Posted on 09/06/2017 6:37:34 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
Amazon (AMZN) may be in hot water with consumers over the price of water.
Some are reporting sharply higher prices for bottled water on Amazon as Hurricane Irma approaches Florida. Customers there were reporting packages of Nestle water selling for $25 on Amazon, yet prices for those in the Northeast showed a 24-case pack of Nestle water selling for $18.50.
Amazon uses so-called "dynamic pricing," also known as surge pricing. In this model, items that are in demand receive price tweaks, thanks to Amazon's pricing algorithms. As demand spikes, prices go higher.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
What makes me laugh is that the Trump-hating Bezos run biz is now taking heat. Gee, in an emergency why doesn't Amazon just GIVE AWAY the water?! Bezos is a BILLIONAIRE. He can afford it, right????
Bezos is merely a shareholder. He has a fiduciary duty to the shareholders. Giving things away may not fit the business plan.
Water is heavy for its price. I expect Amazon to mark up prices on things like that to cover their “free” prime shipping.
I play i little with Amazon , I put some items in the shopping cart and sit back and watch the prices go up and down
$18.50 Normal price in N.E.? Same case, same brand at local W-M in mid west is less than $4.00.
Who orders bottles water? In a flood UPS/FedEx isn’t going to deliver, and if the roads are open you can buy bottled water for 30 per $3.50 at the local Wally World.
I put Kindle ebooks on my "wish list" and just let them set there. I check them once a day. If the price for the book falls either below $2.99 or is on sale at 50% or more (or both), then I purchase the ebook. If not, then it just remains on the wish list. I had one set of three Civil War history books on my wish list for almost a year. Each were priced at $29.99.
I just purchased all three at $.99 each.
It's a great game ...
Thomas Sowell once gave the example of a hotel room renting for $100/night. Mr. and Mrs. Smith decide to evacuate because of an approaching hurricane and rent two hotel rooms: one for them and another for their two children.
When they get to the hotel, they find that rooms have gone up to $200/night. So, they all pile into one room -- which leaves another available for someone else.
Did they do this in Texas as well? Texas has some pretty tough laws on price gouging and Amazon has a very traceable paper trail for sales. INVESTIGATE!
Buying water from Amazon is a serious indictment of current American over-dependence on “someone else, anyone else, I’m sure I can’t do this myself”.
Looks like $25 is the top of what the market will bear. Good to know, if I was in the water selling business. Wonder if this will drive prices up, overall.
Price gouging, there is nothing wrong with it! If you know anything about supply and demand...and if you had ever waited in Jimmy Carter’s gasoline lines, then you would disregard the term. Attacking it is promoting the worst case for socialism.
Texas is also going to find itself with shortages of Water, Fuel and other needed commodities if we don't drop this nonsensical and dangerous practice of threatening criminal prosecution for "price gouging".
People in Texas are reporting price gouging for sellers who price a case of water for $20 or more which in most cases amounts to less than $2 for a bottle of water when water is in huge demand and short supply.
I would invite those complaining about the price to make a visit to Six Flags on any regular day of the week and figure out how much a case of bottled water would cost them inside the park. At $3 a bottle or higher a case of water at Six Flags is selling somewhere north of $100 a case!.....but people pay it cause they are thirsty and they are a captive audience while in the park.
PS, nothing against Six Flags as this is a practice all venue type sellers use. Nothing wrong with it at all. They make a little money on water, food, parking etc. If they didn't then tickets would likely be $200 or more.
“Same case, same brand at local W-M in mid west is less than $4.00.”
Seriously. I’m in NC...will be picking up a few cases of the BJs store brand for around $4. I generally pickup one or two cases (35 bottles) each trip.
I have noticed on many products I price-compared between Amazon and other venders that Prime items were typically higher priced. I figured it was Amazon’s backdoor way of recouping some of the ‘Prime’ shipping costs.
It does seem this last year that their prices are more in line with other online vendors.
I went to Whole Foods, kind of expecting to see the produce prices, somewhat lower, as Amazon said they would. Not so.
Buying from a farm stand on the roadside is still cheaper; at least while this wonderful season remains. Sorry to see it end.
FWIW, I harvested my homegrown potatoes yesterday. JOY!
ahh, the old Dynamic Pricing Algorithm.
The manufacturer discontinues Wisk detergent and a week later it’s selling for thirty-one bucks a bottle on Amazon.
Just like the movie Idiocracy. “The computer did that thing again where it lays everybody off!”
There’s price gouging on gasoline here in Central NY State. It’s up to $2.80 a gallon for regular now. It was $2.48 about a week ago.
It’s gone from $2.15 last fillup to $2.55 last night, here in NC. There are refinery outages, that affects supply. It’s been worse, I recall actual gouging with prices in excess of $5.00 during the Obama administration, which of course saw nothing wrong with it, since their stated goal was for energy prices to “necessarily skyrocket.” Such do-gooders they were and are.
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