Steve was going to split the cost of a TomTom GPS Navigator unit with a friend so they could give it to his sister as a gift. They were having trouble figuring out how to split it, though, because Steve—who is a paying Amazon Prime member—was being offered the unit for $300, while his random stranger friend was seeing it for $50 less.
Regarding Amazon Prime, I have always touted and encouraged others to purchase Amazon Prime because I thought it was an incredible savings. Two-day shipping was ALWAYS two-day shipping with no delays. Of course, it boosted the amount of products I purchased on Amazon, but I always believed they offered the best prices. However, when shopping for my sister’s birthday present for a Tom Tom One XL Navi system for her car, I noticed something incredibly shocking. As an Amazon Prime member, I was being quoted a HIGHER price for the same exact item a person who was NOT a member of Amazon Prime was looking at. A friend who would have been splitting the cost of the gift saw the item as $250, whereas I only had the option of adding the product for $300. I was incredulous.
It’s clear to us, and we hope to Steve, that this is not a case of Amazon offering different pricing to members and non-members—instead, it’s a case of a third-party vendor simply offering a better deal. When you compare the two screenshots, you can see that the cheaper option is actually being offered by another company, which can discount its merchandise all it likes and make up the difference in other ways—for example, with shipping fees (although in this case, free shipping is offered with the cheaper deal). Steve should just forgo Amazon Prime and buy the cheaper item.
 |
 |
But this does raise a question—is Amazon Prime a valuable product to purchase? This is the strongest example we’ve seen yet of its limitations. Sure, you may save on shipping over the course of your membership (provided you order enough from them)—but you’re stuck with Amazon’s inventory and prices if you want to use Amazon Prime, even when there are vendors who can offer better deals.
The appeal behind Amazon Prime is that Amazon’s prices are good enough to make this whole scheme work. Then there are gotchas like the TomTom.
Update: Based on the comments below, it appears a lot of readers feel that I’m saying that Amazon Prime customers can’t see or take advantage of the better deals on the site. This is not the case. I’ve edited the headline slightly and added more text to make some assumptions very explicit, and to better focus on the issue of whether or not Amazon Prime is valuable. —Chris
More From Consumerist
-
Netflix CEO Calls Amazon Prime Videos A “Confusing Mess”
-
The Heaviest Item On Amazon To Qualify For Free Shipping: A 1,509-Pound Gun Safe
-
Delivery Guy Thinks This A Wise Place To Hide My Amazon Package
-
Amazon Marketplace Dispute Leaves Me With No Money, No Navigation System
-
How Can Amazon Not Understand The Actual Purpose Of A Gift Receipt?
I was confused about a higher price bring shown AND having to wait for the an out of stock item with amazon prime vs. a cheaper and in stock item from an another amazon vendor so I wrote Amazon about it. For me the “new” part of “New and used” was a change. I believe that there was only used items there before they added “new”. So I did not ever look at it. I’d still like them to show the cheapest item when Amazon prime items are out of stock but I was pretty happy with their response.
***************************************
My name is Brett O’Keefe of Amazon.com’s Executive Customer Relations. Jeff Bezos received your e-mail and has asked that I respond on his behalf.
Thank you for giving us the chance to address your concerns that our customers are being offered different prices for items on our site.
I want to assure you that this is not the case, but also to take this opportunity to explain why it may have seemed to be.
While all of our customers are offered the same prices for our items, we make Prime-eligible items easier to find for Prime members by automatically selecting them as the most prominent offer on our pages. We do this based on the understanding that our Prime members subscribe to this service because they want their items fast, with free shipping, and will usually prefer to utilize their benefits where possible.
Occasionally, when viewing an item as a Prime member you may see the Amazon offering of an item, but when viewing it as a non-Prime customer you might see one of our merchants offerings instead. This can impact the price of the most-prominent listing, but any other offers for that item will still be available to you under the “More Buying Choices” heading on the product page, with the price and seller fully displayed should you choose to select those offers instead. The order in which these are listed may change, but the price is not affected.
I’d also like to thank you for letting us know about the pricing discrepancy between our offering for the Western Digital hard drive, and “AOnSale’s”. As I?m sure you know, we strive to offer a competitive price for all of the merchandise sold by Amazon; we’re looking into why there was such a large difference in this case.
I’m very sorry for any disappointment this may have caused but I’d like to thank you again for taking the time to share your concerns with us. We realize that your experience reflects on our company as a whole and we work very hard to utilize feedback from valued customers like you when making future decisions. Please know that we’ll continue to respond to these concerns and make improvements whenever possible.
Dumb post about dumb people. The point of Amazon prime is free fast shipping NOT cheapest prices. If you’re dumb enough not to do the math and see what is cheaper with shipping included, then that’s your problem. Don’t blame Amazon.
This article needs to be made clearer. The heading and pics make it seem as if amazon charges prime customers higher costs than non prime custormers, which isn’t the case.
This article, in my opinion, is this close to having grounds for Amazon to come after Consumerist for false information/advertising. This site is a blog, yes, but it needs to be accurate and not provide misleading titles and information–otherwise the site is doing exactly what we complain corporations do.
At least this Chris was willing to add additional info to help clarify his points (but the heading and pics should be changed). That’s more than a certain BP did when his article gave out inaccurate information on Target.
@TehRev: I don’t think the article needs to be removed, but the heading and pics need to be changed. When I saw this at first, it totally made me think amazon was raising the prices for Prime members. Not everyone clicks on the article to read, just to see the pics and heading.
@Chris Walters: I had Amazon Prime’s free trial for 3 months. I would look at the price of the Prime item, then look at the vendors and calculate shipping costs to see which came out cheaper.
In no way was I forced to purchase only Prime items. I don’t understand this locking you in. I bought from 3rd party vendors as well as Amazon.
I found that Amazon Prime offers better pricing to its members than a regular Joe logging onto its website. (I was about to say, ‘…regular Joe walking off the street.’ but I realized you can’t quite do that with an online website!) That being said, I don’t take that for granted and I ALWAYS comparison shop before buying at Amazon. Amazon, in my experience, is the cheapest about 85% of the time. The rest of the time, there are better deals at Office Depot or Worst Buy using coupons.