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

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

#151

Post by Syntaf »

fma wrote: post #112
kls wrote: post #108

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.

Or someone on slickdeals is good at marketing because that's what half the article talks about. I'm surprised Amazon honored such a big price mistake. A few weeks ago, some Western Digital drives were priced incorrectly. About half off. Everyone got cancelations. And yes, I heard about it on front page of slickdeals...

As a dev for Slickdeals, I can tell you this was not planned on our side haha.

Once the deal was caught by one of our mods, the site went into a frenzy. Unfortunately I was AFK during the deal, but this will go down as one of the best price mistakes of the year if not the best.

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

#152

Post by pg_is_a_butt »

nkozyra wrote: post #121
kls wrote: post #108

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.

> Sounds to me like someone at Amazon is good at marketing. Ah yes, finally someone will be talking about Amazon and Prime Day.

they said "scouring"... not "talking". Ah yes, you don't understand the difference.

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

#153

Post by the_reformation »

kls wrote: post #108

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.

Even when literally losing thousands of dollars to honor a price advertised to customers, HN manages to spin's Amazon's actions as somehow duplicitous.

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

#155

Post by skinnymuch »

odensc wrote: post #139
wsxcde wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, the blowback they'd get from not honoring the purchasing would be terrible. More generally, Amazon are one of the few companies who understand that short term losses can lead to long-term goodwill and profit. So anyway, my prediction is that they will do nothing about your purchase.

They'll almost certainly cancel it. Pricing errors like this happen all the time on Amazon, there are whole websites/subreddits dedicated to finding them. Usually they just cancel it the next day and maybe give you a $10 gift card. Sometimes you get lucky and get the item, but the media's advertisement of this will probably exponentially increase the chance of getting your order canceled, unless Amazon has some crazy…

Is that still happening? Do you have recent links of people getting gift card/credit regularly? Amazon seems to have stopped doing that largely for some time now.

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

#156

Post by sharkweek »

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…

I'm not sure how far and wide the show Nathan For You reaches, but there's a fantastic episode where he proposes a local electronics store mark TVs down to $1 in order to buy up new inventory from Best Buy for his own store using their price match policy.

Rather than trying to explain it poorly, I highly recommend everyone watch this clip from the show:

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/i6q9t5/nathan-for-you-the-pric...

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

#157

Post by skinnymuch »

WalterBright wrote: post #9

Amazon would be within their rights to refuse to honor such purchases. I also don't think it's ethical to take advantage of such mistakes. What if it was you who accidentally listed your house for $60,000 rather than $600,000? What if you accidentally included an extra 0 on the check you wrote?

Am I listing a $600K house for $60K while I have many many millions in the bank? Not the biggest deal. Otherwise using that sort of example as a comparison makes little sense.

Of course if someone has no savings and lives paycheck to paycheck and lists their house, their only asset, for $540K less than it’s worth, it’s an awful situation. But that’s sort of ridiculous to consider, no?

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

#159

Post by girvo »

the_reformation wrote: post #153
kls wrote: post #108

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.

Even when literally losing thousands of dollars to honor a price advertised to customers, HN manages to spin's Amazon's actions as somehow duplicitous.

Oh no, Amazon's profit margin!

Being less flip: it's a massive corporation, which by default don't really care about consumers happiness directly, just that which is necessary for us to part with our many. I find it hard to have sympathy for said corporation -- especially considering the power that they now wield over modern western society.

And it wouldn't be the first time a corporation is duplicitous, that's for sure. I don't personally think this was done on purpose, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

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

#160

Post by DJBunnies »

the_reformation wrote: post #153
kls wrote: post #108

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.

Even when literally losing thousands of dollars to honor a price advertised to customers, HN manages to spin's Amazon's actions as somehow duplicitous.

How much is the total press worth?
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