this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2024
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My girl was looking for a dress for Halloween. Yesterday she found one on Amazon for € 35 and put it in the cart, but did not buy it. Today she looked it up again and it was € 50 so she asked me to look it up with my phone with my Amazon account - it turned out to be € 23 for me, less than half of what it’s for her!

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[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 168 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

Sure it's the same seller?? I'm pretty sure Amazon does not show different prices to different people. But the same product is often offered by several sellers, for different prices. And if for example one of you has Prime and fast shipping activated, it'll show the fastest option. Which might be more expensive. I'm pretty sure that's what's happening here. It'll say somewhere: Sold by XY, ships from Amazon.com. Make sure it says the same thing there.

Of if she put it into the cart and now Amazon sticks with the exact option... If the specific seller increased their prices over night, the shopping cart might stick to the seller and it becomes more expensive for her... While Amazon will offer you a different seller that's cheaper today. But everyone can choose which seller to buy from, if there are multiple for a product.

[–] cogitase@lemmy.dbzer0.com 96 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Price tracking systems like Keepa and CamelCamelCamel wouldn't work if they started doing this. I can verify that, when I get alerts, the price on Amazon is the same as the alert price.

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

yeah and I've done a lot of chatting about amazon products online at reddit, forums, etc over the last 20 years or whatever and never once seen people get different prices on the same amazon link.

[–] lunarul@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There are definitely different prices when I'm logged in vs when I'm not. My wife sends me a links to products, and I usually open any link in incognito windows. Several times I was not seeing the same price as her. Opening the same link on my account would show the same price.

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[–] Krauerking@lemy.lol 2 points 1 week ago

I do get different prices I have noticed from shared links but I also don't have a prime account. The weirder part being that a lot of the time my prices seem lower without the account.

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[–] IamAnonymous@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

This is the answer. I wanted to buy a pole saw and kept seeing different prices just throughout the day and later I noticed that it was from different sellers

[–] LostXOR@fedia.io 11 points 1 week ago

Yeah I've definitely been caught off guard by the different sellers selling identical products before. Check the URL and see if the ID is the same, it probably won't be.

[–] chaospatterns@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

Yeah there's a few reasons why the offer that wins the buy box (the term for which merchants offer is shown to the customer prominently) and is complex, but I wouldn't consider it particularly sinister or designed to mislead. If one person has prime and the other doesn't, it might weight more towards a prime offer which may be more expensive, a price from a merchant may have changed, or gone out of stock.

[–] Boozilla@lemmy.world 69 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Can OP (or anyone) provide a legitimate source for this?

From what I can find, Amazon and its partners do dynamic pricing (based on various algorithms) but I can find no evidence / source that it does personalized individualized pricing.

IOW, dynamic pricing is not done at the individual shopper level, but can be based on many variables like lightning deals, sudden spikes in demand, inventory issues (over supply / under supply) and various other factors which are not related to the individual shopper.

Anecdotal evidence is interesting, but not persuasive.

[–] Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 week ago

I haven't seen any studies, I seem to remember there was some news reports many years ago.

I do know that I've stood in my living room, on the same wifi, and looked art the same item from Amazon on my phone and my brother in laws phone and seen different prices. But that's just another anecdote.

[–] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Amazon doesn't track users, but it does have various sellers selling the same items. The search results aren't always in the same order and sometimes the price on the item page is based on whichever seller has that item.

For example, I wanted a faux leather jacket. I found dozens of them in various sizes from different sellers. Changing the size on one page changed the seller entirely.

[–] WhatThaFudge@lemmy.sdf.org 55 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 33 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Amazon countered price tracking by introducing coupons that only apply at checkout. Some products only use coupons for discounting now.

Just be aware that these prices may not be the true lows.

[–] BlackAura@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That explains why I see coupons more and more. Ty.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I’ve never seen a coupon on amazon

[–] Krauerking@lemy.lol 6 points 1 week ago

It's often a checkbox in green near the checkout button if the item and can be the most absurd percentages that shift daily and are often better discounts than sale days.

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[–] barsquid@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

Yes, and Prime-only discounts, so they cannot easily be scraped.

[–] BeneGesseritWitch@sh.itjust.works 51 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I haven't experienced that, but I used to do my amazon purchases at the end of the month until I noticed all the prices get raised around that time. So now I shop without rhythm to not attract the price inflation worm

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

The price must flow!

[–] GBU_28@lemm.ee 30 points 1 week ago (2 children)

This is an industry wide thing.

Some vendors detect if you are on a Mac, and the assumption is.you have money, and therefore the prices are higher

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 31 points 1 week ago

If they detect that you're using a 19 year old ThinkPad with Arch linux, they aggressively increase the price on thigh-high rainbow socks.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 week ago

changing my user agent to Brave so everyone thinks I lost my money to scams

[–] BigTrout75@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Then what about 🐪🐪🐪?

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 3 points 1 week ago

Another comment pointed out that apparently amazon fighting this with coupon system

[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Clear her browsing data and try again, this happens with flights too.

This is why fingerprinting is an issue.

Sidenote. I went to by a boxset of books for my partner and it was ~50 for the set, I got back to pay the next day and it is 100. On ye third day it is ~70 with a note that it is down from 110. Scumbaggery.

[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Use Firefox and max out all of its security settings. When you do this, the fingerprint protection is so good that not even Google can ID my PC anymore. I have to pull out my phone and confirm it's me every time I log in.

[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 2 points 1 week ago

Camelcamelcamel is also good for seeing pricing shenanigans like this too. A box set a relative asked for was marked as $100 but on sale for $30 and checking camelcamelcamel I could see it's rarely listed at its list price and basically always marked down to $25-35 with spurts of time at $40-50

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Some products have discounted prices for Prime members.

[–] Nikls94@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Neither of us has prime

[–] satanmat@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yep. Dynamic pricing.

Other people have reported it with travel sites when looking at flights, you get different prices on a Mac vs windows.

Vendors of any ilk would love to be able to adjust prices per customer.

[–] pivot_root@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

I need to try with my user agent set to a Chromebook. Maybe I'll even get a discount.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

But does it fit you?

[–] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 week ago

I only serf Amazon on private without being logging in, if I find something I like, then I copy the link to my regular browser.

If you’re not gonna give a lurker a good price, I’m not interested.

[–] Geobloke@lemm.ee 8 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Does no one cross ship any more for the best deal? I haven't trusted online pricing in ages

[–] Creeoyfred@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

What is cross ship?

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] TriflingToad@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

My guess is that it's something like camelcamelcamel which shows the prices over time in a graph? Here's an example of a frog plushie https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B09RN4YCXG?context=search&cpf=new-used

[–] richie510@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

People should never trust Amazon or the "% off deal" that Amazon is advertising. Always verify against camelcamelcamel.com to ensure that the price is actually a deal and not artificially inflated due to some demand spike or their algorithm thinking that you really need it right now.

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[–] Geobloke@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago
[–] cuuube@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yup, I have this same experience with my personal account vs. the business one I use at work. The business one has a higher price a lot of the time.

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[–] foggy@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Adblock premium cost is wildly different based on location.

Using a VPN I have found everything from $15/yr to $40/yr

[–] Glytch@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

You're paying for an ad blocker? uBlock origin is free and fully featured.

[–] Nikls94@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I pay for Mullvad VPN, that’s €60/yr ($65)

I know it’s much but I prefer mailing them a letter with the money to stay anonymous

[–] foggy@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I am using mullvad vpn as well.

I am saying that AdBlock premium has a different cost based on your location, which you can switch with your VPN.

[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Use uBlock origin instead. Cost is $0 forever, and it has the best adblocking by far.

You can augment that with an NextDNS account to do ad filtering at the DNS level. It is a pay service technically, but their free tier is very generous.

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