How Amazon Sneaks Extra Money for You
Amazon is amazing! I am a huge fan. A few points and clicks and products will arrive at your door. The convenience is unparalleled, but Amazon is not your friend. It is a company that wants to maximize profit with a few sneaky tricks up its sleeve:
Fake Discounts
Seeing 10%, 20% or 30% can really be enticing. Getting a good deal can release dopamine giving a rush to deal hunters. It can push an on the fence shopper to be a purchaser. Who doesn’t like a good deal? No one, and that's why Amazon like other companies will artificially raise prices just to slash them with a discounted 14% off. It can create urgency as sales are only on for a limited time with their “lightning deals” pushing you to buy quickly before pricing goes up or sell out. It can create inflated value, for example a coffee mug for $10 or a coffee mug on sale for $10 that was listed for $15. Which one seems better? Just on price, you would assume the $15 one as pricing is an indicator of quality. We assume if something costs more it is better.
Dynamic Pricing
Amazon's prices are not static compared to Toys R Us. They go up and down a hundred times a year or even month. This is when pricing changes based on competitors pricing, supply and demand, time of day and even browsing history. This is quite frustrating when shopping if you are not super informed on current pricing of deck umbrellas. Is the price currently high or low?
Amazon’s Algorithm
Amazon often promotes its own products or sponsored listings over others, potentially steering you towards higher-priced items. It is the gatekeeper to what you see on its platform and it is constantly steering you to spend and to spend top dollar on as many products as it can. You may be able to type in the keywords but it controls what is seen and what order it appears.
Amazon Prime
Amazon sneaks extra money from you through their subscription service Amazon Prime. While Prime offers fast shipping and access to streaming services, it also encourages you to make more frequent purchases, sometimes leading to impulse buys that you might not have made otherwise.
Secret Weapon for Amazon
So how do you fight back against the giant that is Amazon with its sneaky pricing strategies? The brilliant plugin for your browser, Keepa. Keepa is an Amazon tracker that can load right into whatever browser you use and then adds pricing history for 4 billion Amazon products.
It can tell you if the price is low or high based on historic data that is saved. See that a price was low a month ago then set an email notification when the price goes down to that point again.
It will save you time shopping around and save you from buying when the price is high. If you are shopping with Amazon and not using Keepa you are missing out on valuable insights that could save you money and time. Keepa empowers you to make informed purchasing decisions by providing historical pricing data and real-time alerts. It's your secret weapon against Amazon's pricing strategies, ensuring that you always get the best deal possible.
It would be foolish to not at least glance at the pricing to acknowledge if you are getting ripped off or not. So download it and start saving today - Keepa.com. Sadly you will have to break out your laptops as this is only for desktop version of Amazon.ca as Amazon would never purposely put this in their mobile app.
If you would like to support this blog, please click the affiliate link below before making a purchase on Amazon.
If you found this helpful and would like help budgeting or investing please email me at taylormckeecoaching@gmail.com
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