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.
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.<p>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.<p>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.
Wasn't the list price being nonsense marketing widely acknowledged?<p>I've had a fantasy of opening up a convenience store with absurd list prices.<p>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.<p>Then when the person leaves the store with 5 items I'd say things like "You've saved $94,650 today!"
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.<p>I think consumers are getting savvier over all, and the list price is losing its effect.
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.<p>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 <i>ever</i> 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.<p>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 <i>very few</i> people[0] actually believe that price represents a realistic product price for 99% of products[1].<p>[0] In the US this is a <i>ridiculously</i> 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 <i>impossible</i>)<p>[1] About the only time this <i>is</i> 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...
I am going to let my prime membership expire for the first time in years because of this.<p>Honestly I think I will miss the video streaming service the most at this point
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.<p>If you're in the UK, an alternative to Amazon for books is <a href="http://www.wordery.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.wordery.com</a>
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.
> "Amazon doesn’t have to seduce customers with a deal because they’re going to buy anyway.”<p>If Amazon are so comfortable they don't need to price compete, when can we expect another online department store to get big?<p>I'm not loyal, my £ will go to whoever sells textbooks and bike gear cheapest.
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.