Amazon Artificially Discounting Items $0.01 Below the Free Shipping Limit

Stop using Amazon

I've switched to eBay. The delivery time is often the same and the returns are ok too
- A few years ago I mused that we might see the day when eBay becomes a more trustworthy platform to purchase on than Amazon. I'm not sure when exactly the streams crossed but I think we are past it now
- I wish I could do more shopping there, but eBay in Canada is extremely expensive which has lead to it being kind of a ghost town compared to the US. $20-$50 shipping fees, even on tiny items, is common.
  
  So I've started to use AliExpress more often. Literally the exact same item on Amazon but without the markup - sometimes even half the price. It's not a great solution but the online shopping selection here in Canada is awful.
- Just gotta avoid Amazon drop shippers. Thousands of feedback + free expedited shipping + free returns = maybe a drop shipper.
- I've found that a lot of stuff listed on Amazon is about the price of shipping higher than it is on eBay I guess to account for the free Prime shipping. If you don't have Prime, there really isn't much reason to not use eBay since you'd be getting doubly screwed without the free shipping on Amazon.
Start using Amazon, but in an elaborate drop shipping scam where you sell a $.25 item for $38 and have Amazon pay you $3.99 to ship it to yourself as a proxy.
- Nahh their workers still get exploited (even more than the average laborer)
Unironically buy from AliExpress; Amazon is mostly an overpriced proxy to AliExpress nowadays.

Sadly I can say the same thing for my country's Bol.com :'-(
It's too convenient. Order something Sunday night, I'll definitely have it by Tuesday afternoon if not earlier. I always wait until I have enough items I need over $50 before I place an order anyway.
- In my area I can order something popular at midnight and receive it by 10am. If you're in a major metro area, they can usually do next day, same day, and overnight on a lot of items.
Temu or aliexpress
- 90% procent of products on Amazon are from AliExpress dropshippers anyway

Easy fix, don't buy from Amazon.

I try to when I can, but I tend to have major difficulties doing so.

I tried Ebay, they restricted my account and said the only way for me to get it un-restricted was to buy a product from a limited set of brand-new partner suppliers (e.g. Logitech, HP, etc) that were all over $100, and nothing I actually needed.

I tried buying some chargers from Anker and they also restricted me and said they wouldn't let me make a purchase because my email seemed suspicious (I don't use Gmail), so I had to go back to Amazon and buy it there instead for practically the same price, even though it would have actually been cheaper on Anker's own website since they had a discount code that would have worked for my order.

I bought something on Target because I'd been given a Target gift card, Target cancelled my order 3 times and made me contact customer service to remove an invisible hold on my account.

I frequently try checking third-party sites for the same products, and the prices are way higher (e.g. A product I plan on purchasing is $80 on the manufacturer's site, and $58 on Amazon, with the price frequently dropping to $38) because Amazon literally mandates that the cheapest price must be on Amazon. Often times, these price differences are so drastic that I could end up paying double for the same product.

I also tend to get Amazon gift cards from relatives even though they already know I dislike using Amazon when I don't have to, so it's often somewhat unavoidable.

Don't get me wrong, those are just the worst instances so far. I've bought quite a few items from elsewhere before without issues, it's just that I tend to have the occasional issue that makes it practically impossible to buy elsewhere.

Believe me, I do my best to not have to spend money on Amazon, but it's either so drastically more expensive that it's simply not reasonable to buy elsewhere, or for various reasons I mentioned before, I'm not even capable of placing an order in the first place.
- What in the world are you doing to get restricted and cancelled at different sites?
- Sounds like you need to make a boring Gmail account just for buying online.
- iFixit has their own store.
Support your local businesses. Unless its a super niche product, just buy it local
Normally cheaper on eBay in my experience. Pretty rare that I will use Amazon these days
What's the alternative? The other places I can order a big box of cheap stuff from (Walmart, Target) are run by even worse people and have even worse service.

I once ordered porcelain plates from target and they arrived with no packaging. I don't mean insufficient packaging, I mean four plates just thrown in a giant box with absolutely nothing else. Somehow 3 were not broken.

Right now I want 1) creatine and 2) cheap t-shirts and I don't wanna pay for shipping them separately. I can't find any place where I can get both at a reasonable price besides one of the above. I'm actually considering a costco membership but I'm only going to ever order online from them so I doubt it's worth their stupid membership.
- Generally, I believe the convenience of cheap shit delivered to your door comes at the invisible cost of exploitative labor practices and/or excessive consumerism by the means of low quality crap that will need to be replaced regularly or through "buy more and save" deals. If you want to avoid supporting that, you're probably going to have to spend a few extra bucks buying from a smaller business or buying secondhand.
  
  Convenience isn't free and if we want to reduce our dependence on harmful institutions we're going to have to make some sacrifices.
- Well, in the case of the OP, the alternative is the manufacturer: https://www.ifixit.com/Tools
- Walmart and Target aren't run by worse people. I've never heard of Target or even Walmart employees being forced to piss in bottles or a robot will fire them.
  
  They said, they are still bad people, as retail capitalists, but are you ready to have that conversation?
- Either buy more expensive shirts or stop buying creatine if you want to stop ripping them
- Shop for shit on amazon then buy it from the manufacturers website.
- GNC
  
  Thrift store
- Just a heads up on the Costco online thing, their selection isn’t that expansive, so it can’t replace Amazon for you. You’re at the whims of what item and brand they decide to carry and when.
- What's wrong with Target? Only thing I heard was backlash from putting out certain kinds of lgbtq+ designs and then reacting by pulling those back (and getting backlash again for that).
- Temu or aliexpress

Almost everything on Amazon you can also find on eBay. Sometimes it is a couple of bucks more expensive, but it's usually due to shit like this. Haven't bought on Amazon for 4 years now.

This must be very different in the US because over here eBay would be like just lighting your money on fire (since you have 0 recourse or reimburse options while Amazon's primary upside is how trivial replacement and reimbursements are). I mean de-amazon sure, but not for a place that's as anti-consumer as can be, which of course makes sense for actual second-hand purchases where you have no legal liabilities by the seller anyways.
- If you're buying on ebay and use PayPal, PayPal provides the consumer protection. That's been my experience anyway.
- where are you? Im in Ireland and use eBay all the time, and when there's been a problem it's always been rectified
- I'm based in Europe so that might be true.
- Amazon are getting bad about refunds and replacements plus have a major problem with counterfeit goods due to how they mix 3rd party and Amazon sourced goods in their warehouses.
  
  They can't refund your house if it burns down because Amazon sold you fake electronics.
  
  EBay is fine for the smaller cheap Chinese tat that you can find on amazon, and PayPal provides consumer protection. Go to other retailers for electronics - any site or shop that does not use third party sellers.
- This is such a tired trope. eBay has improved well beyond when it was just the wild west of third party sellers. I've not had a single issue on eBay in the last 3-4 years of purchases. Ive actually had extraordinary customer service through eBay. Recently purchased a used $50 coffee grinder and it arrived with cosmetic damage from shipping. Contacted the seller and they refunded the entire purchase while also letting me keep the item.
And the cheap stuff you can find for half the price on AliExpress. That's where they source their shit anyway
- Sadly, Americans learned to use Amazon as a grocery/hardware store and relying on fast delivery. Something something all ages in a single basket...
- Unless they lose your stuff. Then you'll see that consumer protection on all orders guaranteed involves you fighting with a wall that keeps denying your claims with no recourse. Aliexpress is much cheaper... As long as things work out. If they don't, it really sucks.
- And shipping from AliExpress has improved so much. Used to take weeks or months now here within a week.
Yeah and anything of value I would not get from Amazon due to the risk of counterfeits. Amazon pools its stock for an item with that provided by 3rd party sellers in its warehouse - either can be delivered to a customer based on which is closest not who you think you're buying from.

So you can easily receive dodgy goods from 3rd party sellers that may he counterfeit or refurbished rather than new, when it says "sold and dispatched by amazon".

Get your expensive items from other retailers that dont have 3rd party sellers. Get your cheap random Chinese manufactured crap from EBay or Aliexpress. Get your digital content from other stores like ebooks.com where you can legally remove the DRM and keep your content forever.

Fuck Amazon.
2nd eBay. Sometimes it’s even cheaper.
- Usually for used stuff eBay is way cheaper. And for many things, it doesn't matter whether it is new or used.
I'm joining that club too, managed to avoid Amazon for Black Friday and Christmas and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be
I usually just... go to the store.
- I always try to buy in the store, but most of the time the store either doesn't have the item I need or it costs 200%.
Depends on what country you live. Here in the Netherlands nobody sells anything on eBay. German sellers that ship internationally always charge a lot more than in the store and they always add shipping on top of it.

I've actually added very low cost items to my cart, made sure free returns from Amazon only, and returned it. Two can play that game Amazon!

If you return 'too many' items they may suspend or even ban your account. I'm not sure what the threshold is.
When I did this (I actually ended up not needing the item), they refunded the item minus the shipping cost, so...
- When you choose the option of why you returned it, some include not covering the shipping cost.
  
  Try choosing something else next time.

Obligatory fuck Amazon

Seriously. Through some weird twist of fate, the Walton's are suddenly looking like the best billionaire retail moguls.
- Yeah...no. They ruin communities by undercutting local retailers into oblivion, and then pay starvation wages to force many of their employees onto government assistance just to scrape by.

That set is normally 39.95 off iFixit's site.

They knocked off $3.38 i'd just go add a pack of duracels 2032's and get them for almost nothing, free shipping.

TBF, I usually have something sitting in my cart that I didn't feel like ordering yet anyway.

So they're getting you to buy more than you wanted or pull the trigger on something you were waiting on. Sounds like this is still a win for Amazon.
- Saved me $4, I'm fine with it.
  
  We need another amazon to beat the existing amazon up, retail sales are just bloated and dead.
  
  OR, how about we start getting mom and pop shops to do local ecommerse with delivery.
Check camel camel.

U can probably order that for temu or aliexpress. Skip bezos pockets, comes from the same source and is not gonna be price gauged

They've been doing this for years.

It's why I've made a 'save for later' collection of things I either use on the regular like my favorite soap or face cleanser, or really low cost things ($1 or less) I could make use of like single use eyewash to put in a first aid kit, things like that.

Annoying that I have to play their stupid little game, but this lets me bump it past 35 without it being wasteful

Kind of a tangent, but this is probably a good opportunity to throw out there that Amazon is pretty often not the lowest cost place to buy something these days. For example, I needed a specific but simple hand tool and Amazon wanted $5-6 for it but the harbor freight on the way to work costs $2. Worth a second search

There's Filler Checker as well for those that don't have such a collection.
- Of course someone made a tool for this
  
  It’s a good idea but it looks really outdated. Searched for 0.01 and the first page is almost entirely dead links or nowhere close to its listed price. Only 2 I found were the Baptist pamphlet for 25 cents and a washer for 36 cents(listed as 34).
  
  So hopefully they update it for guys like OP

I don't know if this is possible on Amazon, but on our local alternative (bol.com for the Dutchies) it is possible to buy e-books for one cent, which will get you free shipping. I have quite a selection of e-books I'll probably never read, but which were just the right amount to get free shipping.

I don’t know if this is possible on Amazon

It's certainly possible to get e-books for free, with only a very small amount of piracy.
- Not very helpful when you need that extra cent to get free shipping though, is it?
- Yes there are tons of free ebooks on amazon. Mostly classic literature that’s past copyright.

I've learned about this in church. The bible calls that a "cunt", from "the book of dick moves".

Why would you order from amazon instead of directly from ifixit?

The same thing is $50 there with shipping.
- Yeah but then ifixit gets the money instead, and amazon gets nothing. I want to pay ifixit for their stuff, not amazon. Amazon didnt do anything to deserve money from that purchase.
  
  There are a lot of vendors who only sell through amazon though. That seems more like they are explicitly saying they prefer the amazon shop but I could be interpreting that wrong.
As another user replied to you earlier, yeah, it's substantially more expensive after shipping. Nearly 50% more, in fact, but in this specific instance I wasn't actually planning on buying this specific bit set, the price and subsequent notice of the discount just caught my eye when it was in Amazon's list of product recommendations.
- Oh that makes sense, fair enough. I didnt know amazon did this but I stopped using them a while ago so haven't kept up.
  
  I think its becoming more and more common knowledge that amazon isn't cheap anymore.
Because you already have an account set up with amazon.

Because you've used amazon before and feel comfortable with them.
- I mean those are legitimate answers, but people around these parts don't take kindly to primers
- Its just not a business I would recommend giving your money too, but its your choice.

Buy iFixIt stuff directly from them on their website. Or is that somehow more expensive?

It's $5 more expensive, and then shipping.

But the real price of the amazon one is either 34.99 plus shipping or 38.37 without shipping
- Worth not buying from Amazon. Who knows if it's a legit iFixit kit.

There are ebooks listed for exactly 1 cent.

I am going to publish a bunch of 1c, 2c and 5c ebooks now 🙏
- In a battle against the honorless you are a warrior of great wisdom.
You have to select "prime eligible" items. Are these penny ebooks included in the minimum purchase total?
just order the same from temu/aliexpress - skip Jeff Bezos pockets
- I don't want to deal with their abysmal costumer service, and I'm not giving my address and phone number to some Chinese data center if I can help it.

Order something really fucking heavy extra and refund it.

I am confused by this thread, do you only have Amazon and eBay in US?

weird place to cast shade
- It's not shade. Consume from a more ethical company.

Just by something costing .01

Like what?
- Half cent piece
- Digital items, but Amazon intentionally makes them impossible to find. There's a ton of e-books and Audiobooks that are $0.01 - $0.05, but Amazon intentionally buries them under the "free with Kindle subscription" crap, so that people can't milk this without really putting in the effort

What annoys me is the price fixing

Temu or aliexpress
- Those are worse
  
  I rather have price fixing than slavery

I bet this thing was actually worth only $25.

The markups have become insane on Amazon.

I remember when Amazon first started there were good deals on good quality items. Then as they secured a dominating position on the market prices started going up but at least the low quality junk items were relatively rare and easy to identify so it was worth a little premium. Then they got rid of that and now it's almost all overpriced junk items sold by shady sellers now.

I almost never use Amazon now unless it's for something specific that I can't find anywhere else.

IFixit is generally good quality/value in my experience if it's actually them and not some knockoff/drop shipper. Granted haven't had a need to buy anything of theirs for years because the one I have keeps being great.

That kit is $40 on their site. Weird that it's cheaper on Amazon in the first place.
- That kit is $40 on their site. Weird that it's cheaper on Amazon in the first place.
  
  No, Amazon does this on purpose. If you want to sell on Amazon, the search and recommendation algorithms will make your product hard to find unless you have Amazon fulfillment. But if you sign up for Amazon fulfillment, not only do you have to give Amazon a bigger cut of the price, you have to agree to never sell your product for less than Amazon does, even on your own website with your own fulfillment.
  
  The FTC sued Amazon for this practice, and that case is progressing. But who knows if the Trump administration is going to maintain the lawsuit, or if the court will rule against Amazon.
In this case, it's 39.95 retail price. but I bet a lot of these things aren't priced right
The amount of small items that should only be a couple of bucks selling for $10 or more on Amazon is insane
- They inflate price to offset shipping costs for prime members. This hits cheaper items harder. They used to have add-on items to get around this but I haven’t seen that in a while.
- I still sometimes find cheap things that are reasonably priced. These keystone wall plates for Ethernet/HDMI/etc are 99 cents for example: https://a.co/d/hAYsejh
For an academic text on this subject with footnotes, I recommend Chokepoint Capitalism (2022) by Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow. It calls what you describe “moat buulding” and an “anti-competitive flywheel”.
now it's almost all overpriced junk items sold by shady sellers now.

It's not too bad if you avoid all third-party sellers and only buy items sold by Amazon directly.

Unfortunately, other stores are going in the same direction. Walmart's and Target's sites both have third-party sellers on them now too, and you need to remember to filter them out.
I remember when Amazon first started there were good deals on good quality items

I remember when the primary use of amazon was buying secondhand items. The deals on used discs for PS2 or gamecube were amazing. It was ebay without bidding.
- I remember when you pretty much only used Amazon to buy books

People didn't know this? I mean Amazon is evil shit. But companies have been doing stuff like this for 30 years...

I'd just never seen this specific flavor of bullshittery from them before. Encouraging sellers to keep prices below the shipping limit is one thing, but adding discounts artificially no matter what the actual seller prices their product at is a whole new level of making things worse for everyone involved.

Sellers have a lower likelihood of a non-Prime member buying their item, users don't get free shipping.
- They likely have an algo running to do this just like how they offer random coupons to entice you to buy items in your cart, and all the other tricks around shipping manipulation.
its a strategy, theyre not even being deceitful here, just pricing to their interests. theres so much evil stuff they do, but this example isn't properly evil.
- No, this is just an example of a lesser evil that we've grown accustomed to.

Very Amazon of them.

temu/aliexpress - same product and you are skipping jeff bezos pockets

Or just avoid buying from megacorpos directly.
- good luck for niche items

!actually_infuriating@lemmy.world

!mildly_does_not_mean_not@lemmy.world

You could buy something cheap like soap But don't they do free shipping if total order is above the limit ?

cheap like soap

Soap in the supermarket €1, same soap on Amashit €3.99 with free delivery

I don't know if this will still work, but ages ago, I contacted their support about being one cent under free shipping and they made sure shipping was free for me. Try asking, but I can't promise the same results.

They’ve passed the point of caring. Originally they would bend over backwards to help you, local(ish) call centers, going out of their way to make you happy.

Now things are much more hit or miss, sometimes you’re just told “tough shit”.

Oh, so that the reason for the random discounts I’ve been seeing lately? Well I never buy anything unless it’s above the minimum for free shipping and so far it hasn’t affected me (not that I buy often anyway )

Can't say I find this surprising, especially not coming from a #GAMAM. (Formerly #GAFAM)

wouldn't it be AAMAM because Alphabet?

I say we keep the word we know
- Except all of Alphabet entreprises have a name starting by Google. (Or at least strongly evocating it, in the case of Gmail.)
  
  We can't say the same about Meta. Instagram isn't called "Facebook Gallery", and Threads isn't called "Facebook Short Messages". (And Oculus didn't become "Facebook VR", just Meta.)
In my day it was FAANG
- That is a far more funny acronym. Especially for a Frenchy like me, since my peoples often say of the ones controlling such big corporations, "they have fangs so long, they scratch the floor". (Well… "They scratch the parquet", to be exact. But who care if the floor is made of wood or not at that point.)

You used to be able to buy digital Amazon gift cards for a dollar. You would use the credit on your next purchase anyway. But they’ve raised the minimum to $5.

lmao jesus

I wanted to order something, but half a year of waiting seemed like a bit long. Refunded, got money back and ordered again. I still have half a year to wait, but I have mine money too. profit?