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.
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.
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.
1. List item for $100 with a $20 off coupon
2. On Prime Day, drop the price to $80 and remove the coupon
When you look at said item in CamelCamelCamel, I'm pretty sure it shows the price dropping from $100 -> $80.
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"?
The only items that seem to skirt this is repackaged items/junk from AliExpress, but they are or are pretending to be different companies.
- 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?"
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.
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.
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.
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+...
I think they would've needed a another year or two of runway though to turn the ship around and court an entirely new (non-overlapping) customer base, and the investors simply weren't willing to give them that much time.
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.
[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.
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.
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?
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.
Aside, keep a list of things you need and don't buy anything just because it's on sale.
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.
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?
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.
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 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.
