Amazon is Price Fixing with Coupons
Here's the deal with coupons fellow Amazonians....fellow sellers. Because of the FTC lawsuit against Amazon recently, they have changed their policies. From what I understand, the FTC doesn't believe it's fair price practice to list an item with a certain MSRP (list) price, but than offer that item for it's "real" or the sale price that it's always listed at significantly lower. Great...fine, this makes sense. Cool Amazon!
However, Amazon's response to this change/threat is that their needs to be an MSRP or List Price that is the "normal" sold price of said item. And I order to offer a coupon, it needs to come out below this price, or if you've had sale prices, lower than this price...and lower than the product has been sold over the past 90 days.
But, anyone who has messed with this recently knows that this is not the case. The coupon eligibility is not based on the past average 90 days sale price. The coupon will not work. Even if you make it the lowest price you've ever offered said product.
This is where it gets f'd up. Amazon states that it needs to be the lowest price against either the "same or comparably" same products in a given category for that coupon to be eligible to run. Basically, Amazon gets to secretly decide what price they think your item should be for to be able to run a coupon. Regardless of comparability of a certain product, materials, or a many given number of factors....Amazon is saying "your coupon is not approved" unless you lower your price.....
And the reason we have to guess this, the price, the situation, is because this pretty much sounds a lot like Price Fixing. Sure, there's details to be had, about it being through a coupon feature and what not. But, it's very clearly implied what's going on here.
If you want to run a coupon, WE (as Amazon) will decide if the price is in the lowest place we want for said product.
Srsly f'd up.
Amazon is Price Fixing with Coupons
Here's the deal with coupons fellow Amazonians....fellow sellers. Because of the FTC lawsuit against Amazon recently, they have changed their policies. From what I understand, the FTC doesn't believe it's fair price practice to list an item with a certain MSRP (list) price, but than offer that item for it's "real" or the sale price that it's always listed at significantly lower. Great...fine, this makes sense. Cool Amazon!
However, Amazon's response to this change/threat is that their needs to be an MSRP or List Price that is the "normal" sold price of said item. And I order to offer a coupon, it needs to come out below this price, or if you've had sale prices, lower than this price...and lower than the product has been sold over the past 90 days.
But, anyone who has messed with this recently knows that this is not the case. The coupon eligibility is not based on the past average 90 days sale price. The coupon will not work. Even if you make it the lowest price you've ever offered said product.
This is where it gets f'd up. Amazon states that it needs to be the lowest price against either the "same or comparably" same products in a given category for that coupon to be eligible to run. Basically, Amazon gets to secretly decide what price they think your item should be for to be able to run a coupon. Regardless of comparability of a certain product, materials, or a many given number of factors....Amazon is saying "your coupon is not approved" unless you lower your price.....
And the reason we have to guess this, the price, the situation, is because this pretty much sounds a lot like Price Fixing. Sure, there's details to be had, about it being through a coupon feature and what not. But, it's very clearly implied what's going on here.
If you want to run a coupon, WE (as Amazon) will decide if the price is in the lowest place we want for said product.
Srsly f'd up.
0 replies
Seller_nBUcRErQhJ4JW
I thought the lawsuit is more about forcing sellers to use sponsored products to make their items show up in search, raising prices to be able to pay for sponsored products and better priced products not being shown to consumers.
So the consumer is seeing higher priced products with the cost of PPC built in as opposed to better priced similar products where there is no PPC.
Seller_24FzucbyGtgZS
Amazon should be prosecuted for price fixing. It is against the law.
Seller_z1JDNz6de1lqc
Amazon is also price fixing many listings hence High Pricing Errors and removing buy box when price is higher than they have set the limit at.
Seller_Mg19WQ0yYVtIn
I have the issue " No Reference Price available" . I set up all list price and sales price and it stops few hours later. I also faced the other issues that everyone brought up with coupons!
Also Chinese sellers can afford to sell an item for as low as $10 and there is no way I can sell an item for less than $30 so who decides what is the fair pricing? some bots or someone who sits outside os US and don't pay US cost of living?
Seller_3T22G8blEWczx
They want us to lower prices to use the coupons. So what's the sense of coupons if you just need to lower prices? I think they are promoting Sponsored Brands which does not benefit the sellers. They only target audiences who have engaged with your brand or similar products, but not those who are just browsing for items and looking for, example, gift suggestions.
