I have been buying things on Amazon every now and then for a few years now. I am not the loyal customer type, but with so much shopping comparisons online Amazon most often than not offers good price deals. A few weeks back I bought a specialized screwdriver which was promptly delivered and as I was leaving feedback for it, my eye caught the "lightning deals" every Monday and Tuesday. Curious as what that might be, I browsed it and realized that these were short time deals with a countdown timer to show the expiration of the deal. What is more if an item was put in the shopping basket, a new timer was counting down time in which the purchase should take place or suffer the consequence of loosing the bargain in a fraction of the original time.
I have been in the market for a cheap chrono watch for about 15 years. and the prices I have mentally noted all this time was in the region of 100 euros. So I found hard to resist to a deal offering a Swiss crono watch lower than that price. A short market research revealed that in the Amazon.com the same watch was sold for less than the lighning deal at the Amazon.co.uk even when the customs were included but not with the postage cost.
And here is the first complaint. Amazon.com offered for this particular watch only expedited 4-5 day shipping at the cost of 20-30 € instead of the usual 10-15 days for a lot less, increasing the total cost of the watch by more than the price at the Amazon.co.uk. Hence the logical thing was to buy this watch from the UK website.
The second complaint is that a few weeks after the lightning deal expired, the same watch is listed from Amazon not with the original (not bargain) price, but with the same price as the lightning deal. Which begs the question. WHY AMAZON MAKES SUCH MARKETING GIMMICKS? I admit I wouldn't have bought the watch if I hadn't seen the supposed deal so that makes sence from the Amazon's point of view, but now I am a dissatisfied customer. So why would Amazon want its customers to be unhappy with their purchases? Really it makes no sense to me.
Deceiving the customer into buying things supposedly into much better price than previously available and for a limited time only in my book is a bad practice and hence I will not ever buy anything else from Amazon lightning deals.
Update:
The watch I bought from amazon, today, 27 days later sells at an even lower price. To my book that simply means that lightning deals is just a sham designed to mock Amazon customers. Concluding all I got to say is DO NOT USE LIGHTNING DEALS.
At least I learnt something useful today.
http://uk.camelcamelcamel.com
Can be used to easily trace price changes on Amazon products. Great tool highly recommended for potential Amazon customers!
The other positive thing from the above story, is that I finally got my act together and decided to unsubscribe from all marketing emails sent from Amazon.
For those that do not know how,
Log in your Amazon account,
Click on the "your account" link on the top left of the webpage,
Go to Settings,
and Email notifications - subscriptions. Un-tick EVERYTHING.
You are free from Amazon marketing tactics.
Also a great idea is to Opt out of Amazon personalized ads.
I have been in the market for a cheap chrono watch for about 15 years. and the prices I have mentally noted all this time was in the region of 100 euros. So I found hard to resist to a deal offering a Swiss crono watch lower than that price. A short market research revealed that in the Amazon.com the same watch was sold for less than the lighning deal at the Amazon.co.uk even when the customs were included but not with the postage cost.
And here is the first complaint. Amazon.com offered for this particular watch only expedited 4-5 day shipping at the cost of 20-30 € instead of the usual 10-15 days for a lot less, increasing the total cost of the watch by more than the price at the Amazon.co.uk. Hence the logical thing was to buy this watch from the UK website.
The second complaint is that a few weeks after the lightning deal expired, the same watch is listed from Amazon not with the original (not bargain) price, but with the same price as the lightning deal. Which begs the question. WHY AMAZON MAKES SUCH MARKETING GIMMICKS? I admit I wouldn't have bought the watch if I hadn't seen the supposed deal so that makes sence from the Amazon's point of view, but now I am a dissatisfied customer. So why would Amazon want its customers to be unhappy with their purchases? Really it makes no sense to me.
Deceiving the customer into buying things supposedly into much better price than previously available and for a limited time only in my book is a bad practice and hence I will not ever buy anything else from Amazon lightning deals.
Update:
The watch I bought from amazon, today, 27 days later sells at an even lower price. To my book that simply means that lightning deals is just a sham designed to mock Amazon customers. Concluding all I got to say is DO NOT USE LIGHTNING DEALS.
At least I learnt something useful today.
http://uk.camelcamelcamel.com
Can be used to easily trace price changes on Amazon products. Great tool highly recommended for potential Amazon customers!
The other positive thing from the above story, is that I finally got my act together and decided to unsubscribe from all marketing emails sent from Amazon.
For those that do not know how,
Log in your Amazon account,
Click on the "your account" link on the top left of the webpage,
Go to Settings,
and Email notifications - subscriptions. Un-tick EVERYTHING.
You are free from Amazon marketing tactics.
Also a great idea is to Opt out of Amazon personalized ads.
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