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Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

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Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#391

Post by ceejayoz »

gamblor956 wrote: post #383
ceejayoz wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. This is silly. We should change it. (But it's largely an issue for online sales, not physical locations. The McDonalds in San Anselmo, barring The Big One, stays in San Anselmo.) See also: American healthcare, college, etc. "Our setup is absurdly complex in bad ways" is not an argument for keeping that setup, it's an argument for making fixes.

Why is this silly? If you're selling something, sales tax (or in other parts of the world, VAT or GST) will be owed[1]. Different places will have different levels of commerce and budgetary requirements, and sales taxes are one of the ways they can fill their coffers. Allowing for local jurisdictions to set their own tax rates is part of the federal system of government; indeed in the U.S. it is arguable that a natio…

> Why is this silly?

Because it's an immense amount of paperwork, compliance, legal risk, etc. all to avoid just setting a more reasonable state/federal level of taxation. The US has a deeply weird attitude towards any changes to taxation.

> And why should we eliminate sales taxes, etc. for online sales?

No one's proposing that. Online sales just introduce the issue of not knowing the tax jurisdiction that's applicable for a brand-new shopper.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#392

Post by ceejayoz »

jtgeibel wrote: post #389
ceejayoz wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proposal: Brick-and-mortar stores, at least, should have to list in-store prices inclusive of tax. Unintended consequences: None?

Forcing brick-and-mortar stores to show a higher price including tax than that shown by online stores seems like it would have some unintended consequences. It would likely push more people towards online purchases even if the final price is identical.

I deliberately browse AirBnB's Australian version because it tells me the actual cost of the listing, inclusive of tax and fees.

Prices are already quite different between online and in-person shopping.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#393

Post by bee_rider »

conductr wrote: post #351
DrillShopper wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like the exact situation a credit card chargeback is designed to fix.

I think HF technically tells you no refunds or that there's a restocking fee policy when you buy it so I don't think it would work. As a consumer, I'm used to companies like that making an exception when something goes overly wrong like what happened to me. It's not like I used it and it failed, I couldn't even assemble it. I spoke to the manager and he insisted he didn't even have the authority to wave the fees. It…

Can a business just say “no refunds, even if the device is completely non-functional.”

At least (maybe it varies state by state) Massachusetts has an “implied warranty of merchantability,” the thing has to basically work at least for a little bit.

I mean, if the bolt-holes don’t line up, they didn’t just sell you a bad , they sold you a random sheet of metal that is not .

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#394

Post by acdha »

graemep wrote: post #270
acdha wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but how many of those dramatically jumped recently? Two years from now, sure, you’ll have to ask about other things but it’s not like the commodities market had other massive upsets this month.

Oil has varied in a range of about 23% in the last few weeks, and the USD to CNY rate. Raw material for many things (like plastics) and obviously used for transport.

Oil has gone down, though, and the primary driver for the volatility was the tariffs. It’s not like there was a big change in production or something like the pandemic causing millions of people to change their driving habits.

Again, the question is simply what non-tariff factor would explain non-trivial prices over a month? If there isn’t one, it doesn’t seem unfair to attribute the increase to a huge policy change.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#395

Post by acdha »

littlestymaar wrote: post #280
acdha wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example? Usually short term price fluctuation would be in response to something like a sudden change in market demand or something like a natural disaster lowering production but nothing like that seems to have happened other than the largest tax increase in U.S. history and the demand shock from the federal cuts should be lowering prices, not raising them.

> Usually short term price fluctuation would be in response to something like a sudden change in market demand or something like a natural disaster lowering production That's theoretical economics, meanwhile in the real world, retail stores change the prices of goods depending on the weather or holidays.

And in your theory thousands of vendors around the world all randomly did this in the same direction at the same time? It’s not like chocolate eggs before Easter are the only thing going up while the rest of the economy is chugging along like normal.

Similarly, weather could explain the decline of winter gear sales in the northern hemisphere or specific commodities being hit by a storm but that wouldn’t affect the whole economy and we’d all have seen coverage of some epic monsoon or drought if it was that impactful.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#396

Post by ytpete »

echoangle wrote: post #167
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.

That's perfectly rational though. Stuff is priced taking into account the current value, and a raising crude oil price immediately increases the value of the already refined product. Just like falling prices would immediately lower the value of the already refined product.

Do falling prices in crude oil reflect in gas prices as instantly as rising prices in crude oil do though? I think that asymmetry is what the poster was calling out. It lets resellers skim a bit of extra profit off of the volatility, by raising prices quickly but lagging on lowering them.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#397

Post by paulcole »

Zamaamiro wrote: post #193
paulcole wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can blame Trump but in the US, we’re all to blame here. Blaming somebody who’s not me just make it easier to feel good about myself and like I’m less of the problem. I mean call them the Democrats tariffs. 2024 was a gift-wrapped election victory and the Democrats (shockingly) bungled it in staggeringly impressive fashion.

This is quite a display of mental gymnastics and historical revisionism. The last couple of years have seen a massive post-COVID backlash to incumbent parties all over the world—Democrats were just caught in the wave. Why on Earth would anyone not call them anything but Trump Tariffs when he is the one who imposed them and when they’re uniquely his idea?

I gave my reason. That it's stupid to think blaming the person matters at all.

Fix the problem which is electing people like this.

If my toddler scribbles on the wall I better put the markers away next time not put up a little sign that says, "Junior's Doodles."

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#398

Post by DrillShopper »

bluGill wrote: post #342
DrillShopper wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats for voting for Trump indirectly

Congradulations for ensuring we get more and more evil.

I'm focused on harm reduction - there was no credible non evil candidate on the ticket in 2024. I don't like either of them, but only one of them was whipping up a frenzy to disenfranchise my friends and cut them off from society on a fundamental level, and the other was not.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#399

Post by acdha »

littlestymaar wrote: post #382
acdha wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All I’m talking about is basic supply and demand: if prices suddenly go up significantly, that usually means that there is either a big change in demand or the supply has become limited and buyers are having to pay more. A big natural disaster can cause that if it affects agricultural supply, shipping, or factory production (e.g. years ago, flooding in Thailand caused hard drive prices to double[1]). My point was sim…

The problem is that you are invoking a crude theory in a simplistic fashion that has with very little predictive power over the real world. It's as if you told a guy working in a ski station that “the temperature cannot be above 0°C as there's snow everywhere and everyone knows that snow melts above zero”. It's not how it works, and the economy doesn't work in the simplified fashion you seem to believe it does either…

> The problem is that you are invoking a crude theory in a simplistic fashion that has with very little predictive power over the real world.

I appreciate the mix of unwarranted condescension with the assertion that the theory that sudden tariffs cause sudden price increases doesn’t have predictive value, when basically every sober analyst predicted what we are seeing now.

It’s not exactly a secret that prices fluctuate seasonally but what we’re seeing now is spread across the entire economy, suddenly, and in sectors which do not normally experience that seasonal volatility.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#400

Post by abenga »

StanAngeloff wrote: post #250

"Amazon says it never considered listing import charges on main site - report" https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cpvrrre4zlkt?post=asset%3A0240...

Amazon (used to?) list import charges when I import stuff into my country. It's surprising that they wouldn't the other way.
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