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Shop the Grocery & Gourmet Food section of Amazon.com and you’ll see amazing discounts. Some items are being sold at 90 percent or more off the list prices. Sounds a bit much, but that’s the power of Amazon. Or is it?
Check the list prices on some of these items, as consumer advocate Edgar Dworsky did recently, and you’ll find that some of these prices are way out of line.
Dworsky found Amazon selling 24 boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Cars Shapes for $32.99. That was advertised as a 96 percent savings from the list price of $791.76. Dworsky went to his local grocery store in Massachusetts and found 24 boxes would cost him only $38.
A 20-ounce squeeze bottle of Heinz Ketchup was $2.69, but the list price was shown as $47.49. A box of Barilla thin spaghetti was $1.85. The supposed list price was $55.10.
“It’s just crazy,” Dworsky says. “These list prices were literally plucked from thin air and then multiplied by a hundred.”
These are not isolated examples. Dworsky says he found hundreds of products that had “grossly exaggerated regular prices.” (Dworsky lists some of these “questionable discounts” in the Mouse Print section of his website, ConsumerWorld.org.)
I went on Amazon this weekend and had no trouble finding the same “crazy” list prices. I then went price shopping at my local supermarket to get the ballpark idea of the real selling price.
Splenda with Fiber
- Amazon’s price: $4.39
- Amazon’s list price: $553
- Supermarket price: $5.49
Quaker Oats Old Fashioned Oats (pack of six 18-ounce packages)
- Amazon’s price: $20.58
- Amazon’s list price: $211.74
- Supermarket price: $19.74
Rice A Roni Beef (6.8-ounce box)
- Amazon’s price: $1.48
- Amazon’s list price: $141.75
- Supermarket price: $1.25 (on sale)
“Obviously no consumer would believe such ridiculous list prices," Dworsky says. "But why would you have these comparisons on the website in the first place if they’re not truthful?”
Good question -- one I put to Amazon. In a short email, someone in the public relations department wrote:
“We are working to rectify this situation to ensure accurate savings are listed on all product pages.”
I’d like to know more. Why is this happening? Why has this been going on for so long? Dworsky reported on the same problem about a year ago. I sent a follow-up email and am waiting for a response.
My two cents
I don’t know what’s going on here, but it’s not right. In many cases, the grocery items listed on the site are not sold directly by Amazon. So it might be that Amazon is not policing the prices that other companies post on its site. If that’s the case, then Amazon needs to do a better job of monitoring this.
Whatever the reason, consumer protection laws say “suggested retail” or “list prices” must be realistic and not some made-up figure. Otherwise, the savings are unsubstantiated and the advertising is considered to be deceptive.
If this is happening on Amazon.com with groceries, it makes me wonder about the ‘list prices’ on other items being sold on the site.
My advice: Forget about savings claims from supposed “list prices.” Always compare the price of an item at one store (or website) with the actual selling price of other retailers.
Leave a Comment:
I think it's well understood by all that street price is the guideline for price sales or discounts.
Nobody "plucked those prices from thin air." Obviously, those list prices are a software table mistake. Look-up tables get miss-directed all the time. It's a curiosity, but certainly not maliciously newsworthy.
d200911 - Did you even read the article. This has nothing to do with tables. Why would it only be the list price tables that are incorrect? It is malicious. It is an attempt to make the saving look large.
Come on, Jon, you're smarter than that. You'd have to be pretty drunk to think a $141 list price for a box of Rice-A-Roni is anything other than a mistake. And if you're drinking this early in the day, you'd better share
Well D200911 what bottle of koolaid are you drinking from?
The history of Amazon and other online sellers has not been clean. One example for Amazon would be the puff pieces that individuals were paid to write extolling the virtues of the products Amazon was trying to sell. These were presented as if they were unbiased consumer product reviews. This wasn't a "software table" mistake.
So D200911, please make full disclosure and reveal any connections you may have to Amazon, if any.
No different then retail stores. I worked retail many years ago and it was the same bs Computers on sale one week for 499 next week there 350. People here complaining about this obviously never realized they have been had by retail stores.
OMG Pandora, people like you make me lose hope for civilization. It's one thing to think Amazon is conspiring to dupe you on a bottle of ketchup, but to then insinuate someone who has an opinion opposite yours is a corporate shill? You need help girl! Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Looks to me like all of the list prices are off by 10x or 100x pretty much exactly.... easy mistake to make when entering some big long list and you hit an extra key (10x) or miss the period (100x). That said, they need to fix the errors.
It's important to check the claims, but these are so outlandish, you'd think there might be a reasonable explanation. I think there is. Move the decimal point. Many items now have prices carried to four decimal points, especially when comparing quantities, so if the default is 2, as in most cash amounts, you get $144.55 instead of $1.4455.
It's not fraud. Ignorance, maybe, but not fraud.
Some of the prices posted are errors on the sale price as well. This is especially true when things sell by the 100's in a case.
A case may cost $125.75, where one item costs $1.25. They'll have the case listed at the item price and when you order you'll be sent 1 item or the order will be cancelled. So it does happen both ways and if you frequent deal sites you'll see how it happens quite often. Sometimes you'll even find something like a pack of batteries for 2.23 cents vs. $2.23. You can only hope they ship the product before they notice the pricing error and sometimes they do.
Well Allen_Shore, what civilization are you living in? My response was to D200911 who accused ipripadi and the author of the article of being drunk because they felt the prices were not just a mistake. History shows that online commercial statements can be deceptive. I cited one known instance of this. My statements were not insults of the posters as yours and D200911 were. Asking about one's business affiliation in this instance is not an insult. It is asking for truthfulness. Something that is too frequently lacking online.
I agree that this is either a table error or a data entry mistake. I also think that anyone that does not do their own pricing homework is not a savvy shopper and needs assistance with their financial life ASAP. I get all of my canned dog and cat food rom Amazon's subscription service. The dog food is 2 cents per can cheaper at Amazon than it is at my local Walmart (and 5 to 50 cents cheaper than the local grocery stores) but more importantly Amazon delivers it right to my door so I don't have to drive 40 miles round trip for dog food.
At the same time the Amazon subscribe and save price for Quaker chewy granola bars is $29.78 for 12 boxes of 8 bars each (today's price). That is $2.48 per box while Walmart sells a box of 10 for $1.28. It is called shopping around and knowing your prices and I can do this while working full time and attending college full time, so there is no reason anyone else can't (and I do not live in the city so it really is 20 miles to town for me).
All this focus on table errors. How do you know it wasn't errors made by chairs? Huh! Answer me that geniuses!!!!!
Pandora6 - having indefensible and idiotic conspiracy tendencies is a trait of the truly pathetic. You don't have to be a genius to see this issue is not intentional, but you do have to have a fully functioning brain. A handle on common sense might help, as well.
Who cares what the "list price" is if the actual price your paying is less than in the store anyway. I dont think I've ever compared list prices on Amazon, just the retail price. Dumb article.
Because its consumer fraud. This might seem silly and innocuous, but its lying to you in order to encourage you to make a purchase.
caveat emptor
I think it's a good article. My wife often argues that she buys things because the price is such a huge discount from retail. Even though I explain that discounts from unrealistic retail prices are a come-on, she still believes she's getting a good deal.
I still dont see how people are complaining about this being consumer fraud. Regardless if the "list prices" are wrong, those arent the prices you are paying. The only price I care about is the one Im actually pulling my money out of my pocket for. They could say a Blu-Ray movie is $200,000 list but Im getting it for $19.99. If in the store its $22.99 I am saving $3 by getting it on Amazon. I dont care if they think Im supposed to be saving $199,980.01. Seriously, this isnt that difficult.
Agreed Alex
If a person buys something simply because a retailer says it's "X% off regular price", without considering what the end price is in comparison to market price... well that person is an idiot.
That said, there are apparently plenty of idiots out there.
Here's the thing, Amazon does have some pretty good prices and the real advantage is the selection. Amazon has virtually everything. Even in their grocery products, they have things you can't get just anywhere. If there is something you particularly like that isn't stocked by your local grocer, you'll probably come out money ahead rather than driving 25 miles to somewhere that has it.
When I first started using Amazon years ago for books, it was because I could find titles I couldn't find locally. Through the years Amazon has become a truly one stop shopping place.
No doubt, you can sometimes find cheaper prices for things at Amazon, but it is usually only cheaper by a very small margin. Stuff sold by Amazon itself is usually a pretty good deal. They have something called "Amazon Prime" which is a great deal giving you free 3 day shipping on listed products. With the price of gasoline today, in a lot of cases you can come out ahead buying it from Amazon and getting it delivered to your door. If you do a lot of Internet shopping, Amazon Prime is a good deal.
Not all Amazon "storefronts" are quite as good a Amazon itself, but you can usually get a pretty good idea by reading their reviews. Like anywhere, it pays to compare, but it's nice when you can do that comparison at your keyboard. Amazon is quick, painless, and offers great convenience. Not everybody is surrounded by big shopping malls and discount stores. Amazon offers that kind of convenience at pretty good prices. They do it better than anyone else out there. And they are no hassle if you have a problem.
Years ago, I never thought I'd be grocery shopping at Amazon, but I find it is worthwhile for at least some items. With the huge selection they have, you can pretty easily find some things that might be cheaper at the local grocery, but for the most part, availability and convenience makes them a great choice for a lot of items.
Even if you don't call what they do as fraud you have to admit that by them putting up fictitious "list prices" they are "Scum Bags!".. I hope 1NewDay is being paid for his advertisement..
Ed,
No paid solicitation, just a pretty satisfied customer. I have no connection to them other than being a customer. Anybody who arbitrarily believes advertising claims, simply isn't too bright. I find it hard that just about anybody makes a purchase just because someone claims it to be 90% off "list price". You look at the price and make your decision. The term "list price" is pretty fuzzy at best, no matter what the product.
As I stated, you should look at reviews of the various storefronts. Amazon will pull somebody that gets a lot of complaints. All I can say is that they stand behind the customer much more than they stand behind the vendor.
The article is pretty stupid because the writer obviously doesn't have a clue what "normal" prices are. My big points were mainly about availability and convenience. I know from experience that the cheapest price isn't always the best deal.
If you don't like Amazon, that's fine, but then put up a valid argument to make your case. When you buy something there, the price you are going to pay is absolutely clear, if you can't do some math or have any idea what an item costs, that's your problem.
All I know is that I'm satisfied and it is very easy to tell when you are buying directly through Amazon or through a storefront. If you buy things on the Internet and don't know how to compare prices, you're simply not very bright and probably would get taken by a grocery store ad too.
Don't forget the shipping and the handling!!!
Dok,
Valid point. Amazon makes that pretty clear before you place an order. There's a few sites that don't make it as obvious. Amazon Prime is a nice little adder that you can "subscribe" to. For a small fee you get free three day shipping on all Amazon direct sale stuff. (It has some other features too) If you place more than half a dozen orders in a years time, you are money ahead. But it only applies to Amazon stuff and not the outside storefronts.
I have found that when someone applies "shipping charges" only, they are usually fairly reasonable. But "shipping and handling charges" tend to be high. The "handling" part tends to be a trick to make their price look lower.
Like you say, total cost of the purchase is what you need to consider. Just like when you drive a lot of miles to get a "good deal", which in that case you need to consider your "personal handling charge" which includes your time, fuel costs and vehicle wear an tear. Then there's possible local taxes too, which may or may not apply to an Internet purchase. Anybody who just looks at the first number they see isn't using their head.
There are potential advantages to Internet purchases and there are drawbacks. Usually, a big warehouse style operation is less costly than a retail store, but it is a question of whether that gets passed on to the customer or not. Then there's the issue of whether you need something today vs. being willing to wait a few days. If you don't live in a big city, Internet purchases are often a good option. Years ago, there used to be a lot of "mail order" catalogs and these offered some similar options for those who were not close to large retail outlets. In many ways, Internet sales is the modern day version of that.
Internet sales won't replace retail sales, but they offer an option and Amazon does it pretty well.
Alex: Chill a little, it may not be a Pulitzer price article but it is informative and highlights an issue with one of this countries major retailers.
Damn, I never though I'd defend MSNBC! Huh, must be getting sick.
Isn't it obvious by looking at his listed examples that they are all off by one or two decimal points? Looks like nothing but typos to me. Dumb article to say the least.
Typos on everything? One or two, Okay, but not all items, that's deliberate.
You're assuming that someone sits down and punches in these prices directly to the web site one at a time. As you web developers out there know, that's not the case. The data is usually imported from another source, like Excel. If the import software has a bug that moves the decimal point, it will move the decimal point on everything that gets imported. Nothing dubious here but a sleeping programmer. I think jlditton had it right: Typos, but not manual ones.
Yup - that was my take on it too. Just by looking at the list you can see the most likely answer is a misplaced decimal point, almost certainly computer-generated. It's surprising the writer didn't pick this up. Or maybe he did but didn't feel like including it in the article...??
Except it's not everything. I just went to the Amazon grocery section, did a search on ketchup, and did not find the product with the list price this article is referencing to.
I buy stuff from Amazon at least twice a week and I have never paid attention to "list price", in fact I don't consciously remember ever seeing it.
I am just interested in how much I pay and how much it costs to ship it. Being a informed consumer is the important part here. Amazon prices are pretty hard to beat particularly if you use some of the plug in price comparison modules that check against many other sites.
If you pay to much then you probably deserve to do so.
I guess another slow news day at the MS Babble Network.
The numbers are not pulled from the air. It has to be off list price from the company's suggested retail price. Who cares because you still save with Amazon. Its just some guy looking to get his name in an article.
If you think about it, a movement of the decimal by one (or two) places, makes all of the examples very reasonable.
Splenda at $5.53 rather than $553; Quaker Oats at $21.17 rather than $211.74; and Rice a Roni at $1.42 rather than $141.75.
Thinking is flawed. The Roni suggest retail would be lower then Amazons price.
Agreed huntington3540. Also they would't be advertising their prices as 90% or more off list price if it was "just a typo".
Even though a well informed consumer could easily see through this deception, it has a psychological impact on the buyer by suggesting that they are getting a "good buy". Madison Avenue has been paying behavioral psychologists for decades to find the best ways to manipulate the public to purchase and consume products. Example: a taller but narrower container can contain less volume and therefore require less product to fill while being perceived by the brain as containing more than the shorter broader but larger container. This is why so many products are sold in tall thinner containers.
Amazon is certainly not above using psychology to sell products. Caveat emptor, indeed!
The "X% off" statement is likely automatically generated from the difference between the listed price and retail price. If a table or rounding error in the software is screwing up the retail price, then the "% off" listing would be affected too. I would bet it's a problem with the software, and not a malicious deception. (The deception would be much more subtle ;)
Just another scummy practice like their, we can't show you the price till you put it in your cart BS.
Has there been any thought that the list price of 'per box' is an actual crate (or wholesale???) box of the product they are buying versus the individual unit price? I'm not sure what these items go straight from the manufacturer as I don't work ordering for a grocer but that would be my thought?
I just compare to what I can find it for locally and if it's a deal, on top of free shipping...um...why not?
I suspect the retail price is a case price wholesale. For example, Rice-A-Roni ships 8 12 packs to the case or 96 units (or it did when I worked in grocery long ago). 96 x $1.48 is in the ballpark of the retail listed.
It's still misleading and needs to be fixed, but that would make sense.
Ahh, I was looking at a cookbook that normally retails at about 55$ (I gifted a copy from Amazon once). Just yesterday, both used and new prices ranged from 24$ to 200$. 600$ for an author autographed version with lemongrass sauce spilled on some pages yet listed as "new." Oy.
"list prices must be realistic and not some made-up figure"
The prices of things are always "just made up". Beyond the cost of manufacturing something, the profit margin is the made up portion of the price of the product. Why do some items have a profit margin of 40%, while others have a profit margin of 5%? It's because the price is made up.
Still better than the items that show New & used listings 95% lower than what you were looking at and then make up more than the difference with massive shipping charges.
They're cheap tricks to cash in on dumb people. Pay attention to what you're buying.
I like the Amazon practice of having a standard shipping charge for the "storefront" or "associates" or whatever name is used for other vendors. I don't know if this applies to all vendors and all items, but I have pulled up lists for a dvd I wanted to buy. The vendor prices for the same new dvd vary wildly (maybe from $12 to $200) but they all have the same shipping/handling fee when purchased through Amazon. I assume that shipping cost (for that item) is assigned by Amazon as one of the conditions for having the vendor's offer included in the list.
The searches that I have seen that use the "cheap price and outlandish shipping charge" trick are usually from other shopping/search sites. Some searches allow sorting in the order of "Price + shipping - total" which makes the search more usable.
News flash: It's not just groceries on Amazon that have bogus list prices. Take a look at watches.
The bottom line is that comparison shopping minimizes the impact of these errors. I find customer reviews for "similar" items to be more disturbing; myself. God Bless Amazon Prime and free 2 day shipping. Even though the Prime items are slightly more expensive to cover some of the shipping costs, they are still cheaper than most alternatives. When they aren't, I buy elsewhere. Grocery items are not typically in the bargain column, but if they're cheaper and shipping is free, why not purchase on line? I have'nt received old or damaged stock so far... In addition, local retail prices don't reflect the cost of fuel to obtain them, even if you consider your time to be free.
Not a dumb article, but a skimpy one. I've been pricing the value of my vinyl record collection on Amazon. These items are no longer manufactured so price is entirely dependent on supply and demand. Nearly every album being offered for sale has multiple dealers and wildly different asking prices. What's not available are a list of actual transactions like that of the real estate market used determine fair market value. I'm happy that Amazon is providing this virtual flea market, but it needs some policing to keep vendors in line and stop them from wildly inflating prices.
If you're willing to buy a case of something as most amazon grocery purchases would be, check with your grocery store. They may give you a discount for buying in bulk. We like a particular single-serve beverage, and get 10% off for buying it by the case. And no shipping.
I'm actually surprised at the answer Amazon.com gave you because the actual answer is very simple. I am a large third-party seller on Amazon.com, and any Amazon.com seller can change the list price of any product that they want to. These inflated prices that you see are not the work of Amazon.com - they are the work of some third-party seller submitting a price. Amazon.com does not check these prices, and they are automatically updated. There are thousands of sellers on Amazon.com who have this ability - all it takes is to be an Amazon.com Pro Merchant seller ($39.99/month), and you can update any listing information on any product. Often 3rd Party sellers will jack up the list price of an item they are selling to make it seems like there is a huge discount in order to get more sales.
Who in their right mind buys food on Amazon??
People who are too busy to go shopping themselves apparently. I'm surprised myself, but there are households with 2 or 3 kids, both parents high-earners career-minded people who spend 12+ hours away from home (kids raised by daycare of course). amazon prices are surprisingly competitive to grocery stores and give you the convenience of just serving mac and cheese everyday to the kids so you can keep busy. I won't treat my family that way, but I've seen them and I shake my head, but power to them to make it work i guess and kudos to amazon for serving their needs.
I have purchased food items that my local grocery store does not carry or does not carry anymore. I never pay more than I would in the store with my coupons. Just check your prices and know what you are looking for.
As gasoline climbs above $5 per gallon this summer, it may seem reasonable for people who live more than 10 miles from a grocery to have food shipped. If the shipping is included and the price is the same or less than the grocery, why not? Also handy for those with suspended driver's license - hard to haul canned goods on the bicycle.
And it is a great way to collect corrugated cardboard boxes, if that is your hobby.
I can usually get some pretty good deals on pasta noodles. The last time I purchased some it was a 10 pack for 7 bucks.
sounds like we need more government to protect the little people.
This is nothing. Check out what a gallon of Tuscan Whole Milk goes for on Amazon these days.
Clearly they are basing their list price off of grocery prices in California.
This marketing strategy actually makes perfect sense. A lot of people simply have a hard time walking away from a deal, and when they see something like "90% OFF!", common sense and rationality tends to go right out the window. Sure if you read the list price (or know your local store prices) you will know these offers are serious jokes... but some people just can't get past that "90% OFF!" banner without clicking buy. I mean come on, I think most of us probably know someone who goes to the store and buys several things they didn't need or normally don't buy just because they had a coupon for it or it was on sale. These offers are aimed at people like that, and there are a ton of them.
Actually it's EASY to understand uno. They get their costs ($ figures) by out-sourcing to Bangladesche & BFK Egypt.
SEEEE how eazy thaa wuz/is.
“It’s just crazy,” Dworsky says. “These list prices were literally plucked from thin air and then multiplied by a hundred.”
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this company is asking for a bankruptcy. So, let's give it a hand: stay away from Amazon.com.