Amazon Prime Days ran on July 16th and 17th (at least here, in Canada).
This price jump happened a day before and ended two days later, but this item was “on sale” during those two Prime Days.
I’ve been seeing this scam far too often, especially with food items. Why isn’t this illegal yet?
It’s illegal in Norway. Items must not have been at the discounted rate at least 30 days prior
Don’t Norwegians miss out on having the freedom to get conned? And sure, this sounds good for the citizens, but what about the magic line we all worship? I think it might harm the line.
We get scammed in a lot of different new ways :)
I think this applies to the EU too.
Same for the whole of the European union.
This post must be a Freedom©®™ thing we’re too unfree to understand
It’s Canada, friend. It’s illegal here too.
it’s feature of retail/capitalism. You just have better tools like Keepa to showcase this scam, now.
Keepa
This one browser extension has likely saved me thousands over the years. Since most of my purchases can wait, I’m often scoring the true lowest price for an item when I do have to buy something.
Same here
Why isn’t this illegal yet?
It is illegal in some countries such as Australia but the fines for doing this is nothing compared to the money gained for doing it.
Also illegal in the EU, when posting a “sale” the price compared to must be the lowest price the outlet had for the product in the previous 30 days. So unless they want to increase the price for over 30 days, this trick isn’t going to fly.
Illegal in California under the false advertising law unless something was the prevailing market price for 3 months prior.
For this context with Amazon though, prime is totally different in the EU than the US.
There are few countries with Amazon (eg Germany) and thus for most the benefit is that prime only gets free shipping on smaller orders that wouldn’t qualify normally, and faster processing in the warehouse. Maybe you get your shit a day or two earlier.
In the US it’s next day vs a week.
Point being there are far fewer prime accounts in EU so Amazon likely doesn’t care if they can’t discount as “deeply” as in the US.
Amazon isn’t an outlet though, is that the wording in the law? Because that implies it’s for brick and mortar only.
In the exact wording they speak of a “Trader”. It’s for both webshops and brick and mortar. And I think it applies to the entity and not the specific shop. So if a company has more than one shop, the lowest price on any of those shops would apply.
Now this is new law and hasn’t been fully tested, I’m sure shops will try things to evade this new regulation, but in the past the EU has not taken kindly to shit like that.
Interesting.
In Canada for Black Friday and boxing day they just have new SKUs (models made specifically for sale that day), but these are also usually cheaper than the normal ones. I think they’re actually made from the bottom tier of acceptable parts. So the quality is marginally lower on these models.
I could be wrong on the latter part.
Some companies will make special versions for Black Friday that do indeed have cheaper parts or missing features, but for many it’s the exact same product as the normal SKU. They do the special SKU at the request of the retailer, to guarantee that no one can use a “price match guarantee” to make them sell more than the planned quantity of door busters.
What SKUmmy behavior.
Many places are totally fine with only putting an item on “sale” less than every month. If you keep 1/4 of you items on sale, you’re covered, even if you only keep something on sale for a single week.
They get around it by having a sale on a special version of the product that had a higher price in the past 30 to 90 days. The version is the same as normal, but with a different serial number.
Only that version goes on “sale” for Black Friday or whatever, so they are technically following the law. They do it in the US too. Literally look it up on Camel Camel Camel during a sale.
deleted by creator
It’s the same story in US and Canada. Illegal, but not really enforced. And when it is enforced the the penalties aren’t strong enough to be a deterrent.
They do this on Black Friday and Boxing Day sales too, it’s nothing new.
And it’s very well known, yet somehow people continue to fall for it.
Yeah… But everybody got to FAFO to learn their lesson it seems.
Ie this tacric has a steady supply of people every year
A tale as old as time.
We have a local gas station that’ll do this sort of shit too. Like, on the 20th or 21st of every month, they’ll give a 30 cent discount on gasoline, but somehow most people don’t even notice that they conveniently raised the price by 30 cents the day before…
So the universe remains stable, and the people are getting fucked, as usual. ☹️
Some people want it. I worked in retail at a place that advertised “every day low prices.” This meant that if an item was marked as such, it was never going to go on sale. Very often it was the cheapest you could find the item anywhere.
I had people put the item in their cart, ask me if it was on sale, I told them the above, and they put it back. Nearly every time.
Hell JC Penny almost went bankrupt when they stopped deceptive pricing.
People are stupid.
Lul I was talking about jcpenny with my fiancee a couple weeks back. It’s sorta sad and hilarious to see people just willing to spend extra overall because of these tactics.
Never purchase without Keepa check. I even google image search temu to find the Amazon link and check history
I don’t understand. Are you reverse image searching and if so what image? One from Temu or Amazon?
Just use canelcamelcamel imo
I hate their UI
Android temu app See Chinese trash I want in my home Screenshot Share image to Google search app Open Amazon link that matches product See keepa pricing history Decide whether to purchase Chinese trash based on cost and knowing increased shipping time over Prime
The only deal I find on prime day is storage. Usually pick up a SSD or few SD cards and save a few bucks.
Camelcamelcamel.com kind of sucks in terms of their search, but they will find you the best price for things on Amazon.
I never liked CCC for some reason, not sure if it was the UI or what. Been rocking Keepa for many years without any trouble. I set price notifications for items that I can wait for, but usually check price history for everything else.
I’m actually glad that the Amazon wishlist also tells you that an item is now priced lower than when it was added to the wishlist. It makes it a little easier to identify price drops.
I’ll check it out. Thanks.
I’ll advocate for the CCC Firefox extension, but email alerts are the big ticket item. If I know there’s something I want to buy, I’ll set myself a price that I think is reasonable and just wait until I receive an email saying it’s hit that range.
I love Keepa, and the Firefox addon. However, they seemed to nerf their wishlist features (auto sync problems, 10 items max, etc). Noticed after missing deals, due to not receiving alerts of price drops. Still very useful, but CCC now has more reliable auto tracking lists (just add to wishlist, it will auto sync and email any drops).
but CCC now has more reliable auto tracking lists (just add to wishlist, it will auto sync and email any drops).
Well, I may give CCC another try. That feature would be HUGE for me.
Lol yep. Literally Amazon 101, there’s a very good reason you shouldn’t buy from them unless you HAVE to.
I do score some very good deals on Amazon, but I also use a browser plug-in that lets me get a notification once my desired price has been reached. I always look at the historical charts, though. Some items are constantly going up and down in price. At least we have that option with Amazon, and not so much with our local grocery stores :(
I bought something at lowest price ever on prime day according to camel camel, but now it’s way up with a coupon to bring it down to the same amount. So may not be getting a good deal as much as you think.
This is a tale as old as time. We did this in the late 90s at an office supply store. Every Sunday night changing price tags “ooh guess there will be a sale on resume paper in the next few weeks”. 1-4 weeks out we would increase prices on some items just to lower them back when the ad came out.
People keep clutching their pearls at all the capitalist things happening, but in November, you all are going to vote for capitalists.
Well there are only 2 choices in a FPTP election system.
That’s what I said.
You’re all going to vote for capitalists.
I noticed a vevor mixer that usually goes for a bit under $500 was on “sale” but the price hasn’t changed, and the regular price went up to $650. Now that prime is over, it’s sale price increased to $550.
Pretty lame.
Having said that, though, I did find some things I wanted for cheaper than usual, that I needed.
once they drive most other retailers out of business, they’ll be able to jack the prices up. has been the plan the whole time
I started shopping at Walmart because of this, completely gave up on Amazon.
Realized what I was missing out on after buying some new strings for my guitar. Sat and talked to the people working for probably 30 minutes, then they told me to just bring it in and they will put the strings on really quick since they have better tools.
Ended up being cheaper than Amazon and got us out of the house.
uh, doesn’t Walmart do the exact same thing?
They probably do, but it’s a lesser of two evils where I live. People can shit on me and downvote away, but there is no choice where I live except driving an hour.
Fuck that noise. Walmart is infinitely worse for communities than Amazon.
Right, except in my little nook that has already happened. I can either by trash at Dollar General, drive to Walmart where things are meh, or get Amazon.
People seem to forget not everyone commenting here live in a major city.
Yeah, used to live in bumfuck PA and can definitely understand this. It’s either Walmart or some obscenely overpriced “local” place that gets half of their stuff from the same place and then upcharges $2 on everything.
understandable, I judged too quickly.
It’s fine, and I honestly hate Walmart for what they have done to the landscape. I also understand the immediate reaction to hating them very well.
What a surprise, Amazon has been doing shady shit for years and continues to do so.
Put a few items on your wishlist, and watch the fluctuations, even without prime days.
Overall, you save a buck or two on prime days, that’s all.
Fuck Amazon. I never use them and my life hasn’t materially changed one iota since I stopped like 5 years ago.
In the last 5 years, Amazon (for me) has had lower food prices than nearly all local grocery stores for certain items. The "trick’ is to park those items in a wishlist and set a notification for when the price drops to a level you are willing to pay (via browser add-on), then you can really save a lot.
But for most items, it’s a gamble to assume you are getting the lowest price, even when they are on sale. But then again, I think most stores play the same games, so consumers are always on the losing end no matter where they shop.
