I was looking for a book on Amazon.com this morning and did a simple search that brought back the following results. I started at the top going down and noticed that this book, which new costs $16.95, sold used anywhere from $9.08 to $189.14. I assumed that the $189.14 price was probably a typo, but then I noticed it for $141.03 and $54.99 also, all from different sellers.
So why would someone pay $189 for a used book that you could easily buy for $16.95 new? This book is neither rare nor hard to find. Why would a seller waste their time trying to sell a book at 11 times it’s list price? I just don’t get it.
I’ve understood that there are “Amazon Pricing Bots” which can be set to automatically adjust the price to “x% higher than the highest price for the same item” (say if your book is in particularly good condition and you think you deserve a premium). If two such bots are present for a particular item, hilarity ensues.
We purchased the first two seasons of Game of Thrones a while back. We bought the Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital version. So when I received an email to pre-order GoT Season Three, I checked into it.
Amazon’s email directed me to the same Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital combo package @ $104.99. (Yeah, a limited edition. So what.) Digging around I found the same thing with a $44.99 price point when it becomes available next February. I found the same thing again @ $54.99. I took the middle one.
Amazon does robo-pricing, often price-matching items from other retailers on a daily, even hourly basis. And sometimes the price is just off the charts. Since third-party sellers also use Amazon they are often in competition with each other.
If you have a “mint condition <x>” and think people will pay a premium over the usual price for your one, but don’t really know what the “usual price” is. If there’s only one bot you’re telling it, “find the usual price, and sell for a small premium”, which is a reasonable selling strategy.
I’ve also heard that sellers will put in a jacked price rather than take a listing offline. It’s easier and better for SEO etc. if your listing stays up and active, even if the item price is absurd.
I do like finding copies of my books on Amazon, eBay, ABE etc. for about 10X cover price. Lovely egoboo.
There is also the possibility that this seller lists hundreds if not thousands of titles.
Every single book has to be listed individually and after listing 100 or more books in a few hours, its not difficult to imagine that the seller accidentally put the price at $4999. instead of $49.99. Amazon does not have any sort of automatic notification system that tells a seller that they have listed a book at a absurd price.
After listing book after book, a seller could easily stop giving enough attention to what price they have listed a particular book at.
If you’re looking for used books, I heartily recommend bookfinder.com. It checks a whole bunch of used book sites (including the big ones like ABE, Amazon, Alibris, TextbookX, Powell’s, and so forth) and returns the results sorted by price, including shipping.
There are pricing oddities within any given vendor’s sandbox, but once you spread out your search to cover all of them, things settle out a bit unless it’s a truly rare item.
When we were in the used book business, bookfinder.com was always my first stop.
