave star selvedge, whites and nicks boots, etc only use sales for items that have small defects, were returns, etc.
It’s nice to see brands which refuse to play by fast fashions games and who sell their products based on their quality.
Of course, these brands will often takes weeks or months to get you your item due to the waitlists. You can’t even get on the waitlist for a ship John 24 ox Willis waxed canvas jacket because they’re back ordered 6+ months.
Best sale around prime day warehouse are sales from returns after. I feel like whoever is grading the returns quality slip due to all volume and chance of scoring basically new items for steep discounts is up.
Shopping on Amazon is a nightmare because it’s filled with Chinese crap and untrustworthy reviews, I almost always have to put several search filters just to see semi-reputable brands.
Amazon Prime is a capitalist's wet dream. You give a company money every month whether you buy something from them or not. And because you now have a sunk cost, you are motivated to buy from Amazon even if their prices aren't the best value.
I first found out it was prime day when I went to check out and was notified that 4 out of 5 things placed in the cart over the week had suddenly jumped in price overnight. So, "can confirm".
It's about convivence. It's not been about big ticket items for me on such days lately, but more to stock up on essentials, prime day is a day I can assure they are usually all on 'offer' at the same time so it makes it easy to do a large order of everything and stock up.
Sure, might not be the absolute best price of the year, but it's a decent price for everything all at the same time, with the odd bigger ticket stuff if a real deal exists.
This year I bought a lot of household items, toiletries and even a few food cupboard items, all of which according to price tracker plugins are about the lowest they get to, even if they go that price sometimes throughout the year, it's a great time to do one big shop and not have to deal with the pain of receiving so many deliveries.
I don't see it as an issue, what amazon does is what everyone else does on their sales, you just need to do your research and stay aware, like with anything.
ive said it before and at the risk of sounding repetitive:
ive almost entirely stopped shopping online. it was rough at first, particularly since i kind of fell out of the loop on which stores carry what, but once i mostly figured that out its honestly so much nicer.
almost all of my christmas gifts were done at actual stores. and just everyday shit like random car lights to clothes to picture frames to bookshelves to random little gifts to journal notebooks, etc... its been such an improvement.
i kept finding myself sending back ridiculous amounts of stuff because the pictures and descriptions were either outright misleading, outright lying, or i just wouldnt read close enough. its pretty rad to hold the item in your hand, know exactly the size, the weight, feeling, color, material, etc... and just know you're getting exactly what you want right now in the exact moment.
and the thing that surprised me the most? how much i actually enjoy people. i know it sounds entirely ridiculous but even just being helped by someone or checked out by a person felt right. ive never been an anti-social or anxious person, ive always had regular social life with friends and coworkers, but shopping with real people was working a social muscle that i hadn't realized was atrophying so badly.
and it gave me an excuse to get out of the house often for something other than work or partying.
anyway, of course amazon was going to go this way, we see it over and over and over again. none of us are shocked.
These events are just so tiring and exhausting in the public eye.
First it was Prime Day. Now it’s Prime Big Deal Days. Then all the other retailers have to jump on “deal week” and “deal day” campaigns and equally make a bunch of loud, useless noise for sales that have little to no actual discount.
I remember reading the first serious book about Sam Walton and Walmart. Walton had this thing where he would put two bins of identical flip-flops side-by-side. One would be marked a dollar up, one would be marked a dollar down. People would always bought the cheaper, and then Walton would just shovel the flip-flops from the expensive bin to the cheaper bin. Walmart, Amazon, and just about every other retail has been playing us forever. But Amazon takes it to an art form.
I don't doubt there are interesting things in that book, but this particular one feels just so unsurprising: people are likely to notice that the flip-flops in the two bins are remarkably similar, and see that one is cheaper. They don't see a reason to buy the more expensive one so they choose the cheaper one.
It would have been more interesting had people chosen the more expensive one. There is a folk theory that you can get people to do this if you add an even more expensive option -- the "middle" option is the most attractive.
I wonder how much of that is due to the abnormal social pressure situation where your buying is public and you don't want to be seen as cheap.
A similar dynamic might occur with a bunch of people shopping together, for clothes maybe? I'm a guy that doesn't shop with others so I don't have experience here.
One bar in an upmarket area in my own town had a house wine on the menu much cheaper (I think 7 when the cheapest labeled wine might have been 14 or so). Seemed smart to me.
Although there is also some internal pressure, to not feel cheap to yourself.
For gifts the dynamics change completely since the recipient might not know the price.
I assume the actual idea is that people would sometimes buy the cheaper one because the expensive option is there.
A few more people would buy them than if there were just a single bin because they're thinking they're getting a good deal.
I love that we get these articles every year exposing how Amazon manipulates pricing to make Prime Day seem like a sale when it rarely is, but no one (at least no reporters) ever seem to remember.
Or to point out that every retailer is doing the same thing and that every sale is just a price marked up so they can mark it down again and pretend you are getting a deal.
By using camelcamelcamel or keepa it's easy to spot the fake deals, who get a bump in price the day before only to get a "discount" for the promotion day.
Aside, keep a list of things you need and don't buy anything just because it's on sale.
I mean of course you have, capitalism isn't interested in actually making things cheaper for people, just extracting value.
lower prices are just a consequence of competitive entities in a marketplace jockeying for advantage. the second they don't need to do that they will raise prices and screw the average consumer and we've seen it again and again.
Yes and no. The prices are increased about 1 month in advance. With that the average price of the last 4 weeks is increased and then you have your rebate, which is legal.
There wouldn't be much point in that, as when they promote a discount the price they compare it to would need to be the LOWEST over the previous 30 days.
Yeah I guess if they were actually following that rule but they definitely aren't. It's not prime day anymore so I can't link an example but I was looking at TVs when it was prime day and specifically noticed one where there was a spike for a couple of days just before prime day and that was the discount they claimed.
Then please report them to your national consumer protection authority. These kinds of violations are subject to a fine of up to 4% of the annual turnover in the violated member state.
What's illegal? Changing prices? Giving discounts? As I understand it, the EU, as always, is using solutions to problems that are worse than the problems themselves.
And so, instead of a situation where the price, taking into account the fake discount, becomes, on average, a little higher on the day of the sale, we get a situation where... the price, taking into account the fake discount, becomes, on average, a little higher on the day of the sale, and much higher the whole month before that.
People defending megacorps and their lobbyist pulling the most abject tricks and showcasing how morally bankrupt they are will always be an enigma to me... "b-bu-but it's legal"
Doubling the Price of something today and then tomorrow putting it on 50% sale (at the same price as yesterday). That’s illegal in EU. As it should be.
Anyway if you browse with one of these extensions on Prime day it's very obvious how much of a lie their deals are. They're usually the lowest price that something has been available, but also usually they've been at that price before in the last few months.
- Never look at the sale percentage, just look at the price.
Yes, it might be "75% off!!", but is it still worth 200€ to you?
It takes some mental trickery and fortitude to drag your mind away from the "OMG IT WAS 800€ and now it's only 200!!" and only look at the current price vs features.
"Dad! It says here the 2nd item is 50% off! That's a bargain!" "So, what are you actually paying in total compared to the original price in total? And do you really need that 2nd item?"
When I lived in a tiny apartment, and had a tight budget, I felt completely unseen at the supermarket—I have no place for the surplus, and to get the discount I have significantly increase my spend. Thank goodness for “dollar stores”, who shift the other way to decrease the items value to keep it at the same price point (ie. 1/2-sheet paper towels in single packs).
Isn't that pretty easy to get around with better wording? eg. "2 for $x, min 2"
Not if the same law doesn't permit minimums in order to get a discount. People on HN like to pretend that the people who write laws are completely clueless, but they've been doing it longer than we've been alive and know exactly what they're doing.
It helps to read the infinitesimally small print on the sale tag on the shelf. As I've moved from state to state and city to city you can tell where this sort of thing is regulated or not.
I shamelessly pull the tags off the shelves to read them. If the stores don't want me damaging the tags, they can simply make them in a size that's readable.
Are there any jurisdictions that actually have such laws? This is basically bulk pricing and it's essentially impossible to outlaw without getting rid of it entirely, which come with other issues. Legislating "2 for $x = $x/2 for each item" is the most you can realistically implement. Moreover any such laws are trivial to bypass by gluing multiple packs together (like they do at costco) and selling that as a separate sku.
Yes. You can tell because the tag will read something like "SALE! $5 when you buy 2!" and then have smaller print reading "Individual price: $2.50."
Moreover any such laws are trivial to bypass by gluing multiple packs together (like they do at costco) and selling that as a separate sku.
But that's not what we're discussing here. We're discussing discounting existing items when bought in bulk, not creating new items.
To your point, though, creating a new SKU is not without its costs, both for the manufacturer and the retailer. If you're selling something in someone else's store (supermarkets are the example this thread is dealing with), you don't get to just make up SKUs and products on a whim. Think about the logistics involved.
Then again, is food is inflating faster than the interest rates, then you could still come out ahead!
Unless you're not coming back for months, the "interest" you lost is under one cent and not worth worrying about
It's also quite a "safe" loan to have because not only is it free to hold, you're probably never going to need to repay it all at once.
???
How is taking both items home, possibly wasting one, better than taking one home, and taking the other in a few weeks and having no wastage? You're just hurting yourself (by possibly wasting an item) just to deny business some fraction of a cent worth of interest, which in ironic given that convenience stores are high margin businesses and you're choosing to buy from them in the first place. Whatever margin they made on the sale far exceeds any "interest-free loan" you gave them.
There's a reason so many companies like to make it easy for you to top up some kind of prepayment account or otherwise hold benefits for you. Not only is it a free float, but it keeps bringing customers back.
Literally in buyer remorse right now because I overbought about $80 worth of very lightweight aircraft parts from Wichita to score the free shipping. Shipping of a few ounces of aluminum.
I'm a gullible idiot :D
The offers all fulfilled the requirements. But he was so keen to taking the highest offer because it has a MASSIVE discount applied.
Even when I told him, that he, as a business owner new exactly how discounts works. He sheepishly admitted that. He went for the highest offer.
Whenever I see a price change, and I'm not ready to buy, I add a note in the wish list notes with the current price, essentially tracking every price I see it at "by hand".
During sales I check back, and for ~90% of items in my list, they're higher not just than the lowest price I've recorded, but also many of the previously higher prices.
At this point I'm not even bothered about really ever buying much of this stuff on there, but it's fun to track the data even at a small scale like this.
E.g. this ant insecticide was recently on sale for $15.99 during Oct 7 & 8 and yet that lower price was invisible to camelcamelcamel: https://camelcamelcamel.com/Miller-8150120-24-Ounce-Disconti...
Those blind spots happen for many items and my reverse-engineering guess is that they simply don't have the compute infrastructure to track/scrape all the millions of ASINs. Therefore, many price changes are completely missed. I'm sure they're doing the best they can but it seems like the only 100% accurate way to track price change history is for Amazon.com itself to offer it. Amazon likes to say they're "customer-oriented" and providing an official price history dashboard would help shoppers.
I'm not sure if the former still stands, but on the whole, I've found CCC doesn't always have the actual best price I've recorded.
Most people (including me) perceive Amazon based on their 20-year history with it; same day delivery for free, exceptional delivery and service, good prices, etc.
But that is the past; the current reality is boring or expensive prices, crappy shipping and service tending toward shitty, and better deals to be found elsewhere; either target or Walmart on the “high” end or Temu or Aliexpress on the cheap Chinese shit end.
The most important thing for me to break the bonds was to cancel prime. Every time they try to coerce me back in strengthens my resolve to check everywhere else first.
Kudos
The problem isn’t that journalists don’t have what it takes to do that, the problem is that those people have been steadily resigning in protest or burning out for a while and eventually they’re all replaced.
Why would you be surprised? Something similar is written in every single Washington Post article that touches an Amazon or Amazon-related property.
It's called "disclosure" and is Journalism 101m and not disclosing is a firing offense. It's one of the major differences between legitimate journalism and internet randos cosplaying journalists.
Isn't that just basic conflict of interest disclosure? If he didn't say anything, that would be deceptive. As it is, I can make up my own mind and be aware of the link. Or should they just never write anything about Amazon? Your take seems to lack any nuance and present a false dichotomy. I can dislike the influence of large corporations over jocularism and also recognize that bias and influence do not mean 100% control over what every journalist writes.
Both "I don't think so" and "No Way." Quite an argument.
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2019/12/geoffrey-fowler-tech
What do we read. We was at the Wall Street Journal before the Washington Post.
He can ask National Security Agency folk to hack his phone so he can write an article.
His (unnamed) father was professor of medicine at University of South Carolina, his (unnamed) mother a librarian. He himself went to Harvard, a Ledecky Fellow. What did he study? Anthropology and Afro-American studies, ffs. Then on to Cambridge, Trinity College. He gets an internship at the WSJ, no Starbucks barista job for him!
"His first day of work was September 11, 2001; the paper’s office, located beside the World Trade Center, was severely damaged and filled with ash. Fowler, on his way to work by subway, rushed back home before the towers collapsed."
ok... just an average guy, right?
Harvard (Anthropology) -> Cambridge (Anthropology) -> WSJ -> WaPo. Doesn't everyone have this sort of career? lol
Then there is the issue of what physical stores have done to become more competitive. In many cases they have reduced their range. So now I'm worried that they simply won't have what I need.
Between online competition, wages, rent and shoplifting you see fewer locations, with a less convenient shopping experience, less staff and shorter hours.
Which only leads to more Amazon usage.
I have a small list of items I think I will need in the near future; if it's not on that list, I'm not buying it, from anywhere, at any price. Maybe I'm a bit more ascetic than the average person, but I find it hard to imagine people just browsing lists of "cheap" stuff for hours to just buy stuff they don't need. And then being happy that they won because they paid less than some imaginary "full price".
If you may or may not have food tomorrow, but there is a lot today, you stock up and eat.
This works great in the savanna, not so much when a trillion dollar company is using it to exploit you.
Need a new blender, because the old ones sounds like a woodchipper? 5 days until prime day/cyber monda/black friday/christmas sale... well, let's wait and we might get a deal. Now you know that you didn't have to wait, because you're not getting a deal.
The only items that seem to skirt this is repackaged items/junk from AliExpress, but they are or are pretending to be different companies.
I was looking at one of the GMKTek Ryzen AI Max boxes and it's overpriced by ~£1000 with a ~£1000 voucher to apply at checkout; or is this part of some other "scheme"?
Honestly at this point I compare rather with bol, idealo, guenstiger and tweakers and am then usually better off not buying from amazon.
It always puts me off from buying something expensive because I wonder if somehow I could end up worse off (in terms of returns, or warranty or something) because I bought something that was X but only paid Y due to the voucher.
Realistically, I probably wouldn't buy a high-end computing product from Amazon anyway, unless is was notably cheaper than the specialists I'd normally buy from. Something like a £2000+ mini PC isn't the sort of thing the typical UK PC retailers I buy from would stock.
Like you can buy one at regular price, but 2nd and beyond get marked up 100%?
A lot of dodgy shit happened during Covid. Like Google and iOS rolling out the largest tracking network in human history. Your phone sends a Bluetooth beacon every 30 seconds and any phone in the vicinity will pick it up and vice versa. Because of Covid. Track and trace. Guess what, it's still happening.
They said only government health institutes would get access to it. Right. Right?
It was two days before a birthday and I needed a present, which interestingly was as unusual as a spotting scope. I found it on Amazon, paid a tiny amount extra for express delivery, and it arrived the next day at lunch time. Fully functional, no scams or trickery.
Before I bought it, I checked with all shops in mine and nearby cities, no luck. I went on PriceRunner, where the cheapest option was 30% more expensive and everyone had (at best) 3-5 days delivery. Then as a last check, I went on Amazon.
I don't love Amazon, there seem to be a lot of things that doesn't seem right. Plus they easily push out small shops everywhere.
But they do deliver.
Such a shop will not get the surge of "oh look a discount, let me buy it" consumers, but people will probably realize that this way when you need something you can buy it on the spot, and it will always have the best price no matter when.
Does a shop like this exist, or existed?
An ex-Apple executive who ran the Apple retail stores tried that strategy with JC Penney and it didn't work:
https://www.google.com/search?q=jc+penny+everyday+low+price+...
Factorio is a counter example. Factorio never goes on sale, which is kind of nice because when you buy it you know you couldn’t have gotten a better price, but without sales you aren’t as motivated to buy it for a lower price than usual.
Walmart tried to advertise this for decades as “always low prices” which worked pretty well, but even they have clearance (need to rotate shelf space or excess inventory) and rollbacks (price matching someone somewhere).
They do not have Kohls style “50% off everything if you jump through these hoops”.
rollbacks = raise the price then reduce it and pretend you lowered prices.
clearance = stuff that's been on the shelf for years for barely discounted prices.
Their tech clearances are often ridiculous. Things like 2GB sd cards for $25, marked down from $30 but that $30 price was from 10 years ago when 2GB was considered a large sd card.
Otherwise price is elastic and using price change to tweak sales when demand slacks or oversupply exists is smart business.
When a monopoly manufacturer sets the price of a good that has no equivalent, talking about elasticity makes no sense.
A manufacturer with a unique product can control pricing and manage demand. The business is the "vertical", they don't live or die with retail. Apple discounts through authorized third parties only. Rolex constrains supply, controls retail price & experience, and generates demand with the secondary market premium. People buy a watch for $15k because it's "worth" $20k. It's inferior as a tool compared to a watch that costs $50, and there's a whole spectrum of fancy watches that don't have the same cachet.
JC Penney doesn't have that. They're stuck with a warehouse full of low-margin pants and need cashflow, so they discount to get cash in, then jack the price up at different part of the demand cycle. Khakis that are $40 for back to school are $75 right now, and coupons are used to keep the cost conscious folks coming.
[1]: https://www.hornbach.de/services/die-hornbach-dauertiefpreis...
It’s nice to see brands which refuse to play by fast fashions games and who sell their products based on their quality.
Of course, these brands will often takes weeks or months to get you your item due to the waitlists. You can’t even get on the waitlist for a ship John 24 ox Willis waxed canvas jacket because they’re back ordered 6+ months.
Sure, might not be the absolute best price of the year, but it's a decent price for everything all at the same time, with the odd bigger ticket stuff if a real deal exists.
This year I bought a lot of household items, toiletries and even a few food cupboard items, all of which according to price tracker plugins are about the lowest they get to, even if they go that price sometimes throughout the year, it's a great time to do one big shop and not have to deal with the pain of receiving so many deliveries.
I don't see it as an issue, what amazon does is what everyone else does on their sales, you just need to do your research and stay aware, like with anything.
1. camelcamelcamel.com 2. Add the product in my shopping cart and follow the price movement until I see the price drop down enough
I suppose the author is one of today’s lucky 10,000.
ive almost entirely stopped shopping online. it was rough at first, particularly since i kind of fell out of the loop on which stores carry what, but once i mostly figured that out its honestly so much nicer.
almost all of my christmas gifts were done at actual stores. and just everyday shit like random car lights to clothes to picture frames to bookshelves to random little gifts to journal notebooks, etc... its been such an improvement.
i kept finding myself sending back ridiculous amounts of stuff because the pictures and descriptions were either outright misleading, outright lying, or i just wouldnt read close enough. its pretty rad to hold the item in your hand, know exactly the size, the weight, feeling, color, material, etc... and just know you're getting exactly what you want right now in the exact moment.
and the thing that surprised me the most? how much i actually enjoy people. i know it sounds entirely ridiculous but even just being helped by someone or checked out by a person felt right. ive never been an anti-social or anxious person, ive always had regular social life with friends and coworkers, but shopping with real people was working a social muscle that i hadn't realized was atrophying so badly.
and it gave me an excuse to get out of the house often for something other than work or partying.
anyway, of course amazon was going to go this way, we see it over and over and over again. none of us are shocked.
First it was Prime Day. Now it’s Prime Big Deal Days. Then all the other retailers have to jump on “deal week” and “deal day” campaigns and equally make a bunch of loud, useless noise for sales that have little to no actual discount.
Anyone else up for some sales fatigue?
It would have been more interesting had people chosen the more expensive one. There is a folk theory that you can get people to do this if you add an even more expensive option -- the "middle" option is the most attractive.
I don't think it's a folk theory at all. This trick is used a lot in restaurant menus/wine lists.
I wonder how much of that is due to the abnormal social pressure situation where your buying is public and you don't want to be seen as cheap.
A similar dynamic might occur with a bunch of people shopping together, for clothes maybe? I'm a guy that doesn't shop with others so I don't have experience here.
One bar in an upmarket area in my own town had a house wine on the menu much cheaper (I think 7 when the cheapest labeled wine might have been 14 or so). Seemed smart to me.
Although there is also some internal pressure, to not feel cheap to yourself.
For gifts the dynamics change completely since the recipient might not know the price.
Aside, keep a list of things you need and don't buy anything just because it's on sale.
lower prices are just a consequence of competitive entities in a marketplace jockeying for advantage. the second they don't need to do that they will raise prices and screw the average consumer and we've seen it again and again.
The discount must be referenced on the LOWEST price 30 days prior to a sale, not the average.
It’s the lowest that count, not the average. Otherwise you could just put all items at $100k for one hour every night to put the average very high.
And so, instead of a situation where the price, taking into account the fake discount, becomes, on average, a little higher on the day of the sale, we get a situation where... the price, taking into account the fake discount, becomes, on average, a little higher on the day of the sale, and much higher the whole month before that.
It's amazing how many product prices are now a square wave. Look at this for example and feel sorry for the people that paid £100.
https://keepa.com/#!product/2-B0DNG35BVM
Often they are even more predictable and switch between the high and low price every two weeks. I have no idea why. Here's an example:
https://keepa.com/#!product/2-B08W241HPW
Anyway if you browse with one of these extensions on Prime day it's very obvious how much of a lie their deals are. They're usually the lowest price that something has been available, but also usually they've been at that price before in the last few months.
Maybe they raise prices as stock almost depletes before next delivery?
Or to calibrate the price by noting sales at different prices?