With Amazon’s Prime Day coming to a close, many of the “incredible” and “exclusive” deals are going with it. But some of those deals may not have been as exclusive as they once appeared.
In his post to r/assholedesign, a subreddit dedicated to showcasing design decisions made by companies with the intent of squeezing more money out of customers, Reddit user Marswhalbaconattor (Mars) posted This Image on Imgur and connected it to a text post.
The post, titled “Amazon Jacking up the price of the Echo from 39.99 to 69.99 just so it look like it’s 50% off when you buy it for 34.99 on PrimeDay,” has an image showing exactly that: According to a price tracker program Mars uses, the Echo normally sells for a price of about $40. However, this price jack to $70 was done on the day before the Amazon Prime sale was launched. This allowed Amazon to make the sale on their Prime Day product seem like a $35 discount when really it was only a $5 discount.
But the too-good-to-be-true deals don’t end there: One of the deals availabe through Amazon’s Prime day was an 80% off deal on a pair of SENSO waterproof bluetooth in-ear headphones. The headphones, which normally retail for $99.99, were on sale for what Amazon was calling a one-time low price of $19.99. This deal was also one of the many set on “limited availability” during Prime day, which means only a certain number of people could claim the offer before they were all sold out.
This deal was one of the first to sell out, and the headphones dried up within minutes of the opening of Amazon Prime Day. But apparently, the deal wasn’t as limited as Amazon wanted customers to think: As of today, July 18th, Prime day is over but the very same headphones are still on sale for $27.98 – more expensive than the offering during Prime Day, but not by much. They’re still on a terrific sale – which casts doubt onto whether Amazon’s Prime Day was really the only time to claim such an exclusive offer.
Featured Image Via Flickr / Kevin Dooley
Maya Asregadoo
August 2, 2018 at 12:47 am
So many retailers have used the method which Amazon did for Prime Day– raising prices of products before a sale — that I’m unsurprised to hear this.