Amazon's "Tricks"

On Wednesday in class we discussed an article about Amazon. The article explained a marketing technique that some thought to be "tricky" or "unethical". Amazon would sell their product at a lower price to new people visiting the website and it would be more expensive to people that are frequent users. Amazon uses cookie files to tell if you've visited the site before and/or if you are a frequent user. When people discovered this they were very unhappy to find out they were paying more then others for the same thing.

Amazon explains that it is a technique to find out if this would boost sales or make them more money. They do not think they are being tricky at all. They simply say they are experimenting with a new marketing technique. Although this technique will bring in more customers, its not fair to the loyal customers. It just doesn't seem right or ethical to have different prices on the same products for different people.

At the same time your bringing in customers others that have been loyal to Amazon are getting upset. This could cause a lot of problems leading to people going elsewhere. I understand what Amazon was thinking but it's just not fair to do it without anyones knowing. People are being ripped off while others are getting discounts, simply because they are new. People are now changing settings on their computers so they won't be recognized as frequent users. There were plenty of ways to go about this but I don't think Amazon made the best decision.