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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

#241

Post by gandutraveler »

ars wrote: post #47
phkahler wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More comparable, if you write code for high speed trading algorithms and something goes wrong, nobody will roll back your transactions. This is a matter of size and connections though, but usually you've automated losses with no going back. Amazon seems to be somewhere in between.

> nobody will roll back your transactions Yes they will: https://www.nasdaqtrader.com/Trader.aspx?id=ClearlyErroneous

Not if it's a OTC transaction like FX markets. I worked in FX industry and there have been several occasions where due to pricing engine error or trading platform error one party was able to profit.

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

#242

Post by sgift »

sagebird wrote: post #239

It’s kind of interesting- the asymmetry of moral expectations and entitlement. If you accidentally purchased a bag of M&Ms from Amazon for 500 dollars instead of 5, they will let you undo it. On the other hand, if the matter is reversed, Amazon is expected to be a good sport and take the loss — even if the purchase was made in bad faith (ie- knowing Amazon mis-priced it but purchasing it anyways.) I’m not going to en…

Amazon is a professional seller, they should know better. Buyers are not professionals, they shouldn't have to. Depending on the country this is even enshrined in law (e.g. customer protection laws against accidental buying).

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

#243

Post by MisterPea »

sagebird wrote: post #239

It’s kind of interesting- the asymmetry of moral expectations and entitlement. If you accidentally purchased a bag of M&Ms from Amazon for 500 dollars instead of 5, they will let you undo it. On the other hand, if the matter is reversed, Amazon is expected to be a good sport and take the loss — even if the purchase was made in bad faith (ie- knowing Amazon mis-priced it but purchasing it anyways.) I’m not going to en…

I think who you're purchasing from does make a lot of difference though and it is not necessarily an orthogonal topic in morality.

I'd imagine a lot less people would take advantage of this pricing error against a mom and pop store than a multinational corporation like amazon.

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

#244

Post by want2know »

mikorym wrote: post #221
want2know wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands this also happened some times on webshops. And everytime a judge ruled people had to bring the goods back or should pay the full amount. The reason is that it is very clear for the buyer it is a mistake. And almost all webshops have a legal notice about wrong or false prices.

I think that if Amazon does ship these (and it seems some already did) it's actually pretty neat advertisement for them. Any publicity is good publicity, right? I wonder how much an advertisement campaign with this amount of buzz usually costs.

Yes but it has more costs involved than just this.

For example the statistics of the brands Sony and Canon are now wrong and the budget of advertising is still as it was yesterday. So the bookkeepers have a lot of exta work to get this straight.

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

#245

Post by Mirioron »

sgift wrote: post #242
sagebird wrote: post #239

It’s kind of interesting- the asymmetry of moral expectations and entitlement. If you accidentally purchased a bag of M&Ms from Amazon for 500 dollars instead of 5, they will let you undo it. On the other hand, if the matter is reversed, Amazon is expected to be a good sport and take the loss — even if the purchase was made in bad faith (ie- knowing Amazon mis-priced it but purchasing it anyways.) I’m not going to en…

Amazon is a professional seller, they should know better. Buyers are not professionals, they shouldn't have to. Depending on the country this is even enshrined in law (e.g. customer protection laws against accidental buying).

He's talking about it from the moral standpoint. Most customers will be able to tell that something is off when camera gear is that cheap.

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

#246

Post by moksly »

sagebird wrote: post #239

It’s kind of interesting- the asymmetry of moral expectations and entitlement. If you accidentally purchased a bag of M&Ms from Amazon for 500 dollars instead of 5, they will let you undo it. On the other hand, if the matter is reversed, Amazon is expected to be a good sport and take the loss — even if the purchase was made in bad faith (ie- knowing Amazon mis-priced it but purchasing it anyways.) I’m not going to en…

Is it really about morals? I see it more as a service that makes people chose your site over the competition. It basically boils down to “the customer is always right”, doesn’t it?

Morally the customer isn’t always right, but you sell more when you protect them from their own mistakes as well as yours.

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

#247

Post by stefan_ »

sagebird wrote: post #239

It’s kind of interesting- the asymmetry of moral expectations and entitlement. If you accidentally purchased a bag of M&Ms from Amazon for 500 dollars instead of 5, they will let you undo it. On the other hand, if the matter is reversed, Amazon is expected to be a good sport and take the loss — even if the purchase was made in bad faith (ie- knowing Amazon mis-priced it but purchasing it anyways.) I’m not going to en…

Amazon is famously the company that sells you counterfeit crap only to point at some anonymous third party.

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

#248

Post by cf498 »

gingabriska wrote: post #183
Kye wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Does ethical analysis only rely on who made the mistake and not who suffers the consequence? As I understand every corporation, passes on the cost the customer and aims for some specific number as a margin, if their costs increase either they increase productivity of their worker, or implement cost cutting measures, or pass the cost down to customers. Lots of people think, Amazon's loss results in Bezoz getting a hai…

What if is the right phrase. You assume they are only looking for a specific margin, which they have to optimize for. They already optimizing to maximize the total profit. If there is a productivity increase of the workforce possible they take it unless the conditions get so bad, that a lack of workforce or lawsuits result in higher losses. Same goes for a price increase, if the number of sold products shrinks less then the additional margin per products its a reasonable thing to do.

That piracy/fraud/costly mistakes increase the overall cost for consumers just doesnt happen, no large company in their right mind has additional profit potential lying around that they just dont take because they dont need to. What happens is that at some point the market segment becomes no longer profitable and companies leave that segment entirely.

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

#249

Post by sgift »

Mirioron wrote: post #245
sgift wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is a professional seller, they should know better. Buyers are not professionals, they shouldn't have to. Depending on the country this is even enshrined in law (e.g. customer protection laws against accidental buying).

He's talking about it from the moral standpoint. Most customers will be able to tell that something is off when camera gear is that cheap.

Amazon is not a person, it's a company. Attributing moral to a transaction with non-person entities is frail itself. Does moral even apply here? What does it mean?

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

#250

Post by dvdbloc »

sagebird wrote: post #239

It’s kind of interesting- the asymmetry of moral expectations and entitlement. If you accidentally purchased a bag of M&Ms from Amazon for 500 dollars instead of 5, they will let you undo it. On the other hand, if the matter is reversed, Amazon is expected to be a good sport and take the loss — even if the purchase was made in bad faith (ie- knowing Amazon mis-priced it but purchasing it anyways.) I’m not going to en…

I think it’s also proportional though. Like this amount of money isn’t even pennies to Amazon and I think people recognize that. If this was something much crazier, a mistake that could put Amazon out of business in the same way a financial mistake to an individual could make them homeless, I think at least more people second guess what they are doing.
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