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Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

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Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#241

Post by ethbr1 »

CobaltFire wrote: post #236
fallinghawks wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when the price of crude oil was in the news a lot, if a rise was announced, gas stations would immediately hike prices, even though it takes like a month for the oil to be refined into gas and delivered to the station.

Interestingly I’ve seen the exact opposite happen and cause major problems. In Japan the US Military buys fuel and sets the price at its on base stations according to what they purchase it for. On several occasions when I lived there this resulted in the Base CO having to address everyone and tell them if they don’t buy the fuel (that is now significantly cheaper outside the gate) then the Exchange cannot buy new fue…

P/NE-X is a bit different, due to non-market drivers of how they operate. Aka if Walmart were instead run by Congress. ;)

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#242

Post by dgfitz »

conductr wrote: post #131
dgfitz wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A and B passed along the tariff costs to C, which passed those costs to D. D now costs more, assuming they pass the delta cost to the consumer. The only delta a customer cares about is the past/current cost of D, which is what amazon would presumably display. Isn't this the horn everyone keeps trumpeting? It doesn't seem complicated.

There’s a million reasons besides tariffs a cost may increase. Sellers with no tariffs will just increase prices to pad profits if they’re given an opportunity to let Amazon pin it on tariffs. There is a lot of evidence supporting the theory that this type of manufactured inflation is what drove the recent pandemic era inflation. Corporate profits alone are the best indicator of this occurring. They raised prices by…

I'd rather solve that problem than the tariff thing. I was thinking just this morning about the bull-whip effect that never came.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#244

Post by kangda123 »

gherkinnn wrote: post #109
profmonocle wrote: post #76

I'm fine with this as long as they include the tariff in the listed price. I'm worried businesses are going to use tariffs as an excuse to have a fake list price, then hit you with massive hidden fees at the point of sale. Some sectors have been doing this for years - "service fees" at restaurants, "regulatory response fees" in the telecom industry, all sorts of nonsense in event ticketing. Physical goods have mostly…

I expect businesses to bump prices. Bump em because of tariffs, bump em some more to pad the margins because what is an extra 5%, bump em even when they're not affected by tariffs because everyone else is doing so, and delay un-bumping them once tariffs fall again.

Uncertainty costs money. It's normal to require extra pay for extra risk.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#245

Post by rsynnott »

reverendsteveii wrote: post #215

"This is hostile and political." --The President. No, Really. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/29/white-house-blasts-amazon-ov...

Surely he should be proud of his bigly beautiful tariffs, and happy to have them prominently displayed, that a grateful public might marvel at them.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#247

Post by ethbr1 »

throwaway7894 wrote: post #185
zmgsabst wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think that would backfire: I see two items for $5, but when I add the imported one, suddenly it costs more — and Amazon didn’t tell me that ahead of time or give me any way to choose the one without tariffs on the grid/list view. This makes tariffs more effective because they can’t bump the domestic price to match — while giving customers a negative chock each time they choose an importer for a product.

In your example, why would the domestic seller keep their price at $5 if the other option costs $15? They'll just raise the price of the domestic good to $13 and we will all pay $8 extra on a thing that used to cost $5. If the price displayed is still $5 but tariffs added at the end, the domestic seller's $13 sticker price will not look attractive to buyers.

To capture market share.

For goods that have alternatives, businesses may choose to under-price (relative to their tariffed competitors) in order to gain sales and customers.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#248

Post by rsynnott »

conductr wrote: post #131
dgfitz wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A and B passed along the tariff costs to C, which passed those costs to D. D now costs more, assuming they pass the delta cost to the consumer. The only delta a customer cares about is the past/current cost of D, which is what amazon would presumably display. Isn't this the horn everyone keeps trumpeting? It doesn't seem complicated.

There’s a million reasons besides tariffs a cost may increase. Sellers with no tariffs will just increase prices to pad profits if they’re given an opportunity to let Amazon pin it on tariffs. There is a lot of evidence supporting the theory that this type of manufactured inflation is what drove the recent pandemic era inflation. Corporate profits alone are the best indicator of this occurring. They raised prices by…

> Sellers with no tariffs will just increase prices to pad profits if they’re given an opportunity to let Amazon pin it on tariffs

Well, realistically they'll do that _anyway_. If you decrease price competition, prices go up. That is the order of things.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#249

Post by ceejayoz »

xienze wrote: post #237
ceejayoz wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other countries have states and cities, too. (And in the fast food example, the customer's home location doesn't matter. The store's does.)

But do they have the same kind of state and local sales tax rules that we do? Again, _you can't know the price to display if you don't know where exactly in the country the package is going_. It is not possible to display the "final price" in US online stores ahead of checkout unless the user is already logged in AND the shipping address is the same as where the user lives. The juice is not worth the squeeze for onli…

That's an argument for fixing the rules. As functional rules in this regard are clearly possible to create.

The EU has a similar smattering of disparate jurisdictions (with varying VAT rates) just like the US does.

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