Can Amazon dealers tell when their products are being looked over?

I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon marketplace. For those unfamiliar with it, this is an area where third party dealers offer merchandise on Amazon - Amazon handles the financial transaction but the dealer ships the item. The dealers can set the prices wherever they want and change them if they wish.

Another Amazon feature is their shopping cart, where you can put items for future purchases (assuming nobody else buys them first).

I’ve noticed what appears to be a pattern. There are some dealers who generally offer low prices on items. I’ve put some of their products in my shopping cart with the intent of buying it in the future. But I’ve frequently noticed that if I don’t buy the product right away, the next time I sign on I’ll see that the price has gone up. It’ll usually be a small amount - maybe five percent or so. Then, if I don’t complete the sale, I’ll see in a few days that the price drops back down.

So I’m wondering, are the dealers informed when a potential customer puts an item in a shopping cart? Many of these products are obscure enough that I’m probably the only customer on a particular day to “save” the item. So the dealers could see there was some interest in a product and bump the price up a little in hopes of making some extra money. Then when I (or any other similar customer) doesn’t bite at the higher price, they could drop it back to its lower price in hopes of completing the sale at that price or at least attracting a new customer.

Is this possible or is it just a case of some dealers having a habit of making random price changes and me reading something into it?

As an Amazon Marketplace Seller, I can tell you that prices flucuate a bit. Up & down.

It depends on item condition, rarity, # of competitors, & how well rated you & your competition is.

I have a 100% Rating, BTW. :cool:

Also a Marketplace seller (of used books of mine). I don’t get information on whether people put an item into their cart, only when it’s sold. Occassionally I look over my offerings and adjust prices, esp. when someone has undercut me - I imagine sellers who make a living with this do that much more often.

I’ve read that the more ‘robust’ amazon sellers have programs that determine their prices. Either by setting the price a few cents below the lowest price or by taking the average and…doing something with it. I think that the fluctuations are because someone bought the same item, but not from the competitor, causing the equation to change.

Okay, so apparently I’m just seeing random jumps. Thanks for the information.