this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2024
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Unrelated to this claim, but I've also noticed really rapid price adjustments of a few cents on products.
It seems like Amazon raises prices frequently based on what's in carts and how many page clicks it gets.
A $6 item changed from $5.95 to $6.05 to $5.98 in a span of an hour.
Put some items in your cart. Move them to Save for later. Almost every time you go back to your cart you'll have a notification saying that prices have changed. Happens more on some days than others. Not just Amazon provided items either. Other sellers have bots that automatically adjust the prices using who knows what guidelines.
Exactly, that's what I did. Removed it from my cart and waited an hour and suddenly it was a little cheaper.
I have no doubt there are bots monitoring to get every cent out of each transaction, knowing that people probably won't care about small changes.
There is a new promotion type used by sellers that allow us to target people who have abandoned cart. We can offer exclusive discounts to those people.
Well also remember that to win the "buy box" is also a competition amongst people who are just drop shipping similar items, sometimes by the pallet load, directly to Amazon warehouses and then based on margin basically doing a constant reverse auction to win the box the customer sees. Amazon also knows all this and will adjust its own competing stock/listings according to these changes as well. I have also heard that their prices are similar to Walmart and will vary based on estimated income of the customer. Have an iPhone or Mac and you are probably paying more than someone that shops on a cheap Android phone or no name PC.
Prices do not vary based on estimated income. Pricing control is not that granular.
This isn't based on income, but here is the automatic price adjusting.
EDIT So, not 100% as granular, but not that far off.
Dynamic Pricing
I am very well aware of the automated pricing tools in Amazon. The accounts under my management will do over $3.5 million in sales this month. I will also manage almost $1 million in ad spend. I may be the only person in this comment section with a qualified opinion.
These tools cannot adjust price based on customer data. They can adjust pricing based on competitor prices, and based on how many units you are currently selling. That is all.
Majority of products are not sold by Amazon. Some sellers use price automation software, some use built-in functionality provided by Amazon. Amazons built in functionality allows sellers to set competitive prices relative to other sellers on Amazon.
It has nothing to do with page views, clicks, or cart adds. Sellers cannot see cart adds in real time.
Yeah, thats so obnoxious.