Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#101

Post by fuzz4lyfe » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 1:56 AM UTC

windexh8er wrote: post #78

AJ007 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is they could request the item back, and if they really wanted to, put a negative balance on your account effectively banning you from Amazon without a return. Whether or not they would sue you or win and collect is a different story. All of this is assuming this was not an intentional PR test by Amazon for Prime day. One would presume that that is possible.

As I understand this if it lands on your doorstep and wasn't reclaimed by UPS/FedEx/USPS prior to that there's nothing they can do. They can ask you to send it back, but you don't have to. If they made the transaction and it's in your hands they can't put you in the red for the difference.

You aren't guaranteed the ability to unwind the deal after delivery so that's only fair that they can't either.

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#102

Post by readhn » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 2:00 AM UTC

zootam wrote: post #50

gyc wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I'm thinking. Take a small (for Amazon) that will be dwarfed by people who sign up for or renew Prime memberships hoping to luck out on a similar deal in the future.

according to random people in the slickdeals thread the loss was $16 million

Companies pay a whopping $5 million to run a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl....

This super sale (if everyone gets what they ordered) will have much deeper impact than a 30 second commercial.

Believe next year, millions more people wil be looking for deals on amazon on prime day....

Well executed "price mistake" ;)

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#103

Post by danso » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 2:00 AM UTC

mrep wrote: post #52

danso wrote: post #31

> Others also reported that they successfully price matched gear at retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart. Wow, this is incredible if true. Not just as a sign of how much these traditional retailers will stick to their promises, but also how the ostensible safeguards of brick-and-mortar/human-touch can still be subverted by algorithmic error. I've never worked at retail but if I saw such a drastic reduction I'd call…

Isn't that a good thing? A "price match" with a bunch of exclusions isn't really a price match.

But price matching is predicated on realistic economic competition, not we'll-match-it-no-matter-what-based-on-principle. There are already exceptions based on only dealing with "major online retailers" – i.e. retailers that operate on making stable revenue/profit from selling things – as well as disqualifying certain kind of discounts, like clearances and Black Friday prices. And in any case, Best Buy's qualifying requirements [0] make an exception for "pricing errors".

[0] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/customer-service/price-match-gu...

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#104

Post by dodobirdlord » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 2:00 AM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #68

ericmuyser wrote: post #45

I doubt they will cancel the orders. Amazon lives by customer service. They seem to just write off their mistakes directly from revenue. I learned this when I was scammed for a $5000 and Amazon let the scammer keep, refunded me and closed the issue in one fell swoop.

This probably plays into the antitrust issues. Amazon is so big that they can drop probably $200,000+ In revenue in exchange for news articles like this one and to let users know Amazon always takes their side. Say a new non-unicorn competitor joins the e-commerce space. They can't afford to burn money like Amazon can, so disputes are treated on a case-by-case basis with investigating sometimes taking weeks before ch…

> Suddenly people stop buying from this company because there isn't a 99.5% chance that the company will refund any future fraud or mishaps.

In this scenario one company offers a better product via a better customer experience. Simply being able to offer a better product because of scale is now enough to get people talking about antitrust issues. Not everything is an antitrust issue. It's really starting to grate on me that it's impossible these days for a title to have "Amazon" in it and nobody to be down in the comment section grinding an axe about trust-busting. Is it an antitrust issue that Amazon can hire better lawyers if they get sued? Is it an antitrust issue that Amazon can afford to staff enough customer support employees to process all of their complaints in a timely manner?

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#105

Post by s0rce » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 2:00 AM UTC

mrep wrote: post #52

danso wrote: post #31

> Others also reported that they successfully price matched gear at retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart. Wow, this is incredible if true. Not just as a sign of how much these traditional retailers will stick to their promises, but also how the ostensible safeguards of brick-and-mortar/human-touch can still be subverted by algorithmic error. I've never worked at retail but if I saw such a drastic reduction I'd call…

Isn't that a good thing? A "price match" with a bunch of exclusions isn't really a price match.

But an online store that makes a pricing error and then potentially reverts it without shipping the goods shouldn't necessarily be priced matched by other retailers. 99.3% discount isn't reasonable...

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#106

Post by readhn » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 2:01 AM UTC

Tyrannosaur wrote: post #36

What are the guesses as to how this happened? At the risk of sounding conspiratorial I propose that sometimes these "accidents" are less accidental than they claim. So much hype over this has got to be worth something.

this was no accident. their pricing mechanisms are top notch. this is a marketing move!

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#107

Post by piyush_soni » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 2:01 AM UTC

christoph wrote: post #95

huangc10 wrote: post #4

They will cancel majority of the purchases. However, if you were smart, you'd have chosen 1 day shipping and have received the item. Me? I was not smart and did not select 1 day shipping so it looks like my order will most likely be canceled once Amazon deals with this...

Hold out hope. It gives excellent publicity to Prime day and their brand if they don't cancel them - why ruin that with potentially bad publicity, etc. over what probably amounts to a few hundred thousand dollars, which they can easily afford to cover.

Because they have done it quite a few times in the past.

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#108

Post by kls » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 2:03 AM UTC

Sounds to me like someone at Amazon is good at marketing. Let a few things go for an insane deal, knowing it will hit the front page of every blog. Then reap the rush of next years prime day with people scouring the site for pricing "errors". Pretty cheap and effective marketing.

Kind of like a raffle but without having to get all the lawyers involved to make sure you comply with raffle laws.

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#109

Post by Kye » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 2:03 AM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #90

Kye wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's unethical about buying something for the listed price? edit: rephrased for clarity

What’s unethical about taking advantage of another human who made a mistake?

This is not some over-burdened shop owner on the corner. I doubt any people were involved in setting these prices. Some algorithm messed up somewhere in a company for which this is a rounding error.

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#110

Post by GuB-42 » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 2:04 AM UTC

bogwog wrote: post #74

What if this was done on purpose to increase hype for the next Prime Day? They'll probably cancel the orders anyways, and there will some people who will visit Amazon on prime day hoping to score a ridiculous deal, only to settle on buying some random shit.

Then it wouldn't be a honest mistake and they would have to honor the sales.