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Comment by strictnein | Hacker News Reader

And the prices on some of the stuff is just weird, with a lot of the Amazon provided stuff now stuck behind Amazon Prime Pantry.

I used to order a lot of our daily household stuff from Amazon: cleaners, dish soap, detergent, etc. So much of that stuff now is priced just horribly. $4 for a bottle from Amazon, but it's just from Prime Pantry so you have to order a bunch of stuff or be stuck with a high shipping cost.

If you go with one of the other sellers, the prices are frequently 2-3x normal retail, I guess preying on the fact that people don't realize they're getting ripped off.

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Perhaps I spent too much of my youth watching supermarket-themed game shows, but I'm very much in tune with how much things should cost in supermarkets, and how they vary from chain to chain and region to region.

It was for that reason I started buying my household stuff at Amazon — because I could save a buck or two, per item, which adds up.

Then — as you pointed out — stuff got weird. Amazon's prices became consistently higher than the supermarkets.

Then the third-party sellers started using "AI" pricing, so that a package of soap bars that is $3.59 at Safeway is $61 on Amazon.

Then the counterfeits arrived, and now my family has a policy of not buying anything from Amazon that goes on, or in, our bodies.

These days there are bargains to be had through Amazon, but only through the two-hour shipping from Whole Foods. At least in my market. (A particular cheese that is $15/pound at Kroger is $5/pound when I get it delivered from my local Whole Foods.)

It's not too late to Amazon to regain trust. But it's not going to be a quick or easy process.

For the longest time I would have added to your list of things not to buy on Amazon anything claiming to be OEM Apple products.

It was likely they were fakes and if they provide electrical power they may be a fire hazard.

Amazon seemed to realize how big of a problem this was (or Apple took them aside and made it a problem for them) because they just announced they are taking action: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjexb5/amazon-is-...

I find it a little worrying that in that vice article they don't seem to at all talk about the counterfeiting issue that was widespread on Amazon for Apple products.

Amazon manufacturer/distributor of home and kitchen goods here - the rule of thumb is that if it's <$20 (and especially if it's <$10), Amazon's pricing structure to its third party sellers basically compels low dollar items to be more expensive than retail.

Basically we pay Amazon $1 or 15% of sale (whichever is higher + ~$2.50 for shipping before anything else, so after margins and what not that's a minimum of $4 going to Amazon for marketing and logistics. That's why low dollar 1-pack items feel like price gouging -- there's been years of A/B testing on the marketplace that shows a $4.99+free ship item is way more attractive than $1.99+$3 shipping.

Amazon itself sells stuff direct from manufacturer at a loss or breakeven-ish cost for items under $3 because they can, but even those prices aren't hugely sustainable and they play around with algorithmic pricing themselves over time.

Retail logistics for low dollar items is a Hard problem. :|

It's also worth noting that people don't think of the externalized cost of actually getting to the store verses getting these things shipped. If you have to drive a mile each way just to get that one extra item, the amount your saving from not ordering online is insignificant.

Retail price at Target, Walmart, etc on this is ~$2.89 a bottle. On Amazon it's the "Amazon Choice" for $13.97 for two bottles.

https://www.amazon.com/Formula-409-Purpose-Cleaner-Bottles/d...

You can get the normal retail prices on all this stuff and still shop online. You just can't do that on Amazon any more.

Yep, Target.com is 2.89 with $25 free ship https://www.target.com/p/formula-409-powerful-all-purpose-cl... -- but for what its worth, the online stores are mostly loss-leaders for the big department/grocery stores trying to stay relevant against Amazon.

https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/23/investing/target-earnings/i...

>If you go with one of the other sellers, the prices are frequently 2-3x normal retail, I guess preying on the fact that people don't realize they're getting ripped off.

And as a result, I've become much more careful about checking prices on Amazon, which can't be good for Amazon overall.

By contrast, when I go to the grocery store, I generally assume the amount I'm paying is more-or-less the same as what I would pay elsewhere. (Likely a poor overall mindset on my part, but good for the store.)

Yeah, there's a lot of specific products that are always wildly overpriced on Amazon. Mostly anything that is out of print/out of production, no matter how recently it went out or how easy it is to find, but I recently ran into it with Hanes underwear of all things--there wasn't a single seller that wasn't asking at least 50% over Target's online price.

For out-of-print books/toys/games/etc., eBay is usually your best bet. Computer hardware (video cards, RAM, etc.) is often cheaper on either eBay or NewEgg. Et cetera.

I expect out of print stuff to fetch a high price, I'm more talking about standard grocery items. I've seen ridiculous markups on penne pasta, diet soda, certain brands of hand-soap, etc etc.

Some of these items, like the pasta, are things I'd previously ordered from Amazon for a fraction of the current price. Which, again, has caused me to be much more cautious—every time I reorder something nowadays, I have to check whether the price has changed. How does Amazon expect people to use stuff like the dash button when prices can vary this much?

How does Amazon expect people to use stuff like the dash button when prices can vary this much?

I have a couple of Dash buttons for Gatorade and pistachios and such. I stopped using them because I couldn't be certain of a reasonable price, or that the products wouldn't be fakes.

Safety > price > convenience, Amazon.

The reality is is that shipping an amazon item costs between $3-7. For expensive items, they can cover that cost out of the wholesale/retail markup, so you don't really have to pay it. For cheaper items, or items without that much of a markup, it starts showing up in the price. Now, sometimes a manufacturer will want to buy some market share, so they'll sell an item to Amazon cheaper to reduce that impact, and then it's available. However, it will usually go back up to the normal price, with them hoping that you won't notice.

It's the products that suddenly shoot up to 2-3x normal retail that throw me, not the ones that change by a few dollars.

But the products that double in price have made more sensitive to the ones that change by a few dollars, because I'm now on high alert for price changes in general.

Yeah, the doubling in price is usually when the low-cost vendor sells out, and only high-cost vendors are left, but you're totally right; I also refrain from purchasing via dash button, Echo commands, or any option where I can't evaluate how reasonable the price is.

I'm saying Amazon can be just as misleading about out-of-print stuff as about groceries and household items. Many times I've seen a book that's years or decades out of print selling for $100+ on Amazon when eBay has two dozen copies for $20-$30 each.

I think it all stems from the same thing. Dishonest Amazon sellers know that most Amazon shoppers don't price check, so they can all get away with selling way over market price as long as everyone selling a given item stays the course.

I've mentioned elsewhere that I dropped eBay because of a series of bad experiences with sellers. I switched to Goodwill, which was OK, but sometimes you just want to buy something used actually that works and doesn't smell like cat vomit.

Last week I tried Mercari, and it was... OK. Better selection than Goodwill. The shippers don't seem to be in a hurry to get things out. Both sellers offered excuses when they missed Mercari's three day window. But the stuff finally got here.

Can anyone recommend another marketplace? Something not Alibaba or DX.com?

I dont like Facebook. That being said, I've had great experiences with Facebook marketplace. The creepiness works in the buyers favor because you get a name and face of the person selling.

Agreed, which is why I really love camel camel camel. Makes me a much more informed consumer. I wish they had other sites that they tracked.

They used to, but I think the other vendors made them stop, and they don't have the same affiliate program that Amazon does.

I think a lot of people were using Prime to small quantity low-margin items, and they were losing on shipping costs.

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