6 ms·

Amazon wants to make people avoid checking prices on items with features like this, and that seriously scares me.

expertentipp 8y ago
The optimal price will be calculated accordingly (considering "temporary local monopolies", personal profile, and purchase history), no need for the customer to deal with pesky numbers. /s
- wavefunction 8y ago
  I note your /s but it seems reasonable, as long as you consider the optimal to be figured on behalf of Amazon.
gkoberger 8y ago
Eh, sure, they want to lower the cost of friction. But I don't think their goal is to ramp up prices. For many things (toilet paper, detergent, etc), it's really nice to not have to think about it.
- m12k 8y ago
  Reminds me of an anecdote I heard about the response from a billionaire when some startup founders were pitching their sports tracking app to him: "I don't really get why the business case needs to be so fancy - I made my first million selling toilet paper". Never underestimate the value of selling something that people need to buy on a weekly or daily basis.
- xref 8y ago
  Amazon prices fluctuate wildly depending on myriad things: user/IP (can jump on tor and see prices change), stock levels, time of day, A/B price testing etc etc. viewing the price graphs at camelcamelcamel.com are really eye opening Basically I’d never be able to trust I was getting a fair price at the instant I pushed the button.
  - cs02rm0 8y ago
    That's interesting, I haven't ever noticed that (not suggesting it doesn't happen, I'm sure A/B testing must happen). I use camelcamelcamel a lot and haven't seen any discrepancy between what I Amazon shows me and what camelcamelcamel alerts. Maybe I'm mostly tracking slightly higher priced items and they're less subject to change?
- dingaling 8y ago
  Toilet paper and detergent are prices that my wife watches like a hawk and then buys in bulk with BOGOFs or othet offers. They have incredible markups otherwise.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    I trust Costco to have appropriate price/quality ratios. Not so low that manufacturers are cutting quality, and not so high that it would be a good use of my time to research elsewhere.
    - lazerwalker 8y ago
      I dunno if this is still true, but it used to be the case (10+ years ago?) that Costco's pricing model was transparently "charge X% over cost", with X constant over all items. This meant some items at Costco were expensive relative to what you could find elsewhere on sale, but it also meant it was phenomenally useful to figure out what items other retails were making obscene amounts of profit on.
      - pier25 8y ago
        I live in Mexico and the Costco products I regularly buy have barely changed their price in years.
    - tha_nose 8y ago
      You put a lot of trust in multinational corporations. Given the history of price fixing, cutting corners, etc to make an extra buck, I'm not sure I'd be so trusting. If your assertions are correct, then competition is unnecessary since costco or any company would have the appropriate price/quality ratios. So we should only have 1 monopoly in every industry. What's the point of having other large warehouse retailers when Cost is going to have the right price/quality? It's just redundant and wasteful.
      - lotsofpulp 8y ago
        I didn't mention any company other than Costco. They have built their trust with me over a few decades of consistent service and objectively cultivating better working environments than other similar establishments. I also know all of their net income comes from membership fees, which means the margins for their products is likely going into essentials (I haven't heard of their organization indulging on lavish pay and parties and whatnot). Of course, as a buyer, it is in my interest to have multiple vendors around to keep them competing. Unfortunately, I don't have the resources to go to other wholesalers also. However, technology does tend to reward the most efficient with all of the gains, so we seem to be inevitably going towards a future with fewer competitors and at most 2 or 3 businesses dominating each field. I don't know how to solve that problem, since as a buyer, I greatly benefit from the conveniences the efficiencies of scale afford me, but I know in the long term, the tables can turn and the seller can gain power over the buyer.
m-p-3 8y ago
I'd be okay if they redid the thing with an eInk display. You press once to activate the device and retrieves the current price, and you have to press it once more to confirm the purchase. To be honest I'd still buy one just to tinker with it and see how far I can customize it to do something else, but Amazon wouldn't benefit from it so they'd have an incentive to block people from doing so.
- bearcobra 8y ago
  I believe they offer an "IoT" version for this use case
  - m-p-3 8y ago
    Interesting, I'll have to search. I was already planning to build my own with an ESP8266.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- leetcrew 8y ago
  I think the single button with no screen is actually kind of a nice idea. you buy a few, put them in strategic places (sponge button by the sink, paper towel button by the paper towels, etc), and just hit the button when you're running low on something. the main deal breaker with the current setup is that the price might shoot up unexpectedly, but this could be fixed with the ability to set a price limit when you configure the device (eg, don't spend more than $5 on a pack of paper towels).
avgDev 8y ago
This is why I rarely shop amazon now. I became an amazon customer because I am cheap and want to get the best deal. However, I have been remodeling my house for the last 8 months. I found that many things are just more expensive on amazon. People create businesses around buying cheap and reselling on amazon. I also started to prefer actual physical stores. I am not dependent on amazons mercy when it comes to returns. Some items I can return for free at Kohls, some items I had to pay shipping and amazon customer service could not tell me WHY. Some representatives told me they no longer work with kohls, some told me "not all items are eligible", yada yada. In other words amazon is not a good company with clear guidelines. To be honest now that I wrote this I will probably just cancel my membership.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  I still find it handy for some things like: ebooks, physical books, some [small] electronics, odds and ends. And frankly just plain niche stuff that is difficult or time-consuming to find locally. I went out on the weekend to find a replacement for a sink drain stopper lift rod's ball rod part (ours rotted at the end and failed) at my local hardware store. They only sold an entire assembly for $24 (plus whatever ancillary plumbing materials I don't have like putty). The entire drain assembly would have cost me over an hours work—if I didn't make a mess of anything. The part isn't urgent. Just until we get it we have no sink drain stopper. I was able to find the single part I needed online for less than half the price of the entire assembly, it will arrive on Friday, and replacing that part will take me all of five minutes. Now if I wanted a replacement assembly, I'd probably shop locally. The same assembly on Amazon ranged from around the same price to $100. You really want to know what you're looking for! For what it's worth, I'd never consider a dash button, either. But the online shop still suits me for some items. Also quite looking forward to them advertising similar sink parts to me for the next few years...
  - snazz 8y ago
    The hierarchy of buying: - Brick-and-mortar retail store: basic necessities. Cheaper for easy-to-find items. Relatively small selection. - Amazon: Books and other items where selection trumps price, to an extent. I can get all sorts of books on Amazon that I couldn’t at a bookstore. I wouldn’t buy a perishable good on Amazon and they likely don’t have more niche items. - eBay: Rare or used items. Compared with Amazon, used items are a lot cheaper (compare ‘ThinkPad X220’ on both Amazon and eBay). The largest selection comes from eBay, but it is also the most variable in quality. I noticed the following trend: 98% of my shopping is done at brick-and-mortar stores (mostly groceries). 1.5% comes from Amazon. The remaining .5% from eBay is usually just what I can’t find from Amazon.
Balgair 8y ago
Semi-related: Amazon price tracker camelcamelcamel is a great resource for buying more expensive items. https://camelcamelcamel.com/ https://camelcamelcamel.com/
WorldMaker 8y ago
The Dash buttons always sent an email with the price and a cancel button. Price transparency seems to be a part of why they are discontinuing Dash buttons. Amazon here is recommending users swap to Alexa voice devices (and suggests many Dash users already have), which has a voice flow for checking the price before buying. Not that Amazon is the most trustworthy company in all respects, but this announcement certainly isn't because Amazon wanting to make people avoid checking item prices.
whalesalad 8y ago
It seriously scares you?

The optimal price will be calculated accordingly (considering "temporary local monopolies", personal profile, and purchase history), no need for the customer to deal with pesky numbers. /s

wavefunction 8y ago
I note your /s but it seems reasonable, as long as you consider the optimal to be figured on behalf of Amazon.

gkoberger 8y ago

Eh, sure, they want to lower the cost of friction. But I don't think their goal is to ramp up prices. For many things (toilet paper, detergent, etc), it's really nice to not have to think about it.

m12k 8y ago
Reminds me of an anecdote I heard about the response from a billionaire when some startup founders were pitching their sports tracking app to him: "I don't really get why the business case needs to be so fancy - I made my first million selling toilet paper". Never underestimate the value of selling something that people need to buy on a weekly or daily basis.
xref 8y ago
Amazon prices fluctuate wildly depending on myriad things: user/IP (can jump on tor and see prices change), stock levels, time of day, A/B price testing etc etc. viewing the price graphs at camelcamelcamel.com are really eye opening Basically I’d never be able to trust I was getting a fair price at the instant I pushed the button.
- cs02rm0 8y ago
  That's interesting, I haven't ever noticed that (not suggesting it doesn't happen, I'm sure A/B testing must happen). I use camelcamelcamel a lot and haven't seen any discrepancy between what I Amazon shows me and what camelcamelcamel alerts. Maybe I'm mostly tracking slightly higher priced items and they're less subject to change?
dingaling 8y ago
Toilet paper and detergent are prices that my wife watches like a hawk and then buys in bulk with BOGOFs or othet offers. They have incredible markups otherwise.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  I trust Costco to have appropriate price/quality ratios. Not so low that manufacturers are cutting quality, and not so high that it would be a good use of my time to research elsewhere.
  - lazerwalker 8y ago
    I dunno if this is still true, but it used to be the case (10+ years ago?) that Costco's pricing model was transparently "charge X% over cost", with X constant over all items. This meant some items at Costco were expensive relative to what you could find elsewhere on sale, but it also meant it was phenomenally useful to figure out what items other retails were making obscene amounts of profit on.
    - pier25 8y ago
      I live in Mexico and the Costco products I regularly buy have barely changed their price in years.
  - tha_nose 8y ago
    You put a lot of trust in multinational corporations. Given the history of price fixing, cutting corners, etc to make an extra buck, I'm not sure I'd be so trusting. If your assertions are correct, then competition is unnecessary since costco or any company would have the appropriate price/quality ratios. So we should only have 1 monopoly in every industry. What's the point of having other large warehouse retailers when Cost is going to have the right price/quality? It's just redundant and wasteful.
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      I didn't mention any company other than Costco. They have built their trust with me over a few decades of consistent service and objectively cultivating better working environments than other similar establishments. I also know all of their net income comes from membership fees, which means the margins for their products is likely going into essentials (I haven't heard of their organization indulging on lavish pay and parties and whatnot). Of course, as a buyer, it is in my interest to have multiple vendors around to keep them competing. Unfortunately, I don't have the resources to go to other wholesalers also. However, technology does tend to reward the most efficient with all of the gains, so we seem to be inevitably going towards a future with fewer competitors and at most 2 or 3 businesses dominating each field. I don't know how to solve that problem, since as a buyer, I greatly benefit from the conveniences the efficiencies of scale afford me, but I know in the long term, the tables can turn and the seller can gain power over the buyer.

m-p-3 8y ago

I'd be okay if they redid the thing with an eInk display. You press once to activate the device and retrieves the current price, and you have to press it once more to confirm the purchase. To be honest I'd still buy one just to tinker with it and see how far I can customize it to do something else, but Amazon wouldn't benefit from it so they'd have an incentive to block people from doing so.

bearcobra 8y ago
I believe they offer an "IoT" version for this use case
- m-p-3 8y ago
  Interesting, I'll have to search. I was already planning to build my own with an ESP8266.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
leetcrew 8y ago
I think the single button with no screen is actually kind of a nice idea. you buy a few, put them in strategic places (sponge button by the sink, paper towel button by the paper towels, etc), and just hit the button when you're running low on something. the main deal breaker with the current setup is that the price might shoot up unexpectedly, but this could be fixed with the ability to set a price limit when you configure the device (eg, don't spend more than $5 on a pack of paper towels).

avgDev 8y ago

This is why I rarely shop amazon now. I became an amazon customer because I am cheap and want to get the best deal. However, I have been remodeling my house for the last 8 months. I found that many things are just more expensive on amazon. People create businesses around buying cheap and reselling on amazon. I also started to prefer actual physical stores. I am not dependent on amazons mercy when it comes to returns. Some items I can return for free at Kohls, some items I had to pay shipping and amazon customer service could not tell me WHY. Some representatives told me they no longer work with kohls, some told me "not all items are eligible", yada yada. In other words amazon is not a good company with clear guidelines. To be honest now that I wrote this I will probably just cancel my membership.

52-6F-62 8y ago
I still find it handy for some things like: ebooks, physical books, some [small] electronics, odds and ends. And frankly just plain niche stuff that is difficult or time-consuming to find locally. I went out on the weekend to find a replacement for a sink drain stopper lift rod's ball rod part (ours rotted at the end and failed) at my local hardware store. They only sold an entire assembly for $24 (plus whatever ancillary plumbing materials I don't have like putty). The entire drain assembly would have cost me over an hours work—if I didn't make a mess of anything. The part isn't urgent. Just until we get it we have no sink drain stopper. I was able to find the single part I needed online for less than half the price of the entire assembly, it will arrive on Friday, and replacing that part will take me all of five minutes. Now if I wanted a replacement assembly, I'd probably shop locally. The same assembly on Amazon ranged from around the same price to $100. You really want to know what you're looking for! For what it's worth, I'd never consider a dash button, either. But the online shop still suits me for some items. Also quite looking forward to them advertising similar sink parts to me for the next few years...
- snazz 8y ago
  The hierarchy of buying: - Brick-and-mortar retail store: basic necessities. Cheaper for easy-to-find items. Relatively small selection. - Amazon: Books and other items where selection trumps price, to an extent. I can get all sorts of books on Amazon that I couldn’t at a bookstore. I wouldn’t buy a perishable good on Amazon and they likely don’t have more niche items. - eBay: Rare or used items. Compared with Amazon, used items are a lot cheaper (compare ‘ThinkPad X220’ on both Amazon and eBay). The largest selection comes from eBay, but it is also the most variable in quality. I noticed the following trend: 98% of my shopping is done at brick-and-mortar stores (mostly groceries). 1.5% comes from Amazon. The remaining .5% from eBay is usually just what I can’t find from Amazon.

Balgair 8y ago

Semi-related: Amazon price tracker camelcamelcamel is a great resource for buying more expensive items. https://camelcamelcamel.com/ https://camelcamelcamel.com/

WorldMaker 8y ago

The Dash buttons always sent an email with the price and a cancel button. Price transparency seems to be a part of why they are discontinuing Dash buttons. Amazon here is recommending users swap to Alexa voice devices (and suggests many Dash users already have), which has a voice flow for checking the price before buying. Not that Amazon is the most trustworthy company in all respects, but this announcement certainly isn't because Amazon wanting to make people avoid checking item prices.

whalesalad 8y ago

It seriously scares you?