Wow.
I do a ton of pre-orders of graphic novels through Amazon. Amazon gets books after comic book shops, so when the book is released, I check places like InStockTrades, and if their price is lower than Amazon, I cancel the Amazon order and go through the comic book retailer. Amazon has a price guarantee, whereby if their price goes down before it ships, you pay the lower price. Cool.
But recently, I've noticed books where the price on the book page is lower than the price on the pre-order in my account. The first time, I emailed them and they lowered the price, so I figured it was just a fluke. But yesterday, there were three books with lower prices not reflected on my orders, and when I emailed them, the canned response I got was basically, "When your item shipped on April 5, 2011, that was the lowest price. Was this response helpful?" When I gave the response a zero on the helpful scale, they offered the chance to speak to an actual human being.
Who told me what Amazon's new policy is. Instead of keeping track of the price in real-time, now they sell it to you at the original price, then do a search of the item's history, and if there was a lower price at any time, they refund you the difference.
I suspect he's wrong...that they will just sell it to you at the best price. But I tried to explain to him that if their best price is better than InStockTrades' (e.g.), but InStockTrades' is better than Amazon's original price, then Amazon will lose the sale, because I WON'T KNOW WHAT THEIR REAL PRICE IS!
I can't imagine what the advantage to Amazon of this system is.
[Originally posted on a non-comics board, so explains things a little more than necessary here]
I do a ton of pre-orders of graphic novels through Amazon. Amazon gets books after comic book shops, so when the book is released, I check places like InStockTrades, and if their price is lower than Amazon, I cancel the Amazon order and go through the comic book retailer. Amazon has a price guarantee, whereby if their price goes down before it ships, you pay the lower price. Cool.
But recently, I've noticed books where the price on the book page is lower than the price on the pre-order in my account. The first time, I emailed them and they lowered the price, so I figured it was just a fluke. But yesterday, there were three books with lower prices not reflected on my orders, and when I emailed them, the canned response I got was basically, "When your item shipped on April 5, 2011, that was the lowest price. Was this response helpful?" When I gave the response a zero on the helpful scale, they offered the chance to speak to an actual human being.
Who told me what Amazon's new policy is. Instead of keeping track of the price in real-time, now they sell it to you at the original price, then do a search of the item's history, and if there was a lower price at any time, they refund you the difference.
I suspect he's wrong...that they will just sell it to you at the best price. But I tried to explain to him that if their best price is better than InStockTrades' (e.g.), but InStockTrades' is better than Amazon's original price, then Amazon will lose the sale, because I WON'T KNOW WHAT THEIR REAL PRICE IS!
I can't imagine what the advantage to Amazon of this system is.
[Originally posted on a non-comics board, so explains things a little more than necessary here]
