I’m shopping for a new scale and noticed that this listing shows 38% discount even though that’s not true according to Helium10 price tracking. See the screenshot below:
I tested setting the Listed Price of my product to be high and the actual sales price to be low to create the appearance of discount like this listing but it didn’t work. Amazon doesn’t go by Listed Price. They use the average prices of item sold in the last 30 days. So, what does this listing do to make Amazon used Listed Price instead of the average prices sold in the last 30 days? Please advise. Thanks.
We keep getting emails telling us to add a list price so that our price will show as a discounted price. Thing is … all of our products have a list price / mfg suggested price. We tried putting ours on sale once and it didn’t trigger it.
Over time, we came to the conclusion that we did not want to have the appearance of having a discounted price. We offer a fair price (not low and not high) and let the customer determine the value. We don’t want the customer to wait to see if it will be discounted more or have a discount at a later time. It’s not a business model for all products but it works for our products. Our repeat customers come back and never have had an issue if we have had to raise a price because our pricing has been stable the rest of the time.
We are FBM only so on our orders we see a link like this
We know the moment we start to process the new order. Not sure how long Amazon will keep the data and provide past orders but we know it will track back at least 3 years before Amazon might be dropping from the referencing link. And … because we do custom products … we have a system in place to keep and store the order data so we know what was done should the customer ask us to do something exactly the same customization in the future.
I think the trick here is to list at your list price and SELL AT THAT PRICE for a bit, and then lower your price to get a “discounted off list” price.
This is what “worked” for me, as once I lowered the price, it continued to show a “discount”, and I have avoided typing in a “list price”, despite suggestions from Amazon that I do so, on the general principal that anything Amazon suggests is in THEIR best interest, at MY expense.
Maybe Amazon uses price data from other sales channels for these situations, too, like with high price alerts? Seems too Seller-friendly, so I’m sure it’s an accident, if so.
Thanks for your reply. Yes that works… for roughly about one month. Once 30 days have passed, the average sold price gets adjusted to the discounted price. That’s why I’m perplexed how could this listing has the same selling price for over a year and still shows as 38% discount.
The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. List prices may not necessarily reflect the product’s prevailing market price.
So Helium10 information will be inadequate and incomplete, as it only reflects Amazon sales data–not also offers on other sites.
I clicked on the “learn more” and found this Buyer-facing Help page that is new to me:
One thing we find interesting is Amazon constantly sending us emails to update our listing prices because Amazon says they are missing (when they are not) or to update them because it has been a while since the pricing has been updated.
Thank you for solving this mystery. I don’t know that Amazon tracks prices of other retailers. I have a product that I offer at a higher price on Walmart.com but lower price on Amazon.com. Perhaps I should let Amazon know about it. So they could slap the discounted price on my Amazon listing
That CHC (“Customer-facing Help Content”) page - which had previously been titled “List Prices” - was greatly modified & retitled in the wake of one of the last major revisions of Amazon’s Fair Pricing Policy, during the COVID-19 Goods Prioritization Initiative.
Here’s what the text of that page was prior to 8Oct2020, for comparison with what it is now:
Amazon has been running scared ever since late 2018/early 2019 MSM attention brought to bear by Senators Blumenthal & Warren heated up the FTC’s previously-launched investigation (and media interest) into Amazon’s practices, which in turn brought about the 11Mar19 revision of the ASBSA to remove section “S-4 Parity with Your Sales Channels,” and the subsequent original deployment of the Fair Pricing Policy-policing Amabot.
