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Comment by jchw | Hacker News Reader

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, sellers stand to benefit much more overall.

Although it's never going to be perfectly accurate, I recommend anyone who shops Amazon for expensive stuff use a price tracking service, like CamelCamelCamel, to see exactly how good a deal on Amazon really is. Again, not perfect, but at least you can then get some context for what the price is currently showing up as.

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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.

Off-topic, but that's a truly terrible bike. I know a few people who've gotten it or similar GMC's as "the first result on Amazon for road bike" and they've all had problems with chains breaking or very poor fit of components. I'd recommend http://www.bikesdirect.com/ for cheap bikes online if you're comfortable with assembly and tuning.

Another happy bikesdirect customer here - a bunch of coworkers over the years have gone that route and been pleased as well. They're cheap, but definitely usable, safe, and a good value.

You don't even need to be comfortable with assembly and tuning -- just take it to a local bike shop and they'll do it for a small fee ($50 - $100)

Whenever I need to buy things from Amazon, I always cross shop at Walmart. I've found them to be cheaper in many cases, and sometimes considerably, particularly when it comes to food related items.

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

No, it's not the same bike. The manufacturer's model number is different. They're not the same model.

If you look at the descriptions, the Walmart one seems to be a large, and the color is not offered on Amazon. Now if you look at a large one from Amazon in red, you see its already 199$ instead. So size and color seem to be priced differentially.

differing a model by one digit and a minor feature is an old school game retailers started to run decades ago. back in the day when we had many big box electronics retailers who all price matched and beat a competitors price it could be real difficult getting that match/deal because on this minor difference.

Example, Receiver A and Receiver B are from the same manufacturer, have the same model name, but since their UPC code is different they don't price compete per small print the big box stores employed. It may even be useful to keep current online comparison systems from doing the same. To truly make the receivers different they usually swapped which extra port they featured on the back even though the guts of them were identical

The problem is you don't know if it's "Same product, different model numbers to prevent comparison shopping" or "Inferior product with similar model numbers to make it seem like a better deal than it is." This stuff goes both ways and you don't know for sure unless someone has actually gotten their hands on both versions.

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.

Yes exactly. Costco often does the same thing... for example, they'll have a WD Passport 2TB USB 3.0 Passport drive, same specs as you'd find at Amazon, Best Buy, etc. except the packaging is different (one of those "stand up cardboard placards with blisterpack" things) and maybe it's also missing a case. /BUT/ it will also be a different model number. And also sometimes the warranty is different.

Sometimes you care about the differences, sometimes you don't. But consumers should realize the point you made (the not-quite-same aspect).

It can cut the other way. I have a Best Buy only Lenovo laptop with a bigger MMC than the official model.

It would be fraud if it's the same model number, AFAIK.

Some people drop ship things from Walmart via amazon.

Bed bath and beyond too. We ordered some cleaning product on Amazon that was delivered by BBB recently so I checked the price. We paid 3x on Amazon.

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