Amazon buying oddity you may want to be aware of...

[Dravinian]

I noticed this today, it may be common knowledge.

 

I looked at something I bought awhile back (14tb drive) and I clicked on "Buy again" and I was taken to a page with a price £359.

 

I thought, I wonder if anyone is selling it any cheaper.  So I copied the title, and searched Amazon for it.

 

£329 a saving of £30 (and since I am buying 2 of them £60".

 

Odd thing though....it was the same page, same seller, and it even said at the top of the page "you bought this item on xxx).

 

So it would have sold that to me at £359 had I not looked....thanks Amazon, nice to see that you are screwing over returning customers.

[Br3tt96]

I generally never click the buy again option and search for my item, but that's honestly something interesting. Especially since the seller was the same and you would have thought the price would have updated.

[Dravinian]

4 minutes ago, Br3tt96 said:

I generally never click the buy again option and search for my item, but that's honestly something interesting. Especially since the seller was the same and you would have thought the price would have updated.

I am building up my NAS so particularly wanted to make sure that I got exactly the same drive...just for peace of mind and a bit of OCD.

 

Only reason I clicked on it, because like you, I would normally just search.

[The1Dickens]

7 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

So it would have sold that to me at £359 had I not looked....thanks Amazon, nice to see that you are screwing over returning customers.

Also, I think it only works one way (charges the customer more), because I was looking to grab a second 1080Ti, so I clicked "buy again", and it took me to the page to buy again, but wouldn't let me buy again, even though it claimed they were in stock. I paid ~800-ish on the tail end of the mining craze (of when they were upwards of 1500+ USD), but before they were discontinued. When I was looking to get the second card, it was around the time they announced it being discontinued, and prices were starting to climb again. Instead, every time I clicked to buy it again (or add it to my cart), it would say "out of stock" and to check "similarly priced products" which was the exact same card, exact same seller, but for 900+ (and then of course it climbed from there, until the remaining stock was all bought up).

 

Anyways, my brother's friend ended up just gifting him a whole PC (he built a new one himself), so I didn't need to do anything, and decided not to fuss with it. Was interesting experience to say the least...

[TetraSky]

Can you check again and provide the links for both the "buy again" and the search one?

 

It is possible that the Buy Again led to a previous iteration of the product and somehow their algorithm was smart enough to determine that you had bought the same/similar HDD before on a different page.

[jones177]

Some Amazon sellers change their prices depending on availability. 

Before I buy any hardware there I check at least 3 other sources to see if I am getting the best price at the time.

 

Be wear of going through reviewers pages as well since I have seen price differences from just doing searches as well. 

 

Also sometimes you can get a better deals through a manufacturer. 

The last video card I bought was from EVGA.  Amazon's prices were well over msrp at the time. 

 

[Dravinian]

21 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Can you check again and provide the links for both the "buy again" and the search one?

 

It is possible that the Buy Again led to a previous iteration of the product and somehow their algorithm was smart enough to determine that you had bought the same/similar HDD before on a different page.

No, I just checked.

 

And despite it saying "Only 2 in stock" when I bought it at £329, 2 days ago, it now says "Only 4 in stock" at £349.

 

The price appears to jump around a little bit for this drive....and now both are at £349.

 

Oddly, this drive is all over the place in price:

 

Scan UK: £383.99

Ebuyer UK: £357.99

Ebay: £556.37 - which is why I no longer use ebay.

Newegg: $325.99 or £261.43 - welcome to the UK tax for electronics....

PCKing (Germany): 340 Euro - £304.

 

Hmm, might start buying it from Germany.

[Dravinian]

18 hours ago, jones177 said:

Some Amazon sellers change their prices depending on availability. 

This is why I remarked that it is always "only X left in stock" because it gives the impression that there are only a few left, when in fact, there are plenty in stock but this attempts to push the price.

[Dravinian]

18 hours ago, jones177 said:

Also sometimes you can get a better deals through a manufacturer. 

I don't think you can buy enterprise drives directly from manufacturers in quantities of 1 and 2.  I think you have to buy like hundreds.  Their website directs you to 3rd party sellers as well.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

On 7/9/2020 at 4:47 PM, Dravinian said:

Odd thing though....it was the same page, same seller, and it even said at the top of the page "you bought this item on xxx).

 

So it would have sold that to me at £359 had I not looked....thanks Amazon, nice to see that you are screwing over returning customers.

It has happened to me before when a product has multiple sellers in the same product page. it may be that you didn't buy from the default (typically Amazon) seller, or a different seller was added later, or sellers that had the same price before now have different prices. You've got to the same product, so they didn't lie, but to buy from the same seller you had to go a different route.

 

I've had it worse: clicking "buy again" took me to an updated product page where the seller replaced an old model with a new model of mouse. It wasn't too much of a problem for me, and i did notice the change before buying, but the two models aren't identical and I could have ended up with something I didn't want. Prices change all the time, and the cheapest seller last time need not be the cheaper seller this time anyway, but giving you a different model, even if the manufacturer sees it as a replacement/evolution...

[TetraSky]

Well in any case, prices change. 

I recommend installing the extension called "Keepa", which keeps track of a product's pricing over time. Sometimes, there are flash sales that dramatically reduce the price.

[Dravinian]

11 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

It has happened to me before when a product has multiple sellers in the same product page. it may be that you didn't buy from the default (typically Amazon) seller, or a different seller was added later, or sellers that had the same price before now have different prices. You've got to the same product, so they didn't lie, but to buy from the same seller you had to go a different route.

 

I've had it worse: clicking "buy again" took me to an updated product page where the seller replaced an old model with a new model of mouse. It wasn't too much of a problem for me, and i did notice the change before buying, but the two models aren't identical and I could have ended up with something I didn't want. Prices change all the time, and the cheapest seller last time need not be the cheaper seller this time anyway, but giving you a different model, even if the manufacturer sees it as a replacement/evolution...

I am not sure whether I didn't type it or you didn't notice it - sorry just realised it is in the quote you made, hehe I wasn't sure I had typed it earlier and didn't want to read my own posts and be annoyed by my typos...

 

When I searched and found it for £329, it said at the top...you bought this on x date.

 

It only says that when you buy from the same person, not the same product, but the same product from the same person....I just checked to make sure.

[Dravinian]

5 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Well in any case, prices change. 

I recommend installing the extension called "Keepa", which keeps track of a product's pricing over time. Sometimes, there are flash sales that dramatically reduce the price.

I don't mind that prices change, I mind that Amazon sent me to a link to buy it at an increased price when it was listed on their site for cheaper from the same seller.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

 

8 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

When I searched and found it for £329, it said at the top...you bought this on x date.

 

 

It only says that when you buy from the same person, not the same product, but the same product from the same person....

 

No. It says that as long as it is the same product page. Every seller on the "new from $XX" leads to the same product page, and in all cases it will show that "you purchased this item on X date", even if you choose a different seller.

 

8 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

I just checked to make sure.

Well, apparently you are better at checking typos than at checking how Amazon works, because that's plain wrong, as I just confirmed. All sellers under the same "new from..." list will display that message, because the item is identified as the same by Amazon.

 

But hey, have fun being wrong and being obnoxious about it, what's the internet for anyway?  

[jones177]

23 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

I don't think you can buy enterprise drives directly from manufacturers in quantities of 1 and 2.  I think you have to buy like hundreds.  Their website directs you to 3rd party sellers as well.

From 2007 onwards I only bought WD drives and they do have them on their website.

27 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

This is why I remarked that it is always "only X left in stock" because it gives the impression that there are only a few left, when in fact, there are plenty in stock but this attempts to push the price.

What bugs me more is that they allow price gouging and used items with the word used in very small text. 

Last month I bought a 2080 ti. The last one I bought from Amazon in 2019 was $1400. When I clicked buy again it directed me to a page that had a used card for over $200 more.  EVGA had them in stock at MSRP at the time and that is what I bought.