Amazon real time price changing?

[dodge man]

So I was shopping for a stand for my bench grinder stand on Amazon, we are prime members. Found one I liked and the wife said search other places. Generally the prices were about the same except Home Depot had the same unit for about $35 less. This entire time I had the Amazon page open comparing specs to make sure it was the same. I ordered from Home Depot shipped to my front door. I go to close out the Amazon page and it suddenly it shows a 13% discount. It lowered the price about $20. It was still cheaper at Home Depot but by only $15 now.

So I know Amazon plays some games with prices even during the same day. Can they detect I have that page open for period of time and assume I’m price shopping? Can they actually see I’m shopping on other web sites? Did it just happen to change in the 30 minutes I had the Amazon page open?

 

[caver]

I've seen some odd things happen with pricing but not recently as I now use amazon as a last resort. One interesting thing that has happened to me on ebay is you look at something more than once. This is strictly buy it now stuff. You might get an offer a day or two later with a one time discount from the seller. At first I thought maybe they get a heads up because I put something on my Watchlist but the second time I hadn't.

 

[Willman]

I've seen some odd things happen with pricing but not recently as I now use amazon as a last resort. One interesting thing that has happened to me on ebay is you look at something more than once. This is strictly buy it now stuff. You might get an offer a day or two later with a one time discount from the seller. At first I thought maybe they get a heads up because I put something on my Watchlist but the second time I hadn't.

I’ve seen Amazon prices go up one day to the next on things I put on my wish list
I have had the same item open on my phone and my computer at the same time and had two different prices
They do track what you look at on the web, I’ve e looked at items for example at Homedepot and the next day get emails from Amazon with links to that same item or something like it

 

[grsthegreat]

Amazon sucks that way. I was shopping for shoes last week. Saw price i liked and bookmarked page. Went back later the same day to buy after visiting local shoe store, but price had nearly doubled.
ended up ordering a pair from ebay instead.

 

[scootr]

I wonder if you can't test that again with the same product on Amazon and HD for a while to see if the price changes

 

[dodge man]

For grins and giggles I just checked on Amazon and the price is now the same as Home Depot.

 

[MapleLeafFarmer]

hmmm... being tracked on internet? I'm no expert and not sure if exactly the same but I know when I search something like chainsaws next thing I know pop up adds, banner ads, google search results, etc... display chainsaw stuff. And normally from off brands.

So my guess is yes some can tell I am price shopping.

 

[stumblinhorse]

The internet knows everything about everything all the time. Every click everywhere is tracked. If you don’t turn off Siri and Alexa you will have ads based on your conversations. When data storage became so cheap it became so easy to just track everything. Internet knows what you buy at the grocery story. It knows Where you drive your car. Nothing is off limits. Amazon knows you where at Home Depot website it knows how much it is there and adjusts its price. Then after you buy it will move it back up for the next customer.

A fun thing to do is have stuff saved for later in your cart. Then it tells you what changed every time you pull up the cart. I literally have up 75 things in my cart saved. And when the price goes way down I move to cart and purchase. You can get some really good prices that way. Prices change every time you pull up the cart. Sometimes pennies sometimes hundreds of dollars…

 

[5030]

Sometimes pennies sometimes hundreds of dollars…

...and for the most part Chinese in origin on Amazon, not everything but quite a bit and I dislike Bezo's anyway and I'd never, never pay for a Prime membership. Like pizzing money down the toilet far as I'm concerned.

 

[chevy]

The price changes at Amazon are nothing new, they have been going on for years. Sometimes items change in price more than the stock market.

Prime membership costs us about $10 a month. We get more value than that out of just the movie service.