book pricing.
Can ANYONE make any sense of Amazons pricing policy ? I have had books deactivated for overpricing when it was rare, mine was the only one on Amazon and those few on ABE were £10 more. I was asked to provide a 'reference price' which was presumably the new price in about 1980 !
Now I have had another removed so I looked up the others for sale. Mine was £38. Ther are two at £30, which was not the case when I first listed as I am always the cheapest like for like. But there are three at £80, and the one new copy ( surely their 'reference price' ) is over £200 !
I cant make any sense of it at all. Book prices on Amazon are totally random. I have seen prices ranging from 10 to 200 for the same book and Amazon is mostly happy with it. But when one of the bucket shops puts up a valuable book for a ridiculous price i am suddenly expected to match it. I would rather take it down the charity shop. ( mind you, thats where the bucket shops get some of their books )
Is it just me or does this happen to others ?
Seller_FQHkqHJI5SqTh
No, not just you.
Just to highlight the vaguery of Amazon's pricing policy: listed a copy of ISBN 9789774249013 at £83 a few weeks ago. At the time it was the only copy anywhere online. As expected it almost instantly spawned a listing by Paper Cavalier at getting on for twice the price.
Thought I'd sold it so closed the listing; PC's price jumped to £600+.
So who knows how it works.
Seller_mxez2L8QjE6WW
There are two different problems - one caused by Amazon & the other by megasellers. The likes of WoB go in for aggressive automated price undercutting, which has rendered a lot of books worthless. I have seen a large hardback being offered for 70p with free shipping; even with the best postal contract and getting the book for virtually nothing they must lose money.
Amazon's 'potential price violation' program is designed for new goods; it takes no consideration or understanding of all the variables that influence the price of a O/P book. It should apply to new books only.
Seller_HMxMRdomHkjHi
I have recently purchased a book from WOB a hardback posted in a plastic mailing bag. They must have numerous claims for damaged books. I don't see how they can make any money operating like this. However they do lead to other book sellers, me included having books deactivated for being overpriced.
Seller_mxez2L8QjE6WW
What really bugs me is the way that Amazon allow "sellers" such as Mersea, Walton & the myriad sellers from Turkey to carry on listing their thousands of non-existent books at such hugely inflated prices
Seller_RAXEWLxQ2dbmN
All those millions of redundant duplicate ASINs that are cloned from real books with ISBNs should be easy for even the most rudimentary AI to spot.
So why are these copycat titles (and the sellers who create them en masse) still there?
To anyone with even a slight knowledge of Amazon's book catalogue, it's blindingly obvious what's going on with all these overpriced shoddy duplicates
Either Amazon is deliberately colluding with the dodgy dropshippers to flood the catalogue with non-existent overpriced books or their AI is hopeless.
I think it is probably a bit of both. Another possibility is simple corruption but I hope that isn't the case.
Seller_eX5PU1b0GGPXn
Snap same thing happened to me
Did you know their small print does say you might not get the copy you expect as they are mega sellers
That might result in so much Negative feedback on condition of bought books
Or just copy word for word someone else's listing as I found
Seller_uK2aGVnqbtliE
I have no proof but I think maybe some sellers are selling on buyer details. Don't forget they get: name address and telephone number. That might be worth selling a book at a loss!
Seller_eX5PU1b0GGPXn
That would not shock me
But a lot of mega sellers get tons of unwanted books from charities and library's for pennies
So for them it's always win win
Seller_dNa0OnTP0n8Ug
We give up with Amazon and their pricing policies. We upload everything to Amazon - those they reject so be it - we'll sell them elsewhere and Amazon will lose out on commission. Would rather sell elsewhere anyway.
Seller_nT7psArrIHc2I
It is happening loads recently. They are pushing lots of used book sellers over to Ebay with this stupid policy.
Just this afternoon I listed a book and was £30 cheaper than other sellers but it wouldn't let me list as it said I was too expensive and had to drop the price.
Seller_uK2aGVnqbtliE
Glad you posted on this. Currently I have 7 books deactivated for being too high priced. NB 2 of these have no "reference" price so how does Amazon know they are too high??
If I sell books at the £2 or £3 that Amazon demands I will make no profit or even possibly a loss. Yet another example of Amazon/s monopolisitic manipulation of prices.
As has been pinted out, this drives sellers to Ebay and also sooner or later buyers will realise that prices are manipulated by Amazon.
Seller_19xPhE8YgkmxW
Hi All,
I agree with all sellers commenting on the the frustrations this policy causes - I've just had a bulk seller undercut one of my books by 10% (including post) so had the dreaded 'potential pricing error' email.
But these sellers are in the USA and are offering a 10 day delivery for a large hardback for £3.99 which I find difficult to believe!
Something is going on...
All Best
Brian
Seller_l05ZkdklM9ZmX
I agree, there is no sense at all with any of this, but then it’s not humans doing it. And how do people get away with listing books which we all know are 30-40 years old as ‘New’ ?
