Amazon may be doing away with list prices

Amazon has been testing tweaks to how it displays prices of products, and may end up with a solution where only one price is listed. Amazon used to display a discounted price next to a list price to entice consumers into buying products after perceiving a good deal. However, over time users would only buy products when it was at a discount, and sellers would always list products at a discount. This meant that there were no sale periods, and the products were perpetually on sale. Now, Amazon feels that the service and the consumers have matured enough and understand the way these products are offered online. Amazon is silently doing away with the list price, and displaying only the final price of the product, reports the New York Times. There approach comes at a time when there is considerable controversy on the prices listed in online marketplaces, with consumer complaints and lawsuits against discount prices that are actually much less than what they are made out to be. The problem that Amazon is trying to address is that the manufacturer’s recommended retail price, also known as list price, is more of a marketing gimmick, then a price at which the product actually is sold anywhere. Yet, Amazon still has to show that the prices on its site are a deal, and is in the process of figuring out the exact way in which it will showcase that the customer stands to benefit by ordering from its marketplace.