Amazon Stealth-Launches a Repricing Tool

by: IDKwhoIare

I know Amazon loves to let me know that a price in my cart has gone down.  Most of the time it is not enough to get excited about.  The notice does remind me that I have an abandoned cart and I will then either delete, move stuff to a wish list or buy. Always helpful to a site to get an abandoned cart moving :)

I do not have a firm opinion on this kind of Tool.  I have not seen any in action and I am not sure that it would be a value add for me as a Seller.  Now, if it also notified me that prices are changing and I could then go look to see what & why and if I want to change what I am doing...that could be valuable. However, a simple behind the scenes sub-routine that changes prices and never lets me know - not sure about it's usefulness to a small or low-volume seller.

I assume that it makes sense for Amazon to create their own, they know their site best. Especially if they want to run any other type off their site and thereby keeping the site secure and data-mining to themselves? I would think giving a 3rd party version access to the site to make the changes is not optimal security? Maybe that is not how it works.  I hope the experts here chime in on this :)

Wonder if they charge for this or if they will in the future.  

by: BuildingMyOwnSite

I sell Antique & Vintage, so right now, the Amazon thing doesn't apply much to me.  As a buyer, I HATE Amazon, and how they present search results.  I just bought 4 books there, spent 2 hours doing it, and didn't buy a single book that was the cheapest.  Jeeeesh they make it tough to find any one but the seller they want to present to you.

That said, the pressure exerted even in A&V through the magic of fixed, jury rigged search algorithms, eventually does much the same thing.  If you can't be seen, unless you are the cheapest, pretty soon you're forced to either lower your price, or quit.  If only the cheapest, or the ''Promoted'' can be seen, then you don't even have a chance to speak to customers, regarding Quality and Service.  And in the case of A&V, the enormous possible difference in the product.
 
What happened to the proverbial 3 legged stool of Quality, Service, & Price.  Not necessarily in that order, choose any order you like.  But what happened to anything more than Price?  

Just take the 1960's department store. Once or twice a year ''White Sale'', ''Suit Sale'', ''Furniture Sale''.  Never more than 15% off.  Worked good.  Service & Quality was whatever you chose, depending on the retailer (or catalog seller), and both were dependable.

I've given up telling anyone, ''At 70%, 80%, even 90% off, it was made to sell at that price''!  They're too happy telling you the $159.00 Coach purse bought at the ''Outlet Mall'' was really overstock, not made by 3rd shift workers, or a knockoff.  They don't know about ''3rd shift'' workers, but I do love asking them ''Why would you want an overstock Coach purse?''  ''Sounds like something no one else wanted''.  They care about a ''Viral Black Maned Lion Story'', but know nothing about the continued slaughter of Tens of Thousands of Tigers, Elephants, and Bears, for black market animal parts.

Back to Amazon, this is just more ''Race to the Bottom''.  This kind of pricing has NEVER done any market, any permanent good.  From the seller's side, it only serves to stifle the competition.  That way, there are less competitors to buy out, leaving the new, unregulated, modern American monopoly.  From the buyer's side, it continues to falsely educate the modern buyer, that everything is the same, only price matters.

Ask yourself:

1)  Do you REALLY think, that as a 3rd party seller, Amazon has your welfare in mind, with this new policy?

2)  In the end, what policy, by Amazon, Ebay, or Etsy, ever did anyone any good, except Amazon, Ebay, and Etsy!

by: donald

I wasted my time when I try to beat other sellers. It was a rat race. I simply did not made any worth while money. I'm not at Amazon for that so now I set my price and wait my turn. Sooner or later I sell when other sellers run out of inventory.

by: Moonwishes

I'm not into a repricer because it just promotes lower prices. I set my prices for what I want to sell them for. If they don't sell on Amazon maybe on eCRATER. I hate getting lovely little messages from Amazon telling me that I have the highest price on something and then give me a suggested lower price. Since they make some of their money from fees, you would think they would want us all to sell at higher prices.

Repricers can't understand the intangible buyer behavior. This past week I sold two copies of one of my items within about 12 hours of each other. With the first I checked the listing to check out my competition. My other copy had the Buy box and there was one other copy priced at less than half of mine. When the second one sold I went back and checked again, the cheaper one was still for sale and there had been no other listings that I could tell. Was it because of the Buy Box? Was it because of my greater amount of sales and feedback? My way of listing? Who knows, but it wasn't about the price, yet the repricer would have probably suggested dropping my price in half.

by: Chicago48

Back to Amazon, this is just more ''Race to the Bottom''.
^^
This.  None of this takes in the price for shipping goods, which adds to the cost of the product.  These days I only sell DVDs on AMZ.  They've restricted the FBM from selling about 50% of items-beauty, software, baby items.  Most of my clothing sales now come from Tradesy and now and then I sell on Ebay. These sites are making it hard for the FBMs to sell.  Period.  I'm just about ready to throw in the towel with AMZ.

by: Aleks

This info might be valuable for Amazon Sellers who are dissatisfied with auto-repricers.

There are software project out there, called www.Bindwise.com. It doesn't change your prices! Its goal is finding and delivering you insights, like price changes of competitors - you make decision and take action.

It goes even further, by letting you know immediately about negative feedback, also about your listing with poor information, and points exact places to improve.  

by: Bidonmine

I see this as good since it not only will lower the price, but it will raise the price as well.
You can set the low price so you don't have to race to the bottom and with a high price limit you can also set your item to not go beyond the reach of the buyer.

by: topdog

No question it will have the overall effect of lowering prices.
I absolutely HATE dealing with sellers that use a repricer. All that accomplishes is that the price keeps going lower into the bottomless pit, with the only real result is that all parties give up all of their margin.  

by: Big Red

For those who use automated repricing, one would be very foolish to use Amazon's tool over a private third party's tool.

Amazon is also a competitor on the Amazon marketplace (obviously), and in using their repricing tool one divulges to Amazon the minimum price at which one is willing to sell.

by: topdog

Most of the items we sell are MAP enforced, so we're restricted to selling at that MAP price, as are (most) our competitors. The problem is, there's always some jokers who comes along and goes a bit below, and it takes a while for the manufacturer to cut him off. Add in a repricer, they can go from a couple of $ below MAP (which often has little effect on our sales) to way below MAP (which will effect everyone). So yes, this will likely lower prices a good deal - to the point that even more of our manufacturers will ban Amazon sales

by: Tiffee Jasso

Americans should shy away from undercutting other sellers. To begin with, you cannot compete with Chinese sellers who can cut prices lower than best wholesale cost. Best you spend your time educating yourself and your family as to where to buy and who to buy from.