this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2024
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My girl was looking for a dress for Halloween. Yesterday she found one on Amazon for € 35 and put it in the cart, but did not buy it. Today she looked it up again and it was € 50 so she asked me to look it up with my phone with my Amazon account - it turned out to be € 23 for me, less than half of what it’s for her!

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

I only serf Amazon on private without being logging in, if I find something I like, then I copy the link to my regular browser.

If you’re not gonna give a lurker a good price, I’m not interested.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Clear her browsing data and try again, this happens with flights too.

This is why fingerprinting is an issue.

Sidenote. I went to by a boxset of books for my partner and it was ~50 for the set, I got back to pay the next day and it is 100. On ye third day it is ~70 with a note that it is down from 110. Scumbaggery.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Camelcamelcamel is also good for seeing pricing shenanigans like this too. A box set a relative asked for was marked as $100 but on sale for $30 and checking camelcamelcamel I could see it's rarely listed at its list price and basically always marked down to $25-35 with spurts of time at $40-50

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Use Firefox and max out all of its security settings. When you do this, the fingerprint protection is so good that not even Google can ID my PC anymore. I have to pull out my phone and confirm it's me every time I log in.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yup, I have this same experience with my personal account vs. the business one I use at work. The business one has a higher price a lot of the time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Well business will reimburse it so might as well get as much as they can. I've noticed it with hotels a lot.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

But does it fit you?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Does no one cross ship any more for the best deal? I haven't trusted online pricing in ages

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

What is cross ship?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

My guess is that it's something like camelcamelcamel which shows the prices over time in a graph? Here's an example of a frog plushie https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B09RN4YCXG?context=search&cpf=new-used

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

People should never trust Amazon or the "% off deal" that Amazon is advertising. Always verify against camelcamelcamel.com to ensure that the price is actually a deal and not artificially inflated due to some demand spike or their algorithm thinking that you really need it right now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I just used camel last night and bought a new oled monitor. It was offered to me 39 bucks cheaper than it ever has been on Amazon. 💜👏👌

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This is an industry wide thing.

Some vendors detect if you are on a Mac, and the assumption is.you have money, and therefore the prices are higher

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago

changing my user agent to Brave so everyone thinks I lost my money to scams

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago

If they detect that you're using a 19 year old ThinkPad with Arch linux, they aggressively increase the price on thigh-high rainbow socks.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I haven't experienced that, but I used to do my amazon purchases at the end of the month until I noticed all the prices get raised around that time. So now I shop without rhythm to not attract the price inflation worm

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

The price must flow!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Adblock premium cost is wildly different based on location.

Using a VPN I have found everything from $15/yr to $40/yr

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

that's just regional pricing. it makes sense and is pretty standard.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

You're paying for an ad blocker? uBlock origin is free and fully featured.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I pay for Mullvad VPN, that’s €60/yr ($65)

I know it’s much but I prefer mailing them a letter with the money to stay anonymous

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I am using mullvad vpn as well.

I am saying that AdBlock premium has a different cost based on your location, which you can switch with your VPN.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Use uBlock origin instead. Cost is $0 forever, and it has the best adblocking by far.

You can augment that with an NextDNS account to do ad filtering at the DNS level. It is a pay service technically, but their free tier is very generous.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

It is not the best adblocking by far, that is not accurate.

It is better than the free AdBlock extension, yes. It is not better than AdBlock premium. No more cookies popups, no more floating video players on news sites, no more mailing list popups. These are three things that you do not get with ublock origin. I know because I use both.

I already use adgaurds DNS, which is free.

Lastly, I'm more than happy to pay $15/yr to a company fighting a fight I believe in. Now, I wouldn't pay $40/yr, but if all I need to do is change my VPN from New Jersey to Montreal to get more than 50% off that price, it's a no brainier.

My only complaint is they don't have a Firefox mobile extension, so when I'm on my phone I'm stuck with janky-ass ublock origin and nothing better.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

You do you, but I will say uBO can block all of those things, it just doesn't do it all out of the box.

You have to subscribe to the right blocklists, or manually remove elements you don't want from sites you visit frequently.

ABP offers you the convenience of not having to manually tinker with everything, which is what money is supposed to be used for - convenience.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Whatever works for you.

Personally, I have none of the above issues with Unlock origin. Its deeply tunable, so after adding a few lists past the default, it stops all the above.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I buy IVPN sub with Monero, so it's private. I'mma try Mullvad next time.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I think it’s neat. You create an account, without an email address, you just get a random number, choose a password. Then you have the option to send them a letter containing the money and a piece of paper with your random number and they’ll add the time to your account.

Or you can use any other form of payment, including monero

[–] [email protected] 54 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Amazon countered price tracking by introducing coupons that only apply at checkout. Some products only use coupons for discounting now.

Just be aware that these prices may not be the true lows.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Yes, and Prime-only discounts, so they cannot easily be scraped.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That explains why I see coupons more and more. Ty.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I’ve never seen a coupon on amazon

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Add something to your cart, you won’t see the coupon u till you’ve added it. It will have a button to “clip” the coupon thus applying the potential savings.

It’s scummy

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

It's often a checkbox in green near the checkout button if the item and can be the most absurd percentages that shift daily and are often better discounts than sale days.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Some products have discounted prices for Prime members.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Neither of us has prime

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Then what about 🐪🐪🐪?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Another comment pointed out that apparently amazon fighting this with coupon system

[–] [email protected] 70 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Can OP (or anyone) provide a legitimate source for this?

From what I can find, Amazon and its partners do dynamic pricing (based on various algorithms) but I can find no evidence / source that it does personalized individualized pricing.

IOW, dynamic pricing is not done at the individual shopper level, but can be based on many variables like lightning deals, sudden spikes in demand, inventory issues (over supply / under supply) and various other factors which are not related to the individual shopper.

Anecdotal evidence is interesting, but not persuasive.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Amazon doesn't track users, but it does have various sellers selling the same items. The search results aren't always in the same order and sometimes the price on the item page is based on whichever seller has that item.

For example, I wanted a faux leather jacket. I found dozens of them in various sizes from different sellers. Changing the size on one page changed the seller entirely.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

I haven't seen any studies, I seem to remember there was some news reports many years ago.

I do know that I've stood in my living room, on the same wifi, and looked art the same item from Amazon on my phone and my brother in laws phone and seen different prices. But that's just another anecdote.

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