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...