Why Bottled Water Is So Expensive on Amazon Right Now | Hacker News Reader

Why Bottled Water Is So Expensive on Amazon Right Now

bloomberg.com

17 pointspetethomas10 comments

Amazon’s algorithms are designed to spot unusually high prices – that is, high in comparison to other sellers on Amazon—and suspend those accounts. The expensive water is showing up because sellers with cheaper water have sold out and more expensive items previously buried in search results suddenly rise to the top.

I'm not sure what I would tell people who are upset about price-gouging. Should Amazon go out and buy water and sell it's own at a loss? It also seems weird to be ordering water from Amazon and hoping it beats the storm.

I remember in economics learning that certain people would rather the product not be on sale than to see it listed at an "unfair" price. Which seems to be the case here.

Meanwhile, water jugs seem to be reasonably priced.

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And if UPS is still delivering, then you probably still have potable tap water to fill them up.

The only ones at that price are out of stock. Going rate from third party sellers is $50+ for a $15 container.

I have no idea what you are looking at, but I see them as under $20 with free prime shipping.

I see $130 for one of them and "Usually ships within 1 to 2 months." for the other.

The price could depend on where you live.

Amazon does not do that. (Except for a country as a whole.)

I'm sure they could, but they have never done so before. Their prices do change constantly - but for everyone at once.

FEMA should stock empty water jugs, then sell them to stores in areas about to be hit.

Would be a lot easier than shipping bottled water.

People often forget that higher prices is the incentive that brings more product to market during a crisis. Demonize people selling bottled water at high markups and you disincentive people with lots of bottled water who were about to drive it across the country to address your shortage.

Capitalism is cut-throat, there is no other capitalism in the West or the East. The only reason capitalism works a little better is because there is meant to be competitors in times of surplus. Evidently, no one has surplus of water to compete against price gouging and Amazon's logistical operations are unable to handle certain edge cases such as these.

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