11mo ago

Amazon pricing makes no sense.

We have been buying extra strong PG Tips British tea from Amazon because we think American tea is way too weak. 3 boxes of 80 were about $40 last time I bought them a few months ago. They’re now $80. Thankfully we discovered we can get an order of 6 for $60, but we have to wait until mid-February for the to arrive. Meanwhile, a single box of the same tea, which we'll have to get in the mean time, is $20. Yes, a single box is less per box than a 3-count box order, but you still save if you buy 6 boxes. How does any of that make sense?

74 comments

Get camel camel camel. It's a price tracker browser extension. You can set alerts and stock up on stuff when you need.
- Thanks, I appreciate the advice!
- which browser is necessary for this?
  
  Although they're available you don't need an extension or app. They have a website where you can view price history and set email alerts. It works great, I'm still getting price alerts I set up years ago.
  
  There are extensions for chrome and Firefox
  
  I just found a Firefox extension for myself. I can't speak for other browsers.
- I was using camel for holiday shopping and it's where it really hit me hard how stupidly priced have risen in 3 years
- I think ccc is why Amazon started doing all the "click here to save" boxes. I don't think ccc will track that, so it will never give true pricing data anymore.
- Not sure about camelcamel, but I use Keeps and it has a price history chart so you can see the fluctuations of every product. They do go up and down like the stock market!
  But more importantly, I set price alerts (same as camelcamel) and that really does make a massive difference. I've been doing it with grocery items lately, but even on high-value stuff that I'm willing to wait on can bring substantial savings.

It’s algorithmic to get you to pay more. The price will go up during high demand. Their “sales” are often more than the normal price. Then the price will go back down when demand falls. It works (for Amazon).

Amazons pricing scheme is a bunch of bait and switch and price gouging tactics.
- I really wonder who is still buying things on amazon. I used it mainly to browse and then find the product somewhere else. But now it's an absolute shitshow. Clothing is probably the worst, everything is cheap fast fashion directly from china and they usually have like a 3 star rating where people are either shills or people who complain that it's worthless and the pictures look nothing like what it's sold. Aside from wish level crap, the "normal" items don't even seem to ve cheaper anymore than what it's sold in a store.
  
  Car parts. I can have a part in two days, it's the same part that the parts store carries, but 1/4 the price. Fuck them parts stores.
- Just yesterday I discovered the prices change depending on whether or not I'm logged in. Supposedly this only happens when there are multiple sellers and Amazon favors the ones that honor prime... but I could not find the lower priced seller anywhere when logged in. Now I'm wondering if prime actually increases shipping costs because vendors just raise their overall prices to cover it... very, very close to dropping prime this year.
- They're so insistent on getting people to do their Subscribe & Save stuff, with lots of discounts for making a subscription. And I take the discount and cancel the subscription as soon as it shows up. The entire point seems to be to get people to subscribe at the low price, and then jack the price up, sometimes double, when it starts recurring.

Is it sold by the same seller as last time? Lots of stuff on Amazon is actually sold by someone else and different sellers can have wildly different prices.
- I have honestly never bothered looking at the seller. It's just the same order I keep re-ordering. Or used to.
  
  Yeah lots of "drop shipping" folks on Amazon, they buy a pallet of whatever it is from the same source as the top seller and then do some magic to get the "buy box" (the company that shows as default seller). Once they run that person out of business they are free to raise pricing until they no longer are winning the buy box again.
  Amazon has also gotten bad with who it allows to sell on the site, and has been known to lump similar SKUs together, even ones from different sellers. This becomes especially troublesome when someone in the stack is selling counterfeit items.
  All that is to say, pay attention to who you are buying from, and be on the lookout for counterfeit items.
  EDIT - I don't think this is the case here, but Amazon is also known to look at the users location and device and change prices accordingly. A great example of this is that sometimes a user buying from an Apple device (desktop or iPhone) will pay more than a user from a cheaper Android or Windows PC for the same item.

Can’t comment on the pricing, but I’ve found Yorkshire tea pretty cheap on Amazon and it’s very strong
- Someone else recommended it. I need to check it out.
  The name amuses me because it suggests it's from Yorkshire instead of Asia or Africa.
  
  Brit here, Yorkshire Tea is definitely the better of the two. Yorkshire Gold specifically is a great non-specialty tea.

this thread makes me think we need a 'help me find this' kinda of community...
i remember a reddit sub helped me find a sweater i really wanted and had spent weeks searching for.
- There actually is a HelpMeFind community (https://lemmy.ml/c/helpmefind), although it's dead at the moment. I agree it's be good to have it up and running.
  I used to have a multi Reddit set up which grouped various subs all about helping people either identify things (songs/movies/books/random objects they'd found/etc), find them online to buy, or discover new related stuff (If I Like This), it was quite fun and obviously it helped people. Also meant I discovered a LOT of music that I really liked, but would probably never have heard of.
  
  Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !helpmefind@lemmy.ml
  
  thank you!
  
  !helpmefind@lemmy.ml There's a booger link for those wanting to stay on their instance.
- Oh man, speaking of sweaters, it's hard as hell to find decent used men's cashmere sweaters and even the cheaper new ones are $80-100. And that's if you want one that's a pattern-free one color boring sweater. I have like four nice looking cashmere sweaters with a sensible pattern on them that I've had since probably the early 2000s that I barely even wear anymore because I love them so much and I can't find a decent replacement for them even the last time I looked on eBay (this may have changed, but I don't have the money to spend right now). I guess I just have to wait for them to come back in style.
  
  ha, yes! all mens clothes are of the same 3-4 dark colors. awesome.
  
  Do you have Nordstrom Rack near you? They often have new cashmere marked down to 20 or 30 bucks.

Just stop buying bagged teas, that was always the real scam anyway. Look into local tea shops / cafes and buy loose leaf teas. They will be fresher, and a lot more flavourful.

Any chance you have an Indian grocery near you? The ones I've gone to often have pg tips for way cheaper than that.
- I do. I will check there. Thanks!

It doesn't, stop buying on amazon. There are 10000 other stores that will ship great tea to you worldwide. There's plenty of non-american tea in the americas already.
Also, on amazon you need to scroll and shop. Everyone knows the same items are available much cheaper down the list, amazon puts the more expensive one's at the top because people don't go passed the first pages, assuming it's garbage results.
What's the brand you are looking for?
Sometimes the smaller dealers are a bit more expensive but at least it's not to make bezos even richer.
- Every place I am looking right now is either more expensive or out of stock. And I am also not seeing it further down the list. What you say does make sense when looking for a general item, but it doesn't work very well when looking for a very specific one. In our case- PG Tips Extra Strong blend 80 count boxes of tea.
  
  PG Tips Extra Strong blend 80 count boxes of tea
  Here. $9 for a box of 80, extra strong, and in stock.

As another US-based mail order tea drinker, you're likely going to have to stop using Amazon. There are some domestic sources, and some international that ship here. Will it be cheaper? No. And you may have to try a somewhat different brew. But you shouldn't face these problems and there are some great teas to be had 😋
There are a few tea forums on different instances but they're pretty dead. One or two have sourcing options, tho! I've used stash for a long time, but I drink loose leaf. Not sure about their bagged. I've heard Arbor is good, too, but haven't tried them.

They change prices per-customer to see how much they can get you to pay. It’s obviously maddening because you don’t want to ever order at the high rate, so there are times I just don’t buy things and wait. I had a similar experience with biscuit mix.
- The price hasn't changed in ages though. And the last time it did it was maybe by $5. This is a 100% change!
  
  Right. It’s obviously not a “real” change in price, it’s some bullshit.

Looking at the listing, the reason is because you're buying from different people. The 1 pack for 20 is from Nosh London, while the 3 for 80 is from British Selections. The 3 for 40 was most likely a third seller who ran out of stock. Amazon is more a market than a store.
- That makes sense but it shouldn't be on us to figure out who is selling through Amazon. Especially when they don't make it obvious. This is nefarious on their part for sure. But I'm going to use camelcamelcamel from now on.

This year I'm trying to move away from Amazon, first letting our prime membership lapse in I believe a week. May replace it with Walmart+ or nothing.
But the reality is I was ok paying a fee for fast shipping, but this stupid crap with adding "free" perks that ultimately raise the price combined with the terrible review system, and just garbage products has me backing away. I don't use/find enough value in all the extra perks above free shipping to justify the cost.

Check your local supermarket or Whole Foods. I live on the East coast of US and can get PG tips in my local grocery store.
- They usually don't have the extra strong blend unfortunately.

You can use the extension keepa to know if you are getting a real deal.

I usually do a pot of Twinnings Irish breakfast tea. 3 teabags in the pot gets me 2 lovely cups if tea. But i have limited selection on tea out in rural Ohio. I try not to buy food off of Amazon because god only knows what is actually in there.
- I really do not like Twinnings.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/PG-Tips-Black-Tea-Pyramid-Tea-Bags-40-ct-2-pk/446090834?from=/search
40 tea bags for $15, 3 day shipping.
Amazon isn't the only place to get things online, orders over $35 get free shipping from Walmart. Bonus: Walmart employees are allowed to use the toilet as necessary.
- I'm afraid that's both not the extra strong blend and half the count of the boxes we buy, so that's actually more expensive. But I appreciate it.
  
  I just found a box of 240 for $32. (Added to my cart)
  Pg Tips Tea Bags, 240 Count, Pack of 2 https://a.co/d/fZI8uEy

Not the question you asked, I know, but I have been buying my tea from uptontea.com since before they had a web site and you had to call in from a printed catalog. Loose leaf tea is economical and gives you a wide variety of choices. I’m drinking my go-to Kensington Breakfast Blend right now.
- I'm too lay for loose leaf. I also do not care for tea leaves in my mug.

I think they do this to game people who use the "rebuy" button without shopping around again. Several times I've bought a consumable and when I go back, the exact listing j bought from has doubled in price while many other listings are normal. That's why I never use the "buy again" section, and if I can afford to wait I'll find a lower or comparable price on eBay, and hope they aren't just drop shipping me from a cheaper listing that I didn't find on Amazon.
- I'm glad I always check the price before I hit buy just due to inflation alone or I would have totally been burned. It hasn't occurred to me to look for tea on eBay. Back in the day when it was just an internet garage sale I wouldn't have done it, but it makes sense to look now. I think I'll go check that out.

What were the “American teas” that you did not care for, out of curiousity?
- Every one I have ever tried has been weak compared to what I drink now. Even American versions of British tea are weak. Twinings is twice as strong in the UK.
  
  Is Yorkshire tea similarly fiddled with? Beats the pants off PG Tips as a general rule.

Amazon doesn’t sell most the items. They just fulfill them. That’s why you get weird pricing. Could me multiple vendors or vendors who think you’ll just buy.

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