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Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day
- devoply 7y agoI recently "got" free echos from Amazon pricing error only to see the orders get cancelled and a single echo shipped at the normal prime day pricing though that was not what I agreed to.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- casefields 7y agoI got a couple of those as well but that's in a different ballpark then this goof up. Plus those were Amazons products.
- foota 7y agoHm, seems this post would have been more actionable a couple days ago :-)
- huangc10 7y agoThe deal (price mistake?) was only available for like 1 hr around 10 or 11 pm PST Monday night...but enough time for hundreds of mistaken orders.
- huangc10 7y agoThey will cancel majority of the purchases. However, if you were smart, you'd have chosen 1 day shipping and have received the item. Me? I was not smart and did not select 1 day shipping so it looks like my order will most likely be canceled once Amazon deals with this...
- christoph 7y agoHold out hope. It gives excellent publicity to Prime day and their brand if they don't cancel them - why ruin that with potentially bad publicity, etc. over what probably amounts to a few hundred thousand dollars, which they can easily afford to cover.
- piyush_soni 7y agoBecause they have done it quite a few times in the past.
- runevault 7y agoTechnically Amazon Canada but back in the day they mispriced Lisp in Small Pieces for really cheap and then cancelled almost every order. I only bought a copy that actually arrived of that book last year to make up for it. Need to finish plowing through it at some point, the part I read is so good.
- wsxcde 7y agoNah, the blowback they'd get from not honoring the purchasing would be terrible. More generally, Amazon are one of the few companies who understand that short term losses can lead to long-term goodwill and profit. So anyway, my prediction is that they will do nothing about your purchase.
- what_ever 7y agoEh, no one is going to stop using Amazon if Amazon didn't honor 2k camera for $94.
- giarc 7y agoYou're right. A few years ago Air Canada accidentally priced an $8000 flight pass for $99 or some low number. I bought two, as did hundreds of other people. Air Canada canceled them all and yet I still look up Air Canada prices every time I need to fly.
- inferiorhuman 7y agoEh, no one is going to stop using Amazon if Amazon didn't honor 2k camera for $94. Probably, but people might be disinclined to pay attention to prime day next year. It's definitely lost a lot of its luster now that Amazon mostly hawks their own cheap crap that nobody's that interested in. Me? I could see this easily being an accident that someone decided to let ride. Maybe they cancel a few orders, but I doubt they'd cancel most or all of them.
- what_ever 7y agoWell most of the people found these deals are the ones who will understand it.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago80 of those orders are over a million dollars. They're probably cancelling it. And very few people will give them "blowback" for not giving stuff away for free when the people "buying" it must have known.
- gingabriska 7y agoAmazon has made this mistake in past too and it seems they are unable to solve it. I think Amazon might start asking manufacturers to add remote bricking ability, so that when mistakes like this happens, Amazon remotely bricks the device before even customer gets to open it and then Amazon sends them an email, "it seems the device we sent you at unbelievably low price was broken before even reaching your door, if you return it you would receive a $20 gift card" )
- diogenescynic 7y agoIntentionally bricking an already sold item so the customer has to return it? There is no way Amazon will implement something even close to that. It’s also probably illegal.
- gingabriska 7y agoSale itself was a result of an error tho.
- rythie 7y agoThat’s a ridiculous solution. Many of those products can’t go online by themselves, that $13,000 lens can’t and most the cameras talk to a phone only, not the internet, and that’s even if people use that feature. I don’t why Sony, Canon or others would even consider this when no other retailer has this issue.
- rythie 7y agoI’m not sure the bad publicity is worth it. People will who read the press about it, will doubt the real deals are real and not order them (e.g. 50% off, which is big saving, but still happens). Amazon is big company with a lot of good engineers, seems like they should be able to solve this problem.
- sosuke 7y agoI like the comment suggesting articles like that being banned. That lens has been one of my dreams for years now for birding. Though 800mm is kinda ridiculous and probably impossible to hand hold. I did nearly get lucky like this some years back when Walmart $100 gift cards were on sale for $10. All my orders were cancelled. It seems like several of these Amazon orders have been delivered.
- benjohnson 7y ago>>Though 800mm is kinda ridiculous and probably impossible to hand hold If you have a bit of DIY spirit - You can get a decent 4" Newtonian telescope, porro prism and an intermediate lens and adapter to play around with and see if you like it for much cheaper - roughly $1200 Bonus: For $45 you can get a solar filter and take snazzy photos of partial eclipses.
- sosuke 7y agoYes! I looked into some mirror lens options too trying to get the price down more. It turns out that doing a zoom/crop on the computer afterwards gives me the same or better results apparently. I haven't thought about a telescope though that would be sweet for pictures of nests.
- xbmcuser 7y agoWith same day shipping the first few people can get lucky. Anyone living near a Amazon fullfilment center should keep a look out for such deals.
- ip26 7y agoYeah normally I don't care about this or that hot deal, but as a fellow birder seeing the 800mm was a gut punch. (I don't think anyone handholds that one, at least not long)
- sosuke 7y agoI've been kicking around ideas on how to save up for one of those L lenses. At $20 a month it would take me about 7 years to save up for the 100-400 model. Maybe getting something used from a lens rental service might be a better shot.
- ironSkillet 7y agoMy favorite ecommerce glitch was a guitar center coupon for $50 off being usable an unlimited number of times. I didn't push my luck and only applied it a few times. Surprisingly they honored it and I got a bunch of miscellaneous guitar accessories for free.
- benjohnson 7y agoBack in the 1998 there was one website that let you enter negative values into the quantities to zero out the cost of other items. I notified them quickly and they let my order though as a way of saying 'thanks'.
- ikeboy 7y agoDid this once for credit card rewards redemption along with another glitch allowing one to set the amount of rewards that would be deducted and made out with 20k in gift cards. Lasted a few weeks then died.
- hombre_fatal 7y agoWhen Bing launched, they had a deal that you get 15% off retailer orders if you buy an item after landing on that page from the Bing search results. Ebay was one of their partners. I Bing'ed "1oz gold coin," clicked into Ebay listings, and bought a bunch of gold for 15% off that I immediately resold. They quickly added more restrictions to the promotion.
- s09dfhks 7y agoDam. Wish I had noticed! Been on the hunt for a 70-300
- sosuke 7y agoThe Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS II USM was worth every penny. I've had it for 10 years now and it is still wonderful.
- altcognito 7y agoIf your pictures are the sunny outdoors and not indoors, a long slow lens is almost certainly a better value than the typical 75-200 2.8.
- WalterBright 7y agoAmazon would be within their rights to refuse to honor such purchases. I also don't think it's ethical to take advantage of such mistakes. What if it was you who accidentally listed your house for $60,000 rather than $600,000? What if you accidentally included an extra 0 on the check you wrote?
- mc32 7y agoTotally agree with you there. If I were on the other side of something like this it would SUUCK! But you know people, even honest ones find it hard to resist “sticking it to the man”, i.e. the one with advantage, the baddie. Many rationalizations will be made. “It’s peanuts to them”, etc.
- WalterBright 7y agoA father and son were walking down the street. The father tips his hat to a woman they pass. The son asks: "Father, why did you tip your hat to her? She's a prostitute, not a lady." The father replies: "Son, you are correct, she is no lady. But I am a gentleman."
- jeswin 7y agoIn many countries prostitution is as legal as software development. I think we should refrain from these jokes, especially since most do it out of a lack of alternative careers and to feed families.
- mensetmanusman 7y agoMost actually do it because of human trafficking, violence, drugs, mafia, etc.
- mc32 7y agoI read it completely the opposite. The son looks down at the prostitute, but the father sees humanity in her and does not judge and treats her as a fellow person with dignity.
- dfeojm-zlib 7y agoIANAL. Any U.S.-based lawyers out here? I believe a listed price is an "invitation to treat" which means a retailer can charge whatever they like regardless of listed price (whether in a physical or online store), but at what point can't an online retailer cancel/back-out of a transaction? Let's say the merchant and buyer are both California-based for simplicity. Would it be legally similar to "theft by discovery" (e.g., taking money falling out from an overturned armored truck) for accepting goods sold at an excessive, erroneous discount? Or would it require proving intent on part of the buyer that the price was a serious mistake they deliberately acted in bad-faith to exploit? Let's say the (over-simplified) phases of a transaction are: 1. Agreed - Buyer clicks "Buy". 2. Paid - Payment is posted. 3. Shipped out - The product leaves the custody of the merchant. 4. Received - Customer receives the product.
- iscrewyou 7y ago2007ish time, I found a TV ok Best Buy for $35 which was originally maybe $1500. It was through one of these deal sites(may have just been Slickdeals). I ordered it. A day later, they cancelled the order saying they have the right to cancel any order they wish. I didn’t say anything back.
- paranoidrobot 7y agoI'm also not a lawyer, but they have the ability to correct the error right up until it's delivered to you - every online retailer has something like that in their T&Cs. There's been plenty of cases where retailers have cancelled order and refunded any moneys paid and customers have had no recourse to enforce the contract. After you've got the goods in your hands - well, there's likely a lot less they can do about it. Some resources for the US here: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/company-advertising-price-wrong-responsible-mistake-73117.html https://smallbusiness.chron.com/company-advertising-price-wr... Changing the price after the fact, or demanding you return it - well... That could end up with them in a whole lot of hot water themselves.
- kingkawn 7y agoMaybe an intentional amazon move to take some losses but destroy B&H’s hold on high end photography
- egfx 7y agoWow, and I thought I had it good with the HP fire sale years back.
- davidkuhta 7y agoor the great Walmart "sale" of 2013 where everything was ~$9.
- sarahhudson 7y agoThis is great for Amazon publicity wise.
- gyc 7y agoThis is what I'm thinking. Take a small (for Amazon) that will be dwarfed by people who sign up for or renew Prime memberships hoping to luck out on a similar deal in the future.
- zootam 7y agoaccording to random people in the slickdeals thread the loss was $16 million
- PetahNZ 7y agoSo 0.1% of profit. Is that not small?
- readhn 7y agoCompanies pay a whopping $5 million to run a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl.... This super sale (if everyone gets what they ordered) will have much deeper impact than a 30 second commercial. Believe next year, millions more people wil be looking for deals on amazon on prime day.... Well executed "price mistake" ;)
- madrox 7y agoI remember something similar happened at Best Buy 15 years ago with a high end nvidia card. I bought one, but Best Buy obviously chose not to fulfill on the glitch. I wasn't surprised or disappointed. I was surprised at how many people felt entitled to it, though. The number of calls to boycott Best Buy over it seemed insane. I wonder how many people will feel entitled to Amazon honoring this glitch.
- m463 7y agoI thought there were advertising laws that required stores to honor their flyers, but I don't know how that translated to the online world. The idea was, print a "price glitch", people come into stores, "so sorry that was a mistake", people still buy stuff... Then laws were enacted.
- madrox 7y agoI don't know either, but I know I didn't get my video card and got refunded.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- lanrh1836 7y agoGiven the algorithmic pricing on a lot of things (everything?) sold on Amazon there’s probably money to be made building some bot that checks for pricing mistakes and buys when one is found.
- travmatt 7y agoI believe this was common on eBay. People also looked for common misspellings of items, misspellings that would lead items to get fewer ids and usually end underpriced relative to similar items.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- zrobotics 7y agoI don't have this automated, but this is definitely still a thing, at least for used test equipment. I'm not clever enough to automate it fully, since often constructing the search terms is fairly difficult, but I definitely have scored some incredible deals ($40 for a perfectly fine HP spectrum analyzer a month ago). The only automation is some simple greasemonkey scripts, but there are definitely deals to be had on mis-categorized items. Likely this works best on specialized equipment that the average bulk auction buyer doesn't recognize, I would suspect that most industrial/scientific equipment would apply. This certainly won't apply to consumer items like a laptop though, the item has to be esoteric enough that a non-expert has difficulty even determining what it is.
- travmatt 7y agoMost I believe use all words within a given Levenshtein distance.
- danso 7y ago> Others also reported that they successfully price matched gear at retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart. Wow, this is incredible if true. Not just as a sign of how much these traditional retailers will stick to their promises, but also how the ostensible safeguards of brick-and-mortar/human-touch can still be subverted by algorithmic error. I've never worked at retail but if I saw such a drastic reduction I'd call my manager.
- mrep 7y agoIsn't that a good thing? A "price match" with a bunch of exclusions isn't really a price match.
- danso 7y agoBut price matching is predicated on realistic economic competition, not we'll-match-it-no-matter-what-based-on-principle. There are already exceptions based on only dealing with "major online retailers" – i.e. retailers that operate on making stable revenue/profit from selling things – as well as disqualifying certain kind of discounts, like clearances and Black Friday prices. And in any case, Best Buy's qualifying requirements [0] make an exception for "pricing errors". [0] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/customer-service/price-match-guarantee/pcmcat290300050002.c?id=pcmcat290300050002 https://www.bestbuy.com/site/customer-service/price-match-gu...
- deanstag 7y agoAny Nathan For You fans here?
- FireBeyond 7y agoOne of the things they "fixed" was requiring it to be sold by Amazon or Fulfilled By Amazon. A few years ago there was a little racket in creating an Amazon seller account, "selling" things at stupid discounts (which you neither had nor intended to fulfill), go into Best Buy and say "Look, half that price on Amazon, match it!".
- Tyrannosaur 7y agoWhat are the guesses as to how this happened? At the risk of sounding conspiratorial I propose that sometimes these "accidents" are less accidental than they claim. So much hype over this has got to be worth something.
- readhn 7y agothis was no accident. their pricing mechanisms are top notch. this is a marketing move!
- ed 7y agoIn California, at least, Amazon does not need to honor erroneous prices. Per CA Civ Code § 7103 (2018): https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?division=4.&part=5.5.&lawCode=CIV https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.x... 7103. Improper pricing on the shelf or on the item due to unintentional error shall not constitute a violation of this division.
- AJ007 7y agoMy guess is they could request the item back, and if they really wanted to, put a negative balance on your account effectively banning you from Amazon without a return. Whether or not they would sue you or win and collect is a different story. All of this is assuming this was not an intentional PR test by Amazon for Prime day. One would presume that that is possible.
- windexh8er 7y agoAs I understand this if it lands on your doorstep and wasn't reclaimed by UPS/FedEx/USPS prior to that there's nothing they can do. They can ask you to send it back, but you don't have to. If they made the transaction and it's in your hands they can't put you in the red for the difference.
- fuzz4lyfe 7y agoYou aren't guaranteed the ability to unwind the deal after delivery so that's only fair that they can't either.
- BinaryIdiot 7y agoCorrect. Now, I highly doubt they'd do it, but Amazon could take some action such as banning you from their services until you return the item. At which point do you want to own the item more than using Amazon? Could be a tough choice for some. Though I still don't think they'd do that.
- mehrdadn 7y agoThat seems practically necessary for point-of-sale systems because a store mixup is pretty indistinguishable from an accidental (or deliberate) customer mixup (possibly by a previous customer). It hardly implies that the same thing needs to be true for an online store.
- nicwolff 7y agoA previous similar incident became a legendary in-joke over at MetaFilter 18 years ago: Astounding. I can't take a moral argument seriously from any of you who jumped at the opportunity to take advantage of an honest mistake. I don't want to hear ever again about greedy corporations or crooked politicians. You people just showed that you're willing to turn a blind eye when it is to your benefit. How does that make you any different from those you rail against? – posted by marknau at 6:45 PM on November 20, 2001 [4 favorites +] [!] We have cameras. – posted by NortonDC at 6:48 PM on November 20, 2001 [164 favorites +] [!] https://www.metafilter.com/12512/#178067 https://www.metafilter.com/12512/#178067
- blakesterz 7y agoWow, I remember that one! I was just thinking recently it's hard to believe Mefi turned 20 years old this summer, and then I realized MY site turns 20 years old this fall... I know people feel old when their kids get old, but damn, having a website turn twenty just makes me feel old.
- DonHopkins 7y agoTen more years and you won't be able to trust it any more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Weinberg#%22Don't_trust_anyone_over_30%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Weinberg#%22Don't_trust_a...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- firethief 7y agoSee also: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau4586.full https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau4586.full
- Armisael16 7y agoCan you change your quote block formatting? It’s essentially impossible to read on mobile.
- ericmuyser 7y agoI doubt they will cancel the orders. Amazon lives by customer service. They seem to just write off their mistakes directly from revenue. I learned this when I was scammed for a $5000 and Amazon let the scammer keep, refunded me and closed the issue in one fell swoop.
- rwc 7y agoAmazon is less customer-friendly than ever before. They refused to adjust a TV I purchased 7 days ago to the Prime Day pricing which was $400 off. The only solution according to them was to purchase another TV at the Prime pricing and return the original. That's unfriendly to the customer, it's unfriendly to the planet, and it's unfriendly to Amazon's bottom line. An all-around disaster.
- imajoo 7y agoWow.. that's odd. I remember when they changed their price matching policy to no longer price match, but I thought TV's were still eligible, but I guess now even that's changed..
- zrobotics 7y agoNot trying to pick a fight, I'm genuinely curious- why should Amazon be expected to do that? Even with their attitude for good customer service, if you purchased an item a week ago why should they give you money now because it is on sale? Prime day isn't exactly a secret, I would say the fair argument here is that you wanted a TV in a hurry and weren't interested in waiting for the sale. Otherwise, should they also refund me 60% of the 2k I spent 2 years ago on my last desktop PC?
- kadoban 7y agoThey should do it because they'd have to do it anyway, just with a lot of nonsense in between with shipping, if the customer insists and does the return. The difference with your 2 year old PC is that nobody has a 2 year return window.
- 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tamrix 7y agoOr it's a cheap PR stunt.
- OrgNet 7y agoI got a $20 credit/gift card for a canceled HD purchase that was priced wrong... maybe you will get a $200 credit in this case?
- throwaway13000 7y agoIt doesn't matter. They will simply cancel the order citing some TOS. (Source. Used to work at Walmart)
- bogwog 7y agoWhat if this was done on purpose to increase hype for the next Prime Day? They'll probably cancel the orders anyways, and there will some people who will visit Amazon on prime day hoping to score a ridiculous deal, only to settle on buying some random shit.
- _fat_santa 7y agoThe guys shows a picture of him getting the gear down at the bottom of the article.
- GuB-42 7y agoThen it wouldn't be a honest mistake and they would have to honor the sales.
- stevespang 7y agoHah, not even a dent in Bezos pocket . . . .
- readhn 7y agoI'll go on and say something, perhaps, controversial. This "price mistake" was not a mistake at all. This was intentional move by amazon to attract publicity. Once these news spread, people will remember. And next year they will have a few extra million people browsing amazon "looking for that super deal". This "price mistake" is simply part of the advertising/marketing stratagy by amazon to create extra excitement about prime day. People will be coming back for years ... looking for that 100$ super lens. This is money well spent. WELL DONE AMAZON MARKETING GURUS!!!
- kls 7y agoSounds to me like someone at Amazon is good at marketing. Let a few things go for an insane deal, knowing it will hit the front page of every blog. Then reap the rush of next years prime day with people scouring the site for pricing "errors". Pretty cheap and effective marketing. Kind of like a raffle but without having to get all the lawyers involved to make sure you comply with raffle laws.
- fma 7y agoOr someone on slickdeals is good at marketing because that's what half the article talks about. I'm surprised Amazon honored such a big price mistake. A few weeks ago, some Western Digital drives were priced incorrectly. About half off. Everyone got cancelations. And yes, I heard about it on front page of slickdeals...
- Syntaf 7y agoAs a dev for Slickdeals, I can tell you this was not planned on our side haha. Once the deal was caught by one of our mods, the site went into a frenzy. Unfortunately I was AFK during the deal, but this will go down as one of the best price mistakes of the year if not the best.
- AnssiH 7y agoIIRC in the WD drive case the drives were on backorder so Amazon had a longer time window for cancellations. Similar things have happened on past Prime Days / Black Fridays, I remember some smartphones (Moto?) being sold for under $3 - some were canceled, but some shipped before Amazon managed to cancel them.
- digitaltrees 7y agoDing! Ding! Ding! This feels like the right explanation. And if not, I am going to use it for future marketing efforts.
- nkozyra 7y ago> Sounds to me like someone at Amazon is good at marketing. Ah yes, finally someone will be talking about Amazon and Prime Day.
- deepsun 7y agoGood promo!
- acid__ 7y agoI got in on this! I got a Sony A7R II and a 24-70 2.8 II I'd always wanted but could never justify the purchase of. ($~3k value for $200) A few observations: - Despite the extraordinary deal we got, my friends (who also made a purchase) and I all have our joy offset by a feeling of regret that we didn't order more. Greed! - Despite the fact that I couldn't justify the purchase before I owned them, I now definitely don't want to sell the gear. A clear cut case of the Endowment Effect in action [0] - A lot of people saying the orders are going to be cancelled -- seeing as I currently have both body and lens in possession, I find that unlikely. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect
- nahtnam 7y agoDamn! I got the A6000 for $100, but I wish I got the A7R instead :( I guess that falls under observation 1
- _Nat_ 7y agoGrats on the lucky score! > A lot of people saying the orders are going to be cancelled -- seeing as I currently have both body and lens in possession, I find that unlikely. Gotta agree that it's unlikely for these orders to be cancelled. Seems like Amazon.com's got a lot of cash (without checking, but I assume?), so they can probably afford it. Instead, the smart move would seem to be to play this up hard -- perhaps, for example, pushing a few stories in advance of the next Prime Day about this mistake, driving more sales as folks hope to enjoy a similar lucky break. I mean, overall, seems like a nice feel-good story.
- booleanbetrayal 7y agoHow much do you want to bet that Amazon sacrifices small-volume margin losses for ridiculous press ROI?
- RocketSyntax 7y agoUghh. That's the newest version of my pseudo broken camera and the tele lens I've wanted forever.
- bgrynol 7y agoRetail arbitrage at its finest! Even the big players make mistakes that are completely avoidable with proper oversight Love this so much <3
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- hermitdev 7y agoDidn't get on this, but reminds me of when Amazon didnt collect sales tax for states they didn't operate in. Was able to save about $300 on a stereo purchase because of that back in the day...
- docker_up 7y agoThis is an unintentional by-product of shipping so quickly. As Amazon moves to quicker and quicker shipping policies, it means that errors like this can't be reversed in time. I would imagine that Amazon could threaten to close the customer's account if they refused to return the camera equipment but that might be a bit extreme and might be very bad press.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jingalings 7y agoCost effective PR hack driving people to the site to search extensively for ‘accidents’
- IloveHN84 7y agoUnfortunately this happened in US, while in EU the price was correct
- miguelmota 7y agoThe customer is always right. Doubt Amazon will do anything about the customers that already received their merchandise. Hard learned lesson for Amazon and probably sucks to be the engineers dealing with the postmortem.
- nashahg 7y agoSomeone got very lucky. First time hearing this. https://finance.uonbi.ac.ke/node/128671 https://finance.uonbi.ac.ke/node/128671
- dusted 7y agoAww, I wish I'd gotten in on that, could really use that sigma thing ^_^
- growt 7y agoThats brilliant marketing (intentional or not), because in my mind prime day is amazon selling of their crap. The last years there was not a single item I was interested in.
- iam_varunnair 7y agoWhat?
- sagebird 7y agoIt’s kind of interesting- the asymmetry of moral expectations and entitlement. If you accidentally purchased a bag of M&Ms from Amazon for 500 dollars instead of 5, they will let you undo it. On the other hand, if the matter is reversed, Amazon is expected to be a good sport and take the loss — even if the purchase was made in bad faith (ie- knowing Amazon mis-priced it but purchasing it anyways.) I’m not going to entertain any counter arguments that Amazon deserves this because they treat workers poorly or don’t pay taxes or whatever, those arguments are orthogonal. The same behavior would happen with a company with better public trust and respect. And it’s not like anyone is selling those cameras to donate money to a warehouse worker in need. I just think it’s amazing how frail people’s morality is, how it goes out the window when certain conditions are met.
- Xelbair 7y agoIt is just asymmetry of power. We all would condemn someone who was stealing from poor(relatively speaking), while stealing from rich isn't frowned upon that much. This is nothing new, nothing related to Amazon itself. Just part of human nature.
- sgift 7y agoAmazon is a professional seller, they should know better. Buyers are not professionals, they shouldn't have to. Depending on the country this is even enshrined in law (e.g. customer protection laws against accidental buying).
- Mirioron 7y agoHe's talking about it from the moral standpoint. Most customers will be able to tell that something is off when camera gear is that cheap.
- sgift 7y agoAmazon is not a person, it's a company. Attributing moral to a transaction with non-person entities is frail itself. Does moral even apply here? What does it mean?
- dvdbloc 7y agoIs there even any evidence that this was an accident? From what I’ve seen, there is no evidence that this wasn’t on purpose despite everyone stating it was surely an accident.
- Animats 7y agoIf I saw cheap photo equipment on Amazon, I'd assume it was some knockoff. It might be good, or not. I mean, really, how much does it cost to make a camera back? It's simpler than a smartphone.
- wrboyce 7y agoI believe they were being sold from the official Sony storefront.
- Accacin 7y agoYeah, it's Amazon losing money.. Big deal. However it does make me wonder the same people that jump on these kind of deals and justify it (rightly or wrongly) would do it to a much smaller company or even a person that's selling something.
- hn23 7y agoTo me this is a really cool marketing stunt to bring even more people to Amazon prime.
- kobiton 7y agoDhhcuchhd
- akerro 7y agoThis happens a lot with HDDs and SSDs. At least once per month I get a notification about disks being really cheap. Looks like sellers make mistakes and put wrong numbers to quantity/price boxes. Most often orders are cancelled.
- dustinmoris 7y agoDoes anyone know if someone tried to order a ridiculous amount of the 13k Sony zoom lens? If I would have noticed this pricing error still in time to place an order I wouldn't have wasted a minute to think what I want, I would have ordered 100-1000 lenses worth 13000 for 95 each and later sold them on eBay for 10k each and bought myself a Tesla or something... Why don't I read an actually interesting story about this pricing error, who cares that some people got a single item discounted... That's as interesting as someone winning $300 in the lottery. Happens all the time, not worth a story otherwise...
- ryanmercer 7y agoOof! Someone's losing their job.
- distant_hat 7y agoKnowing something about Amazon, some team is going to miss a few nights of sleep.
- jamessb 7y agoThere was a similar incident in 2001: > Amazon messes up a 'Buy this camera and get that bag free" promotion to be "Buy this bag and get that camera free." As a result you can get a $350 Minolta Maxxum SLR for $40. https://www.metafilter.com/12512/#178067 https://www.metafilter.com/12512/#178067
- nikolay 7y agoIt's a marketing gimmick: lose a bit from a few products to ensure crowds looking for the same "mistakes" on next Prime Day.
- tudorw 7y agoThe markup on this gear is probably insane, it has a limited shelf life, if I told Amazon they could get this many column inches of good will for a few 100k they'd jump on it :)
- sureaboutthis 7y agoDidn't this same sort of thing happen last year? It makes me think this is part of a marketing campaign.
- henvic 7y agoI'd make an order and immediately ask Amazon if I can keep it or if it was an error. Why? How come can I know for sure this is an error and not, say, a marketing strategy to show up for free on big news outlets? Free publicity for the company and a free expensive product for me. They would be just using me to earn some publicity space, and I would be compensated a lot by it. Being a libertarian, I don't see any problem with this free trade. Except, it was probably a huge mess on their pricing system. As this might be the case, if they wanted to cancel my order, I wouldn't complain at all. What about if it was an error that turned out to be great for them because it drove more access to the camera area and they sold twice what they expected, and they admit it? I'd still be interested in returning the camera because I don't want to take advantage of an error, but I'd ask nicely if I can keep it and make it clear I have no intention to fight or complain if they said 'no'.
- eigenvalue 7y agoTaking advantage of this "deal" is obviously morally untenable if you stop and think about it. Rather than posing the hypothetical of flipping it around between vendor and customer (i.e., "Would you be OK with it if Amazon charged you more?"), consider the case where it was a local mom and pop camera shop that made this mistake on its website. Then you would probably feel terrible about exploiting this and would be fine with the company requesting the merchandise be returned, say with a $100 store credit. Now ask yourself why this scenario is really different from the store being Amazon from a moral standpoint. If you're being intellectually honest with yourself, you will conclude that it's the same reasoning that would support the idea that it's OK to steal from people as long as they are very rich and won't miss the money.
- lwhi 7y ago"Amazon Prime Day gets global marketing campaign for less than $200k"
- sb636 7y agoA part of me wonders if this is a calculated marketing move for next years prime day. "Hey remember last year when $13k cameras were priced for $100? Lets see if that happens this year!"
- philip1209 7y agoThis bug probably cost Amazon far far far less than last year's prime day outage. Also, it got them free press coverage. This could have totally been intentional.
- habosa 7y agoLeaving aside the question of right or wrong, I have always thought that the pride people take when they "beat" a large corporation is one of the most fundamentally American things there is. How many times has someone given you a tip on what lie to tell to a customer service agent to get what you want? How many websites are there devoted to jumping on airline ticket pricing errors? How many times can you think of someone telling you their insurance paid out more than their loss was worth? In some circles this even extends into taxes. People brag about how they minimize their tax burden even though that means the person you're bragging to will be the one receiving less govt. services. We have a president now who brags about not paying much in taxes, even though his current job would be meaningless without them! I think in a purely capitalistic society, this is all rational behavior. But it's also the reason we have such antagonistic relationships with corporations. Both sides look to screw each other at the slightest hint of weakness. This is the internet so I am sure I will be told which side is right, but that's really not what I am getting at. I just find the dynamic so interesting.
- one2zero 7y agoWhat nobody is touching on here is that there are UPP/MAP restrictions on many items from different manufacturers. You'll see notice this in action when you see a price that's obfuscated behind some magical "add to cart" wall. Regardless of the PR value here (which is worth more than this stunt IMO) I'm going to bet there are going to be more than a few MFRs whipping out their contracts for some type of damages here based on those ULP/MAP guidelines. The cost here is going to be much more than the gross loss on the items individually.
- hello_tyler 7y agoAmazon can eat that loss without batting an eye. If it's resellers, etc, I'm not sure how the situation would be remedied. I think cancelling the orders would be fair, because some small camera shop can't be expected to eat the same losses as the #2 multinational retailer. While I wish I had gotten one of those cameras, as 10kUSD would completely change my life, I can understand both sides I think... If it was Amazon it would be the best PR for the next prime day you could think of. People will be scouring the site for these kind of deals next year.
- AporPoor 7y agoaporpoor@gmail.com
- sagebird 7y agoSome think this is a marketing gimmick. I don’t: 1. They would not be able to resist making the price a cute number, like Prime day’s date, eg $7.16 2. They would later claim intentionality to not seem incompetent. 3. If they stuck to a product category, they would pick a category of mainstream or sympathetic appeal. Eg: pool toys for summer fun, back to school items, gaming pc or kids clothes. 4. They would bake in stop loss prevention. IE putting a per account quantity cap in place, and a global quantity cap. I’m kind of surprised at many people thinking it was intentional— it’s a good use of imagination but going a bit deeper the execution does not fit with any imaginary world I can envision.