this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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Mildly Infuriating

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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?

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[–] [email protected] 159 points 3 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 3 months ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Amazon isn’t an outlet though, is that the wording in the law? Because that implies it’s for brick and mortar only.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

What SKUmmy behavior.

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[–] [email protected] 108 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Of course. And since enforcement is basically non-existent, it doesn't matter how illegal it is!

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

It's semi-amazing how feckless our government is when it comes to anything related to market fairness.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It is fair... Companies paid $X lobbying our gov't and in return they get to do shit and profit

Fair!

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

And it's more than mildly infuriating when people say Poilievre will be any better.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Years ago, I wanted to buy a new TV, in the middle of October. My wife said that we should wait to black Friday but I told her that black Friday was a scam so I bought it right there. I keep following the price of the TV and how is slowly but surely rise price every other day, until black Friday when it got a 40% discount and was still more than I paid a month before.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Plus, many manufacturers make black Friday specific runs with cheaper parts, so it's possibly as expensive for a worse product.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

It's illegal in Norway. Items must not have been at the discounted rate at least 30 days prior

[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

We get scammed in a lot of different new ways :)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Same for the whole of the European union.

This post must be a Freedom©®™ thing we're too unfree to understand

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Some brands do this continually. That's how Eddie Bauer or The Gap is constantly having a 30% off sale on one thing or another.

And it works. It's called "price anchoring."

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

I think many companies will put sales on overpriced items to make it seem like a deal, but it's hard to catch the ones who inflate the prices just before a sale happens (which brings the sale price down to the regular price). The latter is a bigger problem, IMO.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago (1 children)

For anyone with the kneejerk reaction "AMERICA BAD!" because of this, it's against FTC regulations here in the USA, but hasn't been enforced in 50 years.

We are allowed to sue over it, but no one does. Caveat Emptor indeed.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago

We are allowed to sue over it, but no one does.

SCOTUS has drastically reduced the standing allowed for class action lawsuits. The ROI on these suits is very small. So you are talking about possibly weeks or months of your life to get the nuisance value of a very small claim. And that's assuming the court doesn't dismiss your claim on standing or misfiling or whatever other legal hoop you need to jump through.

For anyone with the kneejerk reaction “AMERICA BAD!”

This is precisely why "AMERICA BAD!" The legal system is intentionally inaccessible to large pools of small claimants and only exists to facilitate disputes between large business interests or between wealthy private parties and the state.

And if you think the civil system is bad, wait till you find out the ratfvckery that goes on in the criminal system.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 months ago (8 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I took a screenshot of my wishlist a few weeks before Prime Day. During Prime Day, about half of the items had Prime Day discounts but only three of them where actually cheaper. The best discounts I found were on other smaller web stores trying to compete with Amazon on Prime Day.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (2 children)

This is illegal in UK and Europe...

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Stop bragging about your sensible consumer laws, and legal vacation requirements, great train system and generally universal health care.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

I'm in the UK. I'll never brag about our train system, not after Twatcher privatised them, and further back the horrific Beeching cuts.

The rest - yeah, worth it.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's against FTC regulations in the US too. The trick is getting them to enforce it.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Camelcamelcamel.com kind of sucks in terms of their search, but they will find you the best price for things on Amazon.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (3 children)

They do this on Black Friday and Boxing Day sales too, it's nothing new.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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. ☹️

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

And it's very well known, yet somehow people continue to fall for it.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Lol yep. Literally Amazon 101, there's a very good reason you shouldn't buy from them unless you HAVE to.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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 :(

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago

What a surprise, Amazon has been doing shady shit for years and continues to do so.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Never purchase without Keepa check. I even google image search temu to find the Amazon link and check history

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I don't understand. Are you reverse image searching and if so what image? One from Temu or Amazon?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

it’s feature of retail/capitalism. You just have better tools like Keepa to showcase this scam, now.

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