On Thu, 15 Sep 2005 16:21:21 GMT, blueman wrote:

I almost got fooled on this, so I wanted to share this with others

Amazon is heavily promoting the message:
"Lowest Prices of the Season -- Prices dropped on thousands of items
in the Tools store"

Actually, this is misleading if not deceptive given that in truth the
total cost to the consumer on many tools has actually increased
substantially.

While Amazon has indeed dropped the "price" on some tools by an
average of about 3-10%, it is has more than made up for it by:

1. Eliminating free shipping over $25 on many items (including some
that I saw with shipping charges of $49.99)

2. Expiry of the earlier $25 off $200 and $50 off $250 promo codes (in
fact to add insult to injury, the $50 off $250 code that was
supposed to end 10/3/05, was cut short to end 9/12/05

For example, previously, the Bosche 3915 SCMS was $347 with free
shipping and $50 off for a total price of $297. It now is priced at
$304 (which seems like a substantial price drop) until you read that
shipping is now $49, for a total cost to the consumer of $353! or a
total price INCREASE of 22%


Now, I know that shipping costs have increased, but just be honest
about it and don't talk about price cuts when you are really
increasing total price to the consumer.

Not saying this is illegal, just misleading and
deceptive...

Many years ago, the FTC really frowned on misleading ads. I worked for
Goodyear in one of their Service Stores. In addition to tires and auto
service, we also sold electronics and appliances.

The rule then was that to call anything on sale, the price had to be
at least 10% lower than the average selling price the previous 30
days. You also had to have on hand enough inventory to cover expected
sales. For tires, it was two sets in each size.

Standing rule for store managers: if Sears had an ad for a low ball
appliance, go to the Sears store and buy it. They only had one and it
was a piece of crap. They really didn't want to sell it. It was just a
draw so they could sell you up. It was no big secret though. We had
them load it in the Goodyear truck.

We would then place it on our floor to compare the quality of our
brand (whatever it was) against Sears. Sears also got a lot of
complaints for not having the advertised special in stock.