Amazon’s scheme to inflate prices everywhere uncovered : PurchaseWithPurpose@lemmy.world

Amazon’s scheme to inflate prices everywhere uncovered (www.youtube.com)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by FallenWalnut@lemmy.world [M] to c/PurchaseWithPurpose@lemmy.world

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Particularly egregious in the United States, where they have such a strong monopoly.

And also why supporting independent shops directly is SO important.

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[–] VitoRobles@lemmy.today 64 points 3 months ago* (6 children)

Even better reason to get a Costco membership.

They don't fuck around and have rules like "No item in the warehouse can be marked up by more than 14% to 15% above cost."

If the distributor tries to give them a shittier version, they don't accept it like Walmart. There's been stories where customers do find a shittier version at Costco (like Oreos) and Costco retaliating on behalf of the customer.

And even more important, if a distributor decides to fuck over Costco, Costco will cut deals with the actual factories to make their own Kirkland version.

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[–] Turret3857@infosec.pub 16 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Except... whoopsie daisies, Costco is selling you out to ICE by having a partnership with Flock cameras.

AUTOMATED LICENSE PLATE RECOGNITION USAGE AND POLICY We use Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) technology to collect information relating to vehicles present on or near some Costco facilities. We use this information to detect, prevent, investigate, report, and address incidents or illegal activities occurring in or around our facilities, to maintain security for our employees, vendors, members, and other visitors, for loss prevention purposes, and to measure and mitigate traffic flow on our properties, at gas pumps, and at car washes.

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 6 points 3 months ago* (1 child)

Not all ALPR systems are Flock. Any source that they turn shit over to ICE? Or did you just notice they use ALPR systems in their privacy policy?

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[–] Turret3857@infosec.pub 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Ive been to their stores and seen flock cameras. Flock Cameras all look the same. Flock owns the rights to all footage recorded by these cameras, and have been known to share the footage with ICE, regardless of the contract they sign with whatever organization

edit: also worth mentioning, even if there are other Costcos with a different ALPR system other than Flock, most ALPRs on the market for enterprise/localities are trying to be flock.

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[–] blazeknave@lemmy.world 15 points 3 months ago

Before scrolling to this, thinking, "am I going to get roasted if I quip that somehow Costco ended up the least villain" and here you are with zero downvotes

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[–] blackbrook@mander.xyz 9 points 3 months ago

Wait... Are you telling me not all oreos are created equal?

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[–] socsa@piefed.social 2 points 3 months ago

The problem is that I don't have six hours to spend fighting weekend crowds at Costco. I'm sure in some places they aren't bad, but the ones near me are fucking mad Max outside of normal working hours.

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[–] joeljoelle@piefed.blahaj.zone 41 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (12 children)

Kroger is absolutely copying the Amazon playbook down to copying products for their store labels and then discontinuing them or making the other choices seem like a bad deal. It really is a awful way to run a grocery store, for consumers. And keep in mind this is all happening under maximum capitalism, all this bad shit they told us would happen under communism like only one brand at the grocery story, is exactly where we are headed with this shit. I don't trust Kroger to make the best of everything, that is absolutely ridiculous, the whole point of grocery stores was to bring all those products and companies under one roof for convenient shopping. Blah I'm so bitter about what they did to grocery stores, there's still a few good ones but they're much further away

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[–] VitoRobles@lemmy.today 13 points 3 months ago (1 child)

In the west coast and there's a place called WinCo's that's crushing Krogers.

Kroger (Fred Meyers) would charge $8 for a watermelon. WinCo's (which is employee-owned) would list the price of the same watermelon at Walmart, Fred Meyers, etc and their price at like $5.

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[–] joeljoelle@piefed.blahaj.zone 4 points 3 months ago

That sounds good!, the store I mentioned that I prefer to shop at now a bit further away is Woodman's which is also employee owned :) Hope they'll build more, there are also some good co-op stores but also far. I probably need to move really

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[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 10 points 3 months ago (6 children)

This is what I see again and again in our society in the last few years. All the things mentioned on why russia's system is bad from the 80's is becoming the norm here now.

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[–] blackbrook@mander.xyz 10 points 3 months ago (1 child)

It doesn't really matter if you call a system "capitalism" or "communism" when it's really corrupt oligarchy.

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[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 4 points 3 months ago

you put that well. I was thinking of commenting something like this but did not have the corrupt oligarchy phrase in my head which exactly sums it up.

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[–] joeljoelle@piefed.blahaj.zone 6 points 3 months ago* (3 children)

It's exactly the same as those news stories they used to show with the stores in Russia, look at the shelves only government approved brands... only here it's ones that play ball with the whole corporate bully system we have

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[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

yeah and everything kinda crappy. Like just good enough to function but quality totally gone. Construction to. A condo building burned down near me over four years ago with the structure intact but the units and roof being totaly losses. Its still surrounded by construction fencing. Looks pretty much done on the outside but think it looks like studs still through the windows. Insurance fighting is supposed to be to blame but the same insurance will only pay people for a temp place to live for a year. Then anyone who owned one of the places has to pay taxes and assesments this whole time. A schoolbus went into our drive (its not supposed to, it goes into the larger drive of the complex across the street. Ours is to small) and hit a soil retaining wall and its sitting all messed up while the insurance companies drag their feet. We had a pool fall apart while trying to have it rehabbed and it should have been done last year but did get messed up by permits and inspections but all that was cleared up by the winter and almost nothings been done this year. What im trying to say is the us used to be able to build things and get things done. Its like that building in new york. Why is all this so messed up. Because construction workers, teachers, cops, and firefighters don't all make about the same money anymore and that money for some are not enough to have a "typical" american houseold with a house and some kids and doing decently on one income.

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[–] joeljoelle@piefed.blahaj.zone 5 points 3 months ago (1 child)

I've noticed that as well, buildings don't seem made to last anymore like I'll look at new buildings and I doubt they will be there in like 50 years some times, and those cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. There's a lot of "just good enough for now" quality to things, in stores too. I guess it all comes down to the stock marketification of our economy, all the wall street and investor worship crap, all the attention has been going to the people making it rich doing some easy shit mean while all the hard working people like those you mentioned are getting shit on daily, so it's very easy to get discouraged I'm sure, you really have to love your job doing those things but now a days a lot of people aren't taking jobs they love they are taking jobs to pay bills, so shit doesn't get done right anyways

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[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 5 points 3 months ago

yeah its the largest failing of the way america works. There is always this louding about efficiency but its a dollar cost efficiency. Quality is given zero concern. When germany/japan was pointed to for efficiency one big aspect is their efficiency was a quality product made efficiently. Not just efficiency alone. Quality was another big aspect. I think most places in the world have had to sacrifice efficiency to compete with the us and now china.

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[–] thejoker954@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago (1 child)

Come on we have plenty of brands. They just happen to be made on the same machines with the same materials by the same people.

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[–] nickiwest@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

I grew up in a rural area where one of the largest regional employers was a cake mix manufacturer. Several people who worked there could attest to the fact that the only difference between major brands and store brands were the boxes they went into at the end of the line.

I assume this is standard procedure with almost all food processing.

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[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 months ago

I had to go to Walmart recently, there were several items where I know they used to have more options but all of a sudden the only options were marketside and great value… Both Walmart brands.

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[–] venusaur@lemmy.world 16 points 3 months ago (8 children)

Can we get a TLDW?

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[–] FallenWalnut@lemmy.world [S] 28 points 3 months ago* (7 children)

Because Amazon has a monopoly, price matching doesn't mean "we will drop our prices to match competition", it actually means they bully suppliers to raise their prices to meet Amazon's price.

This inflates prices of goods because Amazon is increasingly taking a higher share of each transaction, so before, when companies could offer a cheaper in-store option because they were saving on these fees, they are forced to raise their prices to keep making a sustainable profit.

In summary, the more power you give Amazon, the higher fees they can charge suppliers and the worse the price gets for you as they are forced to pass on the fees. And you won't be wiser because they control the market's price at the supplier's store and on Amazon.

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[–] venusaur@lemmy.world 1 point 3 months ago (6 children)

Thanks! So they threaten not to sell the product if the supplier doesn’t raise the price?

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[–] OneCardboardBox@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (5 children)

Not quite. The bullying comes in a few forms:

Removing the "buy now" button from the product page, making users click through multiple steps to complete a purchase. Per the video, suppliers who had this happen to them saw 80% drop in sales.
Amazon automatically lowers its price, but then charges the supplier a fee on each item sold to make up for the difference in margin.
Amazon marks the product page with a big red badge saying "high price", discouraging users from buying the product.

Since the suppliers often need Amazon more than Amazon needs them, the net result is that they comply.

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[–] venusaur@lemmy.world 1 point 3 months ago (4 children)

Got it. Thanks! Is there an Amazon alternative? Something that has a lot of variety of products, fast shipping, and isn’t overpriced? I try to go to individual retailers but you end up paying multiple shipping fees, and shipping takes a long time. Often brick and mortar stores don’t care specific items I need either.

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[–] OneCardboardBox@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 child)

I haven't found one yet. I think anyone who could offer the same would inevitability end up using the same slimy tactics as Amazon.

When I can, I wait and bundle purchases together in order to save on shipping costs. Almost nowhere can match the 1-2 day shipping on Amazon, but it's rare that I actually need anything so fast.

Some of my go-to choices:

If it's some cheap product that Amazon sells 10,000 different versions of from brands with unpronounceable names, I usually can get it on AliExpress for cheaper. The tradeoff is waiting longer.
For consumer electronics, I'll look on B&H, BestBuy, Microcenter
For PC components, although I dislike newegg, I consider them less bad then Amazon
Books I order from my local store and pick them up in person
Electronic components, microcontrollers, etc I look at Mouser, Digikey, SeeedStudio, Adafruit, Sparkfun, and others
EBay is low on my list, because sometimes the seller is just drop-shipping you a product straight from Amazon and charging you more for it

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[–] venusaur@lemmy.world 1 point 3 months ago

Thanks! I’ve stopped using Aliexpress after my credit card being stolen a couple of times. I can’t prove it but they were both recently after a purchase from them and hasn’t happened since I stopped. And it takes forever to ship.

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[–] QualifiedKitten@discuss.online 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

Keep in mind that it doesn't have to be all or nothing. The fewer purchases you make through Amazon, the less power they have. If you have to shop there occasionally, that's much better than shopping there always. I cancelled my Prime a year or two ago, and I've adjusted to life without super fast shipping. And, if you can afford it, paying a few extra bucks to a less shitty company is worth it to support them.

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[–] venusaur@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

For sure. They’ve definitely crippled us with convenience and pricing.

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[–] cogitase@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 3 months ago

Algorithmic Pricing and Algorithmic Collusion

Even a simple pricing algorithm operating on multiple sites can result in price fixing that would be illegal if it came about by leaders of the respective companies meeting and agreeing to control prices in the same way. Because the algorithms are aware of price changes made on other sites in real time, they form a communication channel that enables this. You'll need some form of new legislation around pricing algorithms to ever put a stop to it.

[–] yakko@feddit.uk 11 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Y'all are paying how much for shit tickets?

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[–] RidderSport@feddit.org 4 points 3 months ago (1 child)

Yeah like wtf? It's like 6 Euros for the branded and 5 layer shit tickets here

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[–] yakko@feddit.uk 1 point 3 months ago

Used my VPN and checked the Wal-Mart site stateside, it's real

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[–] minorkeys@sh.itjust.works 1 point 3 months ago

Business uses its a position to forcibly extract as many resource from our lives as they can, regardless of what the consequences to our lives is. Business is not an ally, a friend or benevolent. It is a threat, a hazard and a menace to society.