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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

#31
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their prices are not the lowest, just experienced this recently. Here is a bike i wanted to buy https://www.amazon.com/GMC-Denali-Large-63-5cm-Frame/dp/B00F... ($220) Ended up buying on walmart ($170) https://www.walmart.com/ip/25-700c-GMC-Denali-Men-s-Bike-Whi... So much for paying $99 to get prime. I have noticed of late that lot of items are cheaper on Walmart and they offer free 2 day shipping.

Is that actually the same bike? Walmart seems to sell things under the same name as other retailers, but with some 'cost reducing' features... at least they have in the past. Also, I presume GMC doesn't actually make these, any idea who does?

Yes it is the same awful bike. Kent International owns the brand it does some assembly in South Carolina, the parts and frames come mainly from China and Taiwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_International

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

#32
FOX is fishing for how Amazon could be hurting consumers so as to get anti trust litigation going. It is not illegal to be a monopoly but if it is hurting consumers it is fair game.

My opinion Amazon is NOT hurting consumers but rather Trump and the Republicans want to hurt it. YMMV

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

#33
post #7

Not only is this not new for traditional vendors, it's not even new for the internet. Scummy sellers on Steam do the same thing right before sales every single year. Oh well. At least some quite nice Anker stuff was actually on sale. You can never have enough USB chargers these days. Just like in the case of Steam, I'm more apt to believe it's sellers that are doing this than Amazon. While both stand to benefit, sell…

Their prices are not the lowest, just experienced this recently. Here is a bike i wanted to buy https://www.amazon.com/GMC-Denali-Large-63-5cm-Frame/dp/B00F... ($220) Ended up buying on walmart ($170) https://www.walmart.com/ip/25-700c-GMC-Denali-Men-s-Bike-Whi... So much for paying $99 to get prime. I have noticed of late that lot of items are cheaper on Walmart and they offer free 2 day shipping.

Some people drop ship things from Walmart via amazon.

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

#34
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that actually the same bike? Walmart seems to sell things under the same name as other retailers, but with some 'cost reducing' features... at least they have in the past. Also, I presume GMC doesn't actually make these, any idea who does?

Wouldn't that be fraud?

Walmart often sells not-quite-same models of things.

One, they often sell main items at below cost, because they make their money on accessories and groceries and whatnot before people check out. Computers and TVs are big ones. They will often take a big loss on a TV because they expect to sell DVDs and cables and such.

Two, I didn't click this product but often they will have a submodel of a popular brand. Like an imaginary Dell Laptop-XX-XD might normally be $599. Walmart sells a Dell Laptop-XX-SP where the RAM is soldered on and the network card is a Chinese knockoff and so on for $499. Same company, same-ish model, Walmart special.

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

#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 will have their eye on Amazon pricing soon.

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

#36

Not really newsworthy. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book. "Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it." -Publilius Syrus (1st century BC)

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

Someone got shot by police? Not newsworthy, happens all the time.

Politicians taking bribes? Not newsworthy, been happening forever.

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

#37

Er, is this not illegal in the USA? It is in Canada: The Act prohibits false or misleading representations to the public as to the ordinary selling price of a product, in any form whatsoever. Ordinary selling price is validated in one of two ways: either a substantial volume of the product was sold at that price or higher, within a reasonable amount of time (volume test); or the product was offered for sale, in good…

>Simpson says Amazon is breaking Section 5 (a) of the FTC Act that prohibits "unfair or deceptive acts or practices."

>“It’s strategy called ‘Price-anchoring.’ It’s pretty common across the board. Now as far as it being against the law or breaking any rules or regulations, it could be considered false and deceptive marketing under the FTC Section 5,” Kelly adds.

Many States call this practice out specifically as an unfair trade practice in their laws as well.

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

#38

Er, is this not illegal in the USA? It is in Canada: The Act prohibits false or misleading representations to the public as to the ordinary selling price of a product, in any form whatsoever. Ordinary selling price is validated in one of two ways: either a substantial volume of the product was sold at that price or higher, within a reasonable amount of time (volume test); or the product was offered for sale, in good…

I think this practice mostly falls under state-level regulations. The government of California in particular seems to have gone after a slew of major retailers (including Amazon) for similar practices. Thus making your username doubly appropriate, I guess. It's hard to follow the outcomes in the hits I'm seeing, though.

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

#39

FOX is fishing for how Amazon could be hurting consumers so as to get anti trust litigation going. It is not illegal to be a monopoly but if it is hurting consumers it is fair game. My opinion Amazon is NOT hurting consumers but rather Trump and the Republicans want to hurt it. YMMV

Conservatives can be looking to hurt Amazon and Amazon can be hurting consumers at the same time. I don't see how you can argue that lieing to consumers is not hurting them

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

#40
post #12

Go to a brick and mortar jewelry store, everything is 100% off.

100% off is free, no matter what the base price is, so that's clearly not true. (Though, oddly, it's not uncommon online, with a “just pay (inflated) shipping and handling charge” proviso.)

I mean, if you go into a jewelry store with a gun and declare that everything is free you can get everything for 100% off (probably just the one time, though).

Can't do that with jewelry on Amazon.

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