Amazon Pricing Policy

[Perry Holbrook]

I'm trying to figure out Amazon's pricing policy. I'm in the market for a DSLR camera. A couple of weeks ago, Amazon had it for $649. Since I don't need it for about a month, I waited to purchase. About 10 days ago, they dropped the price to $614. Then over the week end, when I checked on it, they had it at $584 on Sat morning but when I went back in the evening to make the purchase, it was back at $614. This morning it's back at $649.

It's not that big of a deal, and since I'm not in a hurry, I just started to wonder about their pricing policy. I kept going to their site to look at the camera, mainly to make sure it was the right choice for my needs.

My question is this, since they can track what I look at and the frequency, can they change the pricing automatically, just to me, each time I check in, taking it up and down to motivate me to pull the trigger?

Any thoughts.

Perry

[Brian Elfert]

Sometimes Amazon will react to a sale at another retailer, especially with electronics. Once the stock at the other retailer is depleted they raise the price back up. Amazon has at times experimented with changing prices based on information they know about you, but I am not sure if they still do that. If you see a different price call someone else and have them check the price on Amazon to see if it is the same price you see.

[Gary Max]

Perry they can change the price after you have paid for a item---- I bought something super cheap-----paid for it and got a email back the next day explaining that it was a type-O. I like buying from Amazon but it does have it's down sides.

[Scott Shepherd]

Amazon isn't an exclusive store. They sell items for other people. You can setup your own store on Amazon yourself and sell through them. They take the order, you ship it.

They pull from a number of people for each item, so it's whoever's offering whatever price they have at the moment. Company "A" might have had it for $649 and sold out, then Company "B" could have listed it for $614, then Company "C" listed it for $584, but Company C might have only had 1 or 10 at that price, and once sold out, they aren't listed in the search.

It depends on a lot of variables, it's not like you're just looking at 1 store, like they used to be.

[Mike Henderson]

I've noticed the same thing about prices. But if you can wait, the price usually goes down again. You just have to keep checking and be ready to jump when the price reaches your goal.

Mike

[Robert McGowen]

You can go to camelcamelcamel.com (yes, that really is the address) Put in the Amazon product and it will give you a graph of the item showing the price swings. You can also put in the price that you want to pay, and you will receive an e-mail if the price drops below what you have set.

[Myk Rian]

My question is this, since they can track what I look at and the frequency, can they change the pricing automatically, just to me, each time I check in, taking it up and down to motivate me to pull the trigger?
I've always wondered if prices are changed based on your browsing.

Go to BandH.com instead.
A great company trusted by photography pros, and consumers.

[Jim O'Dell]

FrozenWarrior.com also has a price history you can click on from most Amazon pages and it will show you a 3 month history of price on that item in graph form. Very interesting to see the lows and highs. Also lets me know how something I'm interested in is currently priced as to the best price. Changes my buying habits sometimes.
Also, remember the Creek gets a cut of your purchase price if you go thru the Creek's portal to do your Amazon shopping. Hope that is still in effect. Jim.

[Stephen Tashiro]

I'm trying to figure out Amazon's pricing policy.


Some prices might be set by a computer algorithm, which doesn't preculde your figuring it out, but it suggests the policy might not be explainable as normal human judgment.

This is an interesting video lecture on how prevalent algorithms are in everday life: http://videos.liftconference.com/video/1177435/kevin-slavin-those-algorithms

[Rich Engelhardt]

My question is this, since they can track what I look at and the frequency, can they change the pricing automatically, just to me, each time I check in, taking it up and down to motivate me to pull the triggerI wondered the same thing & decided to test it out.
I created a seperate profile for Amazon and used a different computer on a different network in another part of the country to log in and check the prices against what my normal account showed.
The prices always matched.
I did it with random items and used, maybe, half a dozen different profiles and remote networks over a couple of months.
(It helps to have customers scattered all over the place when your in the IT field and want to do this kind of thing)

I'd say the odds are that Amazon doesn't track you for price setting on an individual basis.

[Perry Holbrook]

Thank you, all. Always good to learn something.

Perry

[Brian Elfert]

I'd say the odds are that Amazon doesn't track you for price setting on an individual basis.

Amazon was charging different prices for different users back in 2000. I'm pretty sure they quit doing that a long time ago.

Orbitz is/was showing Mac users higher priced hotels first when doing a search. Their research showed that Mac users tend to spend more so they showed them more expensive hotels first.

[Perry Holbrook]

Camera was back at $584 this morning. I guess it does pay to wait, sometimes.

Perry

[Harry Hagan]

Robert,

Thanks for the tip. I bookmarked the Camel site.


You can go to camelcamelcamel.com (yes, that really is the address) Put in the Amazon product and it will give you a graph of the item showing the price swings. You can also put in the price that you want to pay, and you will receive an e-mail if the price drops below what you have set.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Brian,
I wasn't aware of that - thanks for the info.
My wife and I didn't start shopping on Amazon until after 2000.
What sparked my curiosity about it was my wife had checked the price of something on her computer and later, I checked the same item on mine and the price was different. I don't recall if it was higher or lower.
Being in IT/computer support, it was easy enough for me to remote into other systems and check the prices from there.
No Macs though - I only supported PC's.

[Derek Gilmer]

Brian,
I wasn't aware of that - thanks for the info.
My wife and I didn't start shopping on Amazon until after 2000.
What sparked my curiosity about it was my wife had checked the price of something on her computer and later, I checked the same item on mine and the price was different. I don't recall if it was higher or lower.
Being in IT/computer support, it was easy enough for me to remote into other systems and check the prices from there.
No Macs though - I only supported PC's.

Here is another interesting tidbit. Add something/somethings under $100 each fullfilled by amazon to your cart. Go to your cart and click the "save for later" where it saves it on your shopping cart page. Wait a few days to weeks. About 70% of the time the items I'd added to my cart but then saved for later will drop in price 1-10%. The percentage seems high enough to be more than a coincidence.

[Jim Becker]

Camera was back at $584 this morning. I guess it does pay to wait, sometimes.

Perry

'Hope you "clicked"! :)

[steve mark]

By their unique policies today amazone is on the top. Perry such a pricing policy is being used by every retailer or manufacturer in order to attract their customers. You will see further fluctuation in their pricing policies as every business requires such policies in order to capture the entire market.

[Perry Holbrook]

'Hope you "clicked"! :)

Yep, I clicked. Price on the camera this morning is back at $649. This has been a good education, thanks everyone.

Perry

[Stephen Cherry]

B AND H is the way to go for anything photographic. This has been true for as long as I can remember.