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I browse amazon a lot and save items I might want to buy in my wish list on there.
I've noticed on more than one occasion, after I have browsed a certain item repeatedly over a few days or weeks, the price often increases!!!
I tried an experiment with at item in my wish list - a pair of computer speakers (apprx $20)
The price went up two times - about $4 total - over a week when I browsed the item often. I decided to stop browsing it for a week, and now the price has dropped back down to $0.20 less than the original price.
I realize a few dollars isn't much, but the fact that this happen makes me a bit annoyed....even though it is their right to have a computer program that increases prices when interest increases.
Not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but now you can be aware!
The price on these computer speakers has changed at least 4 times in the past 2 weeks.
I've watched a similar thing happen on many other items.
Since I posted the original post in this thread, the price on another item on my list has changed - it went up $1 from $19.99 to $20.99
I realize these are small price changes, but the fact that its happening at all makes me less inclined to just click on an item and buy it. It makes me want to watch the price fluctuate over a few weeks to see how high and how low it will go.
The same thing happens at brick and mortar stores too. You probably don't notice it because you don't track prices there the way you might online. I've had mdse that changed prices several times a week where I work, sometimes up, then down, then up again.
Doesn't seem to be any logical reasoning to it, so I assume it's related to something behind the scenes, maybe the company got a really good buy on a huge shipment of something, cost of delivery went up, etc. I am convinced some of it is just somebody's finger slipping on the computer keyboard!
Well, now that I have that amazon price tracker, I feel much better. Its nice to be able to see the price range on a product and then decide when its worth it to buy. I am guessing many prices will increase subtly as it gets closer to the prime shopping days for the holidays (which I am sure amazon has down to a science).
The same thing happens at brick and mortar stores too. You probably don't notice it because you don't track prices there the way you might online. I've had mdse that changed prices several times a week where I work, sometimes up, then down, then up again.
Doesn't seem to be any logical reasoning to it, so I assume it's related to something behind the scenes, maybe the company got a really good buy on a huge shipment of something, cost of delivery went up, etc. I am convinced some of it is just somebody's finger slipping on the computer keyboard!
I did notice that over the summer when we were buying bundles of shingles at Lowe's. We'd buy 5-10 bundles at a time because my pickup has almost 200K on the original suspension and I didn't want to break anything...we'd go once a week or so and the price would move back and forth $4 a bundle here and there.
I'm a seller on Amazon, maybe I can shed some light on the price fluctuations.
Any given item at Amazon may have multiple sellers offering it. Amazon could have 20 of those speakers, each one offered by a different seller, but physically located in - and shipped from - the Amazon warehouses.
These sellers that send their inventory to be sold directly from the Amazon warehouse (called Fulfillment By Amazon or FBA) often use a 're-pricer' program that automatically adjusts the prices of their inventory to match the lowest price on Amazon. When the lowest price item is sold, the re-pricer goes through their inventory, compares it to other seller's items, and jacks up the price again to match the next lowest price. It is updated daily in the Amazon database (which is the price you see).
Not all sellers use a repricer (I don't, but I'm not a high-volume seller). If you happen to pick an item from a seller that has has fewer transactions, the price will probably not change.
When the price goes down, it just means Amazon has acquired more inventory for that particular item, and the new seller has priced it competitively.
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