How is this fair Amazon Fair Pricing Policy
Please explain
The Amazon Fair Pricing Policy appears disorganized. It raises questions when no other sellers offer the same products for sale; why is this considered a violation of Amazon's Fair Pricing Policy?
Currently, we have deactivated over 3950 listings unfairly due to pricing issues. Amazon's actions seem perplexing. When their on-hand inventory is less than 10 units each, they effectively give the product away, failing to adhere to their Fair Pricing Policy.
The same applies to merchandise with price increases for the upcoming 2024 year. Amazon refuses to accept new price increases.
How is this fair Amazon Fair Pricing Policy
Please explain
The Amazon Fair Pricing Policy appears disorganized. It raises questions when no other sellers offer the same products for sale; why is this considered a violation of Amazon's Fair Pricing Policy?
Currently, we have deactivated over 3950 listings unfairly due to pricing issues. Amazon's actions seem perplexing. When their on-hand inventory is less than 10 units each, they effectively give the product away, failing to adhere to their Fair Pricing Policy.
The same applies to merchandise with price increases for the upcoming 2024 year. Amazon refuses to accept new price increases.
38 replies
Seller_nRFmxiQg4EGrw
Seriously, you're too kind. It's far worse than just "disorganized".
As for why the only seller of a product gets a violation, there can be several reasons. Since I sell used books, the one I most often run into is "List Price"; never mind that the last time the book was published, and therefore the last time there was a meaningful "List Price", was 50+ years ago; they still want me to match it.
Other reasons can be if other sellers are selling the same item on other platforms; Amazon does not limit their checking to just Amazon.
Last one I can think of is that Amazon looks for similar items, and feels that your pricing should be in line. Of course, Amazon's idea of "similar" me be very different from what an intelligent being would come up with. but the bots don't care. Neither does Amazon.
Seller_nRFmxiQg4EGrw
Nope, that doesn't have any effect. All of my books I list I use 0 for the list price; still get many violations due to being above a 40-50 year old List Price. This includes one book that was selling regularly (more than a copy a week) between $25-$30; thankfully right before I sent it to FBA, got told that I would have to lower the price to no more than $6.95. Bad enough that they look at old list prices, but don't even care what the market is obviously willing to pay.
Seller_FSJQSK8dDFpH2
With the products I sell it is not at all. My main competitor is Amazon as a seller. I buy factory direct. But after factoring in fees and exact "free" shipping costs my sell prices are almost always higher than theirs and I routinely get listings shut down for this policy. Thinking of experimenting with charging for shipping so prices are lower...
Seller_micqs6u8ObDaR
We did the same, they refuse to fix this policy.
A used poor condition items that sells for $3 is not the same as a new sealed that sellers for $30!!!
Seller_2LQMd7u0WyTlL
at one point, a few years ago, they discovered that the prices submitted by many sellers are way above reasonable. In used books, I only have to mention the questionable drop shipping entity "any_book", which by now has either disappeared or changed their operation and name.
Similar with other merchandise that I'm not familiar with, I guess. It definitely made some product pages look very weird and unappealing in the past.
And the high price alerts are often not wrong. They are wrong often enough though, so it has become the biggest nuisance here. After carefully researching an appropriate price for a scarce item, that the demand will fully accept, in fact the market appreciate the appearance of this new offer, a brainless bot tells us that it's not fair, but $6.95 is, even asking to accept a negative gross profit in some cases.
It's a major distraction, kills the joy and pride of finding things to list here, makes customers unhappy because they can't find some things here anymore, and as a result everybody loses, including Amazon.
If they would at least clearly state what exactly the maximum price is that their "machine learning" accepts. The numbers they give are often not it, like list price. You have to find out by lowering the price in increments. Of course, as soon as the price is accepted, the unit sells pretty much immediately. Duh! We all know the pain when something sells immediately. Low pricing mistake! LOL.
Amazon, please make our day and turn price alerts into a helpful tool instead of sabotaging our work and expertise.
Stevie_Amazon
Hi there @Seller_C4UmvdI2mexod,
I appreciate you utilizing the Seller Forums and bringing your feedback on Amazon's Marketplace Fair Pricing policy into this space. I am forwarding that feedback to the applicable team.
I would like to point out the insight @Seller_nRFmxiQg4EGrw has made here, as it is important to note that Amazon compares such prices to other markets too.
Outside of this, it is important to understand Amazon- being customer-centric- values the customer trust that has been built up over the years. Pricing practices that harm customer trust include, but are not limited to:
- Setting a reference price on a product or service that misleads customers;
- Setting a price on a product or service that is significantly higher than recent prices offered on or off Amazon;
- Selling multiple units of a product for more per unit than that of a single unit of the same product;
- Setting a shipping fee on a product that is excessive. Amazon considers current public carrier rates, reasonable handling charges, as well as buyer perception when determining whether a shipping price violated our fair pricing policy.
@Seller_FSJQSK8dDFpH2, @Seller_micqs6u8ObDaR, @Seller_2LQMd7u0WyTlL- I am also forwarding your feedback as well!
Regards,
Stevie
Seller_r9wMm8LrE5iKj
Because Amazon's MarCom department read 1984 as an instruction manual, not a cautionary tale, and up = down, and slavery = freedom, and making sure you raise prices on all other platforms to match what you have to charge on a platform where over 50% of the sale price ends up in Amazon's pocket when all is said and done = in the best interest of consumers, or forcing you to match prices with people who sell off-platform only, at much better margins, but make near-zero sales because they aren't selling on an effective monopoly = "fair".
You used your definition of "fair" and Amazon's definition of "Fair" in the same sentence. I can see how that could be confusing.
Seller_24FzucbyGtgZS
Its called price fixing and technically illegal.
Seller_z1JDNz6de1lqc
Amazon can do what they want they will even tell you this. We had one the other day we were at 9.11 and Amazon jacked their price to $12.54 and kicked everyone off the main page so we figured the item will not sell might as well up our price to $11.95 to be closer to Amazon and next we knew our listing was taken down for high pricing yet Amazon was still selling at higher total BS market manipulation no matter how you look at it.
Seller_3CVw64p1kORvN
I received similar notices this week on several prices. I went in to adjust the price to $XX.99. Still too high. $XX.98. Still too high. $XX.97. I got a "Price too low". notice. You can't make this up.
