What's the deal with Amazon's hourly price changes?

[Eric]

I'm seeing this trend on several items lately, they jump up and down with this red -x%, this drill was $125 yesterday and now it's $137, I can check in an hour and it'll go up or down, constantly fluctuating sort of like the stock market.

 

[DT]

It's done that for years, they do OTF pricing based on source, volume, location (logistics cost), etc. One my "tricks" is to always cart something I'm interested in, even if it's saved for later, and just keep hitting my cart, I've scored dozens of items for a major discount by just waiting and watching. I was scoring some whole bean Verona (we used it to mix), it was $11, I added it to my cart, checked, a few hours later checked again, *boom*, down to my normal purchase price of $8.99

(That also leads me to believe they do activity analysis, and have purchase trigger points, especially if you have a history with a product)

 

[Eric]

It's done that for years, they do OTF pricing based on source, volume, location (logistics cost), etc. One my "tricks" is to always cart something I'm interested in, even if it's saved for later, and just keep hitting my cart, I've scored dozens of items for a major discount by just waiting and watching.

You mean just to watch? I've noticed you cannot lock it in so it's really a crapshoot and I can tell it's probably a great way to tempt people into buying when it seems low. Not sure why I'm just now noticing, I could swear it wasn't this obvious before, especially with the -7% in red like that.

 

[DT]

Yeah, it's Amazon Roulette, hahahaha

"$199, oh wait, $179, come on, come on, yes, $149, next drop I buy ... *checks cart* ... $249 "

The big red price reduction is more of a "sale", I think those are more driven by the manufacturer (especially for products that are more "price controlled")

 

[DT]

My favorite thing is very tiny prices changes, hahahaha, like right now, I have an item that decreased in price! Excellent, let's check the change ...

Oh, from $21.31 to $21.15. Wow.

 

[Herdfan]

I'm seeing this trend on several items lately, they jump up and down with this red -x%, this drill was $125 yesterday and now it's $137, I can check in an hour and it'll go up or down, constantly fluctuating sort of like the stock market.

View attachment 15728

You don't want that anyway. Join Team Red .

 

[DT]

You don't want that anyway. Join Team Red .

Team Blue kicks red ass.

Hahaha, electric tools become a political metaphor ...

Er, I guess I'm actually team green now ...

 

[Eric]

Ugh man, some topics just need to be void of all politics.

Edit: Okay I see we're talking about tool color parties, not political lol. In that case I'm team yellow but have had issues with them so I'm open to other brands.

 

[Herdfan]

Ugh man, some topics just need to be void of all politics.

I was actually referring to this;

 

[Eric]

I was actually referring to this;

View attachment 15742

I currently have the non-impact version of the DeWalt and it sucks hard, unable to do do anything that requires any real power without overheating and halting on me. I'm hoping the new one I shared here will do a better job.

 

[Herdfan]

I currently have the non-impact version of the DeWalt and it sucks hard, unable to do do anything that requires any real power without overheating and halting on me. I'm hoping the new one I shared here will do a better job.

What are you mainly using it for? If it for driving screws, then get an impact driver. They are far superior to using a drill. Now if mainly drilling, then the one you posted will do fine for smaller jobs. If you drill a lot, especially in harder woods, then you might want to consider moving up to the larger 1/2" Hammer Drill version.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I gave up on Amazon. So make fake 3rd parties selling fake products. I don't like where it is going. Plus, we don't order enough to justify Prime so went without prime for the first time this year.

The price change thing - started noticing that this year too - especially on items I bought already. Bit frustrating to see a nice drop after you buy something. lol.

For me it was deodorant. I could not find a legitimate seller of the deodorant that I wanted. Ordered a few and it was obvious that they were well designed fakes that didn't work. Course, I'm not going to waste my time trying to get my money back or anything. Just really frustrating.

Really fallen out of love with Amazon this year.