Take Advantage of Others
A customer, Greg, called me yesterday to say “thanks” for the wonderful book he received. He said it was “like new” and the price was amazing. Turns out he also had a question, and he thought I might know the answer.
Greg relayed his Amazon purchasing experience. It had been awhile since his last purchase, and he wanted to buy a copy of “Between You and Me” by Mike Wallace. He did a search, found the book, and checked the used offerings. Surprised and delighted, he surveyed several of the 100 or so used copies, and the Lowest Used Price was about $1.50. He picked one that looked good (happened to be mine) and added it to his Cart. To complete his purchase, he needed to first create a new account and login. This is where it gets interesting. The price of the book he picked had not changed, but the Lowest Used Price had jumped several dollars and there were now only 10 used and new offerings, not 100+. He was shocked. It seemed that once he had logged in, he was only able to see a small number of more expensive offerings. What was going on?
Greg wondered if I could explain this for him. He had heard of companies showing higher prices to customers based on their buying history. Did I think Amazon was possibly hiding the lower priced items from Greg once he logged in and they knew who he was?
I think it is easy to underestimate the volume of business Amazon does, and how unproductive it would be for Amazon to deceive their customers. You also have thousands of independent merchants competing for customers in Amazon’s Marketplace. A significant false move on Amazon’s part would not go unnoticed for a minute, literally, in such a competitive market.
So, in short, no, Amazon is certainly not playing shell games with customers, especially using the offerings of Marketplace Merchants. Let’s look at this another way and rephrase the question from, “Is Amazon hiding cheap items from big spending customers?” to “Is Amazon collecting data on the shopping habits of customers in order to enhance their shopping experience and sell more stuff?” You bet your bottom dollar they are!
Amazon relies heavily on the input of customers. Customers review the products they sell. They organize products into ListMania! lists that help buyers find interesting items. Customers provide feedback on the services of Amazon Marketplace sellers. They become referral sellers by adding Amazon product links to their own websites or by selling their own inventory in Amazon’s Marketplace. And of course, Amazon customers shop the site, enabling related product recommendations and an answer to the question, “What do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item?” These very powerful features and many more are the life blood of Amazon.com. Amazon has very successfully leveraged the collective power of its customers to create one of most dynamic and user-centric shopping venues on the web.
At this point the cynics are saying “but, but, but” and claiming that their privacy and individualism is being risked for the benefit of the corporate giant. I ride that bandwagon from time to, and I think it is important that we all make smart decisions about how and where we spend our money. I have no reservations about Amazon. They have proven their worth to me time and time again with valuable and dependable services.
Greg apparently gave Amazon the benefit of the doubt too since he went ahead and completed his purchase. How do I explain what Greg saw that day? It turns out the same product is offered two different ways, the second being a bargain priced remainder, and for whatever reason, the pricing of the used offerings associated with each are oddly out of alignment due to the inconsistent pricing practices of independent sellers. It was an anomaly. Any savvy shopper like Greg will find the best deal among the two pretty easily.
These days part of being a smart shopper is knowing where to go to find unbiased helpful answers to your pre-purchase questions. You would be foolish not to maintain a healthy level of skepticism when reading the glowing review of a book. If it sounds too good to be true, it was probably written by the author’s mother, and if it rips the author to shred’s you might be reading the comments of the former spouse. Yet, when averaged out, the input of your fellow shoppers empowers you to make buying decisions with unprecedented success. But, don’t just take advantage of others. Give something back too. Slap some stars on your latest purchase!
There is a very simple thing you can do to help our small business thrive. Just click the following link. It takes you to Amazon.com. That’s it! Really!
Book Smarts
Thursday, September 21, 2006
