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Amazon raised Prime Day prices, misleading consumers, says vendor

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Re: Amazon raised Prime Day prices, misleading consumers, says vendor

#211

Post by horsawlarway »

clubm8 wrote: post #203
SwellJoe wrote: post #46

I've become more and more disillusioned by Amazon over the years. Prices are now almost never the best; I only buy from them when I need something quickly (and can't get it locally). NewEgg (nearly) always has better tech prices. Walmart often has better prices on everyday items and I can have it immediately. I just bought a pair of tweezers at my local grocery store for two bucks that was $6 on Amazon for the same m…

>Walmart often has better prices on everyday items and I can have it immediately. But isn't the value in not having to travel to Walmart, select the item, wait in line, pay for the item, and transporting the item back to your home worth something? I assume you already go to the grocery store, so picking up tweezers isn't much effort. But what about something that isn't sold at a grocery store?

> But isn't the value in not having to travel to Walmart, select the item, wait in line, pay for the item, and transporting the item back to your home worth something?

No. At least not for me, and I imagine a large chunk of other users.

The value of amazon was

1. Reviews: I can see feedback on the item in a way that's simply not possible with local stores

2. Selection: I have access to far more products than I do at a local store.

3. Price: Amazon used to essentially do the price matching work for me, they would always be around the same dollar price (and sometimes far lower) than local stores.

I would much rather go to a store and purchase an item because it does away with the hassle of waiting. But I used to value the reviews and increased selection size more than the immediacy of the purchase, and the price is just a great bonus.

As a previous heavy user of Amazon, my usage has essentially tanked over the past year because I no longer trust reviews.

Are some fake reviews easy to spot? sure. Are all of them? hell no.

Couple that with rapidly increasing prices and I'm thoroughly disillusioned. Finally, a lot of the larger local chains now have to-store shipping for less frequently bought items. I can hop on HomeDepot's site and have them ship a rare item to a local store, and pick it up in a few days. Often at a better price than Amazon.

Frankly, I loved prime 4 years ago. Not a big fan today.

Re: Amazon raised Prime Day prices, misleading consumers, says vendor

#212

Post by partiallypro »

My issue with Amazon lately isn't just the prices no longer being the lowest, it's that a big chunk of their products are counterfeits. I honestly have no idea how they haven't tamped down on that. If I shop at Wal-Mart, Target, Footlocker, etc, etc I know the products I buy aren't going to be fakes; no so with Amazon. I have started buying less stuff on there after a number of products have come back as fakes. I use Prime Video more than any other service now, but there's only maybe 2 shows I even care about on there.

Re: Amazon raised Prime Day prices, misleading consumers, says vendor

#213

Post by AlexandrB »

joshwa wrote: post #35

When I worked at a very large bricks/ecommerce retailer, the FTC had their eye on us for decades, so we had very complex pricing rules to make sure that we established "regular price" for a certain number of days before an item could be put on sale, and could only stay on sale for a certain percentage of on-sale days, then once "marked down" or "clearance" could never have the price raised again. I'm guessing the FTC…

Given the current political climate, it's more likely the FTC will be dismantled first. That is unless The Washington Post pisses off the POTUS enough.

Re: Amazon raised Prime Day prices, misleading consumers, says vendor

#214

Post by 4ad »

ithkuil wrote: post #171
4ad wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A dull knife is fraud? Seriously? Knives are meant to me sharpened. The cheapest knife can be sharpened to razor blade sharpness. Sometimes new knives come sharpened somewhat, but in my experience all mass-produced knives need sharpening when new, even $250 knives. I genuinely can't comprehend the complaint. What next, buy a new car and complain it didn't come with the tank full?

If it was a ceramic knife, would it still make sense for a customer to figure out how to sharpen one of those?

No, I would expect a ceramic knife to be sharp and I would expect it to remain sharp throughout its life.

Re: Amazon raised Prime Day prices, misleading consumers, says vendor

#215

Post by copperred »

neverminder wrote: post #136
ikurei wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you just helped continue the fraud? Things aren't gonna improve by complaining on HN.

There's no point in debating the moral issues when our world is anything but. It's like condemning engineers for enabling governments and corporations to spy on us and constantly erode our privacy. In this particular situation the interaction was between me and the seller. Reviews are written, edited, removed by a person that owes nothing to other potential customers.

> There's no point in debating the moral issues when our world is anything but.

Some people have not given up on having a moral society and believe that there is great benefit in debating the issues. Because you are not open to debate doesn't mean the debate has no value, but I appreciate your perspective.

Re: Amazon raised Prime Day prices, misleading consumers, says vendor

#216

Post by rifung »

neverminder wrote: post #129
SwellJoe wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is another big one. Amazon is filled with garbage products. It can be very hard to tell what's quality, anymore, and the reviews aren't trustworthy the way they used to be. I used to read reviews on Amazon religiously even if I was buying somewhere else. That habit has kinda faded, though it's still one of the better sources of real world product knowledge.

> and the reviews aren't trustworthy the way they used to be You can say that again. I recently bought a kitchen knife with Amazon Prime that had ~100 reviews, an average of 5 stars. It cost £33, so wasn't particularly cheap. Just after I bought it the seller sent me one of those nagging emails asking for a review which I ignored. A week after they sent me another email, a copy of the first one. By the time I've alre…

> It cost £33, so wasn't particularly cheap

Not that I doubt your assessment of the knife but..

As far as kitchen knives go this is cheap, although you can still get very good and sharp knives for this price like the Tojiro DP Gyuto or Victorinox Fibrox.

Usually people don't judge a knife by it's out of box sharpness but the sharpness after sharpening, ease of sharpening, edge retention, balance, and overall craftsmanship.

Re: Amazon raised Prime Day prices, misleading consumers, says vendor

#217

Post by rifung »

notheguyouthink wrote: post #195
neverminder wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no point in debating the moral issues when our world is anything but. It's like condemning engineers for enabling governments and corporations to spy on us and constantly erode our privacy. In this particular situation the interaction was between me and the seller. Reviews are written, edited, removed by a person that owes nothing to other potential customers.

> It's like condemning engineers for enabling governments and corporations to spy on us and constantly erode our privacy. I don't agree with your actions, but I definitely agree with your statement. It's like judging people for paying less taxes via loopholes, yet it's perfectly legal. We focus on judging the action, rather than fixing the problem. In this case, judging you for using a broken system, akin to tax loop…

> In this case, judging you for using a broken system, akin to tax loopholes, may not be "good" - but it's certainly not the root of the problem

Wouldn't the greed of man be the true root of the problem? It just so happens that we can't actually fix it in a practical manner so the next best thing we can do is to be make it so it's difficult to take advantage of others.

Re: Amazon raised Prime Day prices, misleading consumers, says vendor

#218

Post by alexilliamson »

MadSax wrote: post #199
alexilliamson wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fox has a serious reputation for conservative bias

The rest of the media is the opposite, and they get linked all the time.

Yes. That is why a post from Fox is interesting. I was not making a value judgement, but if you're trying to coerce one, here it is. In addition to having a conservative slant, Fox News is evil.

Re: Amazon raised Prime Day prices, misleading consumers, says vendor

#219

Post by jedberg »

Maybe I'm in the minority here but I don't have a problem with this. If they raise the price based on demand, and I still deem it a good price, then who was harmed here? Sure I paid more than I needed to but I still paid less than I felt it was worth to me.

Re: Amazon raised Prime Day prices, misleading consumers, says vendor

#220

Post by Sleeep »

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #43
cakedoggie wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is newsworthy and should be called out every time, especially when it is such a trusted seller as Amazon.

"trusted seller"? What does that mean? What makes Amazon a "trusted seller", and why should we expect them to be different than any other seller?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com_controversies
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