Amazon simplifies my life. To be blunt, I don’t care about the “cost” (fiscal or otherwise).
In a functioning democracy, not for long
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law#Th...
It is a huge leap to assume that the entire population doesn't care about the literal cost of something they are buying.
That is something that might be substantially harder to successfully sue under US antitrust law.
Consumers aren't paying any more. Consumers are just seeing a number with shipping prices built in.
- competition is good in and of itself, so new entrants should not be harmed and competition should be promoted and monopoly restricted purely on the basis of promoting competition as a policy goal.
- creation of new markets should be viewed as a policy goal in and of itself. Thus if a firm impedes a burgeoning secondary market or new derived market, that impediment should be viewed as a violation of anti-trust law.
- consumer harm is also a factor, but only one of three factors.
IMO, our maniacal focus on consumption while abandoning promotion of production and healthy market competition is behind many of our economic policy blunders.
Many of us , myself included, after filling up a prime-enabled cart then go to walmart.com or some other such e-commerce retailer and then do exactly the same process you described still to check the price against Amazon.
Many times I go with the other retailer due to cost savings.
If Amazon prices things and incorporates shipping costs in such ways that people know they must double check them against other e-commerce vendors, where does the convenience and time savings come in?
What i'm saying : You're taking for granted that your convenience comes at a cost, in most cases.
Usually, if it is cheaper at all, it's for a week plus delivery and only a few percent cheaper in total. Most of the time though, it's actually still more expensive.
I've also bought from sellers off of Amazon as they offered coupon codes and paypal purchases. It's not ideal, but it seems possible to get around this. I think it's easier for manufactures that sell direct than resellers though.
The item I buy normally costs over that but every once in a while they'll send a coupon that offers 15% off that literally drops the price to like $1 under that free shipping price.
So the "coupon" ends up making it more expensive in total because the free-shipping is based off the post-discount price.
We're talking about a difference of seconds in the checkout experience. It adds to the perception of convenience, but but I don't see the miniscule time savings of the Amazon experience as being worth a higher price on the same item I could get for less elsewhere.
I've wasted far more time with Amazon trying to decide if an item is legitimate, and dealing with returns of broken, counterfeit, or misrepresented goods, than I have saved in their checkout experience.