IDG Contributor Network: Amazon challenges retail on what a sale means

Consumers love sales, and yet the concept itself is oddly unclear. It's generally based on a product being x% off some other price, but that "other price" is almost always meaningless. A meaningful price would be "x% less today than what out competitors are selling it for today." A meaningless price would be "x% off what we sold it for a month ago or x% off of a manufacturer's suggested retail price," a figure almost no one uses (other than perhaps Apple).

Amazon is trying to stand up for true sale pricing and lose meaningless comparisons — or so it would like us to think. This change was first noticed by The New York Times and that story pointed out that "now, in many cases, Amazon has dropped any mention of a list price. There is just one price. Take it or leave it. For example, Amazon originally promoted the Rave Turbo Chute as being discounted by 36 percent. Then, all mention of a discount was dropped and the 60-foot water slide was simply listed at $1,573.58, with an explanation that it used to be $1,573.59 — one penny more. Then, it dropped the old/new price comparison. Then it dropped the price to $1,532.01 and put the comparison back."

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