Amazon does not care about maximizing profits. If they did they would not have run at a loss on their retail business since the day they were founded. Only Amazon Cloud Services keeps them in the black on paper using questionable accounting tactics. Take a look at the total historical loss for Amazon sometime, it runs in the hundreds of billions.

Bezos is only the world's richest man because of lax monetary policies by the global central banks who have funneled billions of dollars into Amazon stock leading it to be one of the most overvalued corporations in history, selling at an insane earnings multiple for an established company.

 

LOL I can not FACEPALM this enough. Nice conspiracy theory though!  

 

They don't necessarily have to care about 3rd party sellers in a "kumbaya" way, rather pursuing their own interests can coincide with those of their FBA sellers.

Consider the aforementioned scenario with one twist - instead of low first-party stock, there's actually zero. At this point instead of signaling they are out of stock (and basically doing nothing productive), they put up a high price which serves to “anchor” shopper expectations, and thus makes inflated 3rd party prices easier to swallow.

 

But you’re missing the obvious point that I don’t care. Like, at all.

 

I would also hope that people who saw Walmart put most competitors under and then turn to utter shit would've had more insight into the situation as Amazon has attempted to do the same online. In a duolpolistic marketplace, "fair" is just a four letter word. Consider it fortunate that Amazon slips up like this while you still have alternatives.

 

Somebody else did that , I forgot what i was watching how they came in selling at a price far below market, killed their competitors off and then preceded to raise their prices higher than what the market was originally.

 

Standard Oil? Sirius and XM post merger? Comcast?

 

I think it was a Chinese company, I don't think it was steel but it was a product like that used in production . Which is always dangerous as the the Chinese government can always take over stuff if they feel like it(Waldorf-Astoria).

 

I would think it would be the opposite because I don't really see much demand for the FoC versions, and this is comming from someone that actually prefers them. The far more accurate voyagers however seem to have the wider demand, and again I personally have no interest in them.

My preferences have to do with the fact that I love the WfC/FoC designs and wanted an Autobot combiner to go against Bruticus. I don't really know the characters that well so I don't give a crap about their voyagers. Most of the people I talk to have been the exact opposite preferring instead to get the voyagers cause they actually look like the characters and don't give a crap about the FoC toys except for Impactor because there isn't really any other option for an Impactor right now so he's in high demand from both sides but the others with the options avalible right now, not many people care about the FoC toys. I almost think by this point everyone who did want them has them, and if not I know people who are selling them cause they have in their opinion the better versions of those characters.

Demand wise and size wise it really doesn't make sense for the prices to be reversed like that. Also I got mine cheap on E bay, like Impactor was $5 and the only thing wrong with him was he was missing the missile for his gun. All together I think the Wreckers were half what I paid for Bruticus which I got at full retail.

Also I do remember the Voyagers shelf warming but I don't recall their prices being cut totally in half. I think my brother got Road buster $10 off but that was all the discount I ever noticed on those figures. Larger figures almost always end up on discount at some point cause most people don't want to pay full price and will intentionally wait for that discount before they pick it up. Growing up pretty much anything over $20 my dad would wait for clearance unless it was my birthday or Christmas. Well I also got some really expensive graduation gifts but that wasn't a yearly event, most of the time it was wait till it's on clearance. A few times when it was still avalible might go to lay away. I'm pretty sure this is the main reason why I missed out on most of the Unicron Trilogy toys I wanted, this and my Wal Mart's notoriously bad stocking where most of the stuff I want never even shows up in the store. I really miss the days when we had three different toy stores before the other two went out of buisness leaving me with Wal Mart as my only option... well that and online shopping and when I occasionally go out of town, but locally it's just the one place.

 

Sometimes yes, sometimes no

 

I went too far in my response. I'm sorry.

 

Having an algorithm determine pricing automatically has to be easier than going and setting it manually.

 

You might want to check if it is actually amazon or one of the individual sellers on amazon.

 

What the hell is up with the pricing for Blackout and Grimlock now? They were a cool $50 when I got them, were cut down to $45 just a few days later, but now I see the official listing for Blackout as $90. Dafuq!? Why?

Is that the so called glitched algorithm making the official price match the average scal- *ahem*, 3rd party price? I mean damn.

 

Those are all marketplace sellers trying to recoup their costs on all the ones they snatched up at retail.

 

Usually, but the $90 Blackout is in fact sold and shipped by Amazon, not a marketplace seller:

 

I'm only seeing it for $90 from SHOP4TOYZ. Weird.

 

Not just the resellers, it is Amazon offering in 89.99 because their programming issue.

It is UNBELIEVABLE that Amazon prefer to lose clients instead to make a simple fix in the code.

 

I very seriously doubt Amazon is losing any clients because they periodically raise the prices excessively on a variety of things. Particularly when they periodically drop the prices on those same type of items. How many people here bought a Titans Return Sixshot for around $20 on Amazon?

I’m fairly certain Amazon knows what they’re doing.

 

How are they losing clients? You're up in arms over this yet still shopping there.