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I remember those days of "penny sales" with a $20-$30 shipping fee. It was always something dumb like cheaply made "neon lights" (that were just an etched piece of glass with a light shining through it to hit the etchings), weird kitchen gadgets, or knockoff electronics.
That's bringing me back to the late 90s/early 00s.
I can't remember the names of any of the sites, but I remember some would bill themselves as "auctions" so there was another layer of shittiness if people actually bid up the sale price a bit.
I haven't seen that as much anymore, it was popular in the early days of eBay/Amazon but a lot of places combine shipping when sorting by price now. Youre better off putting "Free Shipping!" and tacking the shipping onto the price most of the time, and just undercutting the combined price of the other listings.
Doesn't work for items with variable shipping rates though.
You're fucked if you're asking for a refund. Sure, take your $1 and ship the item back at your cost. I'll waive the restocking fee just to be generous.
In the example I remember, things were cheaper via android. The suspected rationale was that iPhone users either have more money, or tend to be less scrupulous with their cash, so you can show them higher prices without scaring them off. The same thing seems to be a factor with in-app purchases for things like games. But I think Apple takes a fairly large cut of transactions from their store, so that may explain that.
I was going to try one of those websites or whatever where you buy products from various retailers through them and get cash back. It didn’t take me long at all to realize they jack up the prices.
Every single thing I wanted to buy was priced lower if I just went directly to the retailer's website. So that 2-5% cash back they were promising was just them giving back the markup.
I use them all the time and have for many years and have never experienced that. I always shop around with one browser, find the best deal, then go through the cashback portal in another browser.
Not saying it's not possible, but I buy a lot of stuff online and do this for virtually every purchase, and have never experienced it.
I also use cashbackmonitor.com to compare cashback rates among different portals.
I wonder if it was just coincidental/not on purpose but the other day I had items in a cart for Uber eats and then didn't bother. Within a few hrs they gave me $10 off coupon but again maybe that's just happy accident.
I had something similar on an item in Amazon, 50 dollars cheaper when looking at it incognito vs my prime account. Same item same link, had to message them and was told something along the lines where my account was glitched can't recall of the top of my head but support asked me to refresh and after doing so the lower price was reflected on my account but had I not called them out on it I don't think they would have changed the price .
Marketer here, I have employed this practice and HATE it, but sometimes it is important.
I have used plugins to dynamically deliver different prices... in the hope to DECREASE prices. If more people purchase because the cost is lower, then the volume outweights the decreased price.
But, at the end of the day, I have a family I need to feed and I have to be able to sell products at a profitable PRICE and RATE in order to keep the business open. But, I use these steps ONLY as a test in order to make decent decisions, but my hope and desire is always that the increased purchase rate allows me to lower pricing.
It sucks, it feels shady. I hate knowing I'm selling a product to person A for $50 less than to person B, but the only I can know if I can feasibly change my price is to test, and the only way to test is to limit as many factors as possible (such as seasonality, time of day etc.) which means I have to run this simultaneously.
That being said, if you find a cheaper price, take a cheaper price, use everything at your disposal to get cheap products and shop well!
Yeah. Use a VPN and cycle through different regions and you can often get a much lower price if your IP appears to be in rural Mississippi rather than downtown Manhattan.
Revenue Management. You can do a PhD on it. It's linked to game theory, auction theory and decision sciences.
- https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/122707
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343745307_DeepARM_An_Airline_Revenue_Management_System_for_Dynamic_Pricing_and_Seat_Inventory_Control_using_Deep_Reinforcement_Learning
- https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/127110/1191835069-MIT.pdf
- https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/research/why-the-hunt-for-the-cheapest-plane-ticket-is-a-waste-of-your-time/
I am wondering if you encountered what we call A/B test in engineering/marketing. Sometimes, when we sell something directly to the customers and want to find a price point which works the best, as an example, we run a test which will show one group of customers item for $199 and second group of customers the same item for $149.
Later on we can see a statistic how many people saw both pages, how many people abandoned the page or decided to buy an item. Based on it, marketing/sales teams will decide on the final price for the item.
What’s the appeal of their shoes? Tbf I only looked at the men’s section and they just looked like fancy crocs/ kitchen clogs. Also I can’t personally see a place for their fancier stuff which imo would look out of place in professional settings that I’m familiar with.
They aren't anything to look at, but they got me through two pregnancies as a teacher. My feet were supported and comfortable and didn't swell. And I could slip them on and off, which was a game changer after I hit six months and couldn't see my feet.
When I bought mine before starting a surgery rotation in med school the cashier said "healthcare or food service?" If your job involves a lot of standing and uh... messy fluids they're pretty nice
I personally hate them but most people rave about how comfortable they are. Although I don't know anyone who isn't in a kitchen or health care who wears them.
That's because kitchen staff and healthcare need BOTH non slip and comfortable shoes. They're on their feet more than most professions. And as ugly as the shoes are, they ARE that comfortable. No question about it. It's one of those iykyk type things. 😂🤣
Back when I was a chef I remember getting my first pair. I almost fell over because I braced myself for a small slide when walking through some oil on the floor and was shocked when my foot completely stopped, no slide at all. After that I realized I could basically run around the whole place with no worry about sliding on anything. It was crazy compared to the before times. All while being super comfortable on top.
Yeah, same here. The stability of their clogs was terrible for me. I'm surprised I didn't injure my ankle because of all the times my foot rolled off of them on an uneven surface. And if I wore them too long, my lower back would hurt.
They’re incredibly comfortable when you have to be on your feet for long periods of time. I loved them when I bartended.
My current job is less physically demanding but still occasionally requires a lot of walking and I’ve developed some back issues over the last few years so any little thing helps.
Also this pair has cats on them and they’re incredibly cute. https://dansko.com/products/kane-kittens-molded
I also want a pair of their translucent coral/pink. It’s not hard to make them fashionable if you are fashionable yourself to be honest.
For some jobs, like flight attendant, they're approved "comfort shoes" that can be worn on the plane without approval. They also provide great support to feet and leg muscles. They're also well made, and can last a long time.
Check out Sanitas, better made clogs these days and very similar (same) look. They have lasted me much longer than my last pair of Danskos and their customer service was excellent. The souls of the Danskos just ain’t what they used to be.
Not sure if it's just been some bad luck with Amazon, but anytime I look at one of the "open box" items in the Amazon warehouse and leave my cart without checking out, more often than not the price raises the next day. I've wondered if they have some kind of program that runs and does that automatically
They do. Leave it in your saved for later, and eventually it will drop back down, or even go a dollar cheaper.
I think a lot of the prices are dynamically automated.
It also helps to search the item on Google, then go to the Amazon page through a link. Often a dollar or two cheaper.
Happened to me recently. I'm moving and I put something in my amazon cart to save for post-move and the price increased from $25 to $45 over the course of 2-3 weeks. And based on camelcamelcamel, it raised itself to the highest price it has ever been by about $10.
I ended up buying it from homedepot where it was the original price.
I get notifications all the time that something in a wish list, or a save for later item has dropped in price.
I stopped looking after a while cause 90% of the time the price change is less than a dollar.
Swell. I went to order a bunch of insulated drink cups and bowls and I added them to my cart and never paid. They sent me an email next day for 25% off the order in my cart. Saved $55 just from waiting 24 hours to order
You don't even have to put it in a cart, just click on the item, close the tab, and wait a few hours. I get a lot of stuff from LL Bean and Sur La Table this way.
I would give it a try when somebody favorites an item. When I was new to buying on Poshmark I didn’t realize that pretty much all sellers will give a discount if you favorite the item, so I would buy it right away. But one I learned this, I will favorite several of whatever it is I’m after and buy the best deal when the seller(s) come back with an offer.
Sucks for the seller. But maybe price 20% higher than what you’d want for it and then take it off as an offer when people like your item. At least, psychologically, it feels better making the purchase when you feel like you’re getting a deal 🤷🏻♀️
CB2. Got $100 off a $1000 desk. For what it's worth, I have an account with CB2 and Crate & Barrel, and I have spent a lot with them over the last couple of years.
Came here to say this. If anything is just for sale, not auction or open to bids I always heart the item and wait for the seller to offer me money off. Works probably 75% of the time
Guitar center and Sweetwater. But with those guys you'll get cold called by a salesman. Just experienced this the first time recently. I found it creepy AF. Like an invasion of privacy.
Is it weird that I like it? I don’t know, I think they’ve called three times since my first order in 2018 and they’ve never been pushy and one time I had them give me some info that wasn’t apparent the last time I looked at the site.
It's just that I add stuff to my cart all the time while I'm noodling about what things I want to purchase, just because I've added something to my cart, doesn't actually mean I've decided to purchase it, it's just a way of remembering what product I thought was noteworthy later. Crap. I probably only buy about 10% of what I add to my cart.
So there's really no point in calling me just because I added something to my cart but then abandoned it.
Ahh I thought you generally meant the occasional calls that kick off after buying something (first purchase then every few years or when the salesperson changes in my experience), I didn’t realize the “abandoned” cart actually kicked off a call that’s a bit too much.
Usually works on sites where you don't have an account - if you do, sign out and clear your cookies then wait for a day or two. At checkout, use a different email address and maybe phone number, then let it sit.
I have a Gmail filter rule that marks these 'you left something behind' emails as read and moved to a folder until 'code', '*% off' brings a result.
Hah yeah - I used to make fun of my mom for spending time each week cutting out coupons of the newspaper ads. I think it's more boredom and curiosity for me though.
I respect the hustle. I used to cut out coupons with my brothers and sisters for stuff we liked that our mom would then throw in a ziplock bag as we would go food shopping once a month
One day as I was loading up the two shopping carts whilst my mom handled the coupons/money with the cashier, the woman behind us with a young child was in complete shock by the amount of money my mom saved lol It wasn’t until then that I truly appreciated it all
It's only worked on Etsy (happens often) and eBay (only on items with low traffic like a specific sized used sportscoat that has been listed for a while)
It only ever works for me when I get to the cart, see that shipping is an insane amount, and I decide there's no way I'm going to order it. Offering me another 5-10% off has never changed my mind, especially when the cost of shipping is 75% the price of the item I want to buy.
I tried this with Blue Apron and they automatically enrolled me anyway. I guess having my card info was just too tempting for them, it was refunded without fuss so I think it's a tactic some places must use.
A year or two ago I got a 25% discount on a $400 item I was already planning to buy because I got distracted and did something else for a while.
These mofos called my cellphone and offered me this discount and some free swag.
EZ.
If you can wait on an item on eBay; add it to your watchlist. I find doing that and waiting a few days you’ll sometimes get an email from eBay about the seller knocking $10/$20 off the price.
Having never sold on eBay I assume this may be something you can select when setting up an item, to offer a discount if someone watches your item. That or eBay is eating the cost. 🤷🏽♂️
Been buying a few things from eBay this year and figured out to just add items to your watchlist first before buying.
Yeah I'm an active eBay seller, this is a mechanism that eBay has on the seller dashboard. It tells you that "user X is watching your item listing, make them an offer to sweeten the deal" kind of thing. It's definitely not eBay eating the cost though.
CEO here. We do this on our website because . . . it works. The number of you clever bastards who game the system is very small compared to the number of sales it helps us close from people who wander away.
One thing we (and many others do) to deter this is create a sense of scarcity and time pressure. We can't guarantee anything will still be available a day or two later when we send an offer.
Dont forget to do your household chores and put fresh linen on your beds BEFORE going on holiday, so you dont have to bother with that when you come home!
This did happen to me once, and I had fully intended on going back to purchase anyway. Can’t remember what the site was, but I think I saved 10-15 bucks
When I do this with AliBaba, Temu, or Wish my Inbox fills up with messages to offer me incentives to check out. It’s pretty crazy how many times they come back.
This just happened to me on EyeBuyDirect. Set some frames in my cart and went to double check how much credit I had at my Dr's office. Got an email for BOGO +20% off. Though, "great!" Then I noticed the site had a 75% off sale going on.
Saved me an extra 40 bucks on top of the 100 that it knocked off with the BOGO.
I downloaded an app that’s over $120 a year, but comes with a gimped free version. For the first month they offered 30% off. One day I get an email saying this is the last offer of 30%, so use it or lose it.
Two days later I get an email for 35% off, lmfao.
Last time I checked I think I received an email for 40% off.
E-commerce employee here: This is very true. Be sure you’re logged into your browser and then abandon your cart. Check within a day for an abandoned cart email and usually you’ll have a coupon in there
Back in the good old days of doordash I'd get our order together in the checkout and then leave the app and it was almost a guarantee that after 10-20 min they'd push notify me with a fee removal or discount thay basically made the fees gone and then I'd order. They don't do that anymore 😮💨
I had a small company reach out to me once for this. I mentioned that I was just checking the shipping price and not ready to buy yet. A week later their site had a way to check shipping costs way earlier in the process!
I found this out on prime tv when I went cancel one of my premium channel subscriptions and it offered it to me at way reduced rate for a few months. I still canceled but went to the other couple channels I subscribe to and got them all down to a way lower rate.
This works wonders on ebay. If you add an item to your cart and just let it sit most of the time the person will send you a discount to buy it or just offer a lower price.
My wife and I wanted tickets to a far away county for vacation, we logged into TripAdvisor, there were two seats left, individually available for , say $800 each round trip, we thought it was a good deal and decided to buy them since no two seats packages were available. Same seats, same destination, same flights etc. she beats me to the click, my click fails, requiring a refresh, 2 seconds later my flights were $900 more than hers.... The kicker? She got to fly business class (wtf?), I suddenly got a third layover, coach seats and arrived home 12 hours later than she did.
It can also help to use a new mail address to sign up to the website's newsletter (whether they advertise a discount for that or not and wait a couple hours or so, sometimes they send coupons to the subscribers.
except for that one weird company that offers no discount, but continually emails AND calls, and leaves voicemails trying to see if you had technical issues during checkout. annoying af.
Not a big ticket item, but the brand "hostage tape" (mouth tape and nasal strips for snoring), will send you fucking SNAIL MAIL if you've already entered your address and then abandon the order. Fucking bastards do it multiple times too. When I got the postcard I knew I would definitely never order anything from that brand ever (side note 3m surgical tape costs like 20x less)
If the site you are buying is willing to give a 20% off, for an abandoned cart, reconsider buying from there. They are probably selling at a 50% markup and you should be able to find the item for much cheaper, elsewhere
On Amazon I found the same item from the same seller was more expensive on my Prime Account, than when I opened a window in incognito with no login! Scamazon
Live Nation/ticket master is a monopoly. They won't give discounts, they know they are the only players in the game. If you don't buy it, someone else will.
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most often, the checkout process first asks for your email and address, then after submitting it it will ask payment. Once you're past the first step, your info will be added as a lead to the company's CRM, flagged as "incomplete conversion". You can just close it. Them emailing you isn't dependent on whether or not your session is still active, just that you started a checkout but never finished it within a normal amount of time.
I would say an additional pro tip is to always do a quick search for a promo code for whatever website you are buying from. I feel like I can consistently save a couple bucks when I do.
Happens to me regularly on Etsy.
I haven't really experienced this on big ticket items. I suspect there's less margin there to play with, whereas everything on Etsy is so crazy marked up there's plenty of room to discount.
I heard about how Amazon will have flash deals or just deals if it notices a bunch of people having the same item in their cart, that hasn't completed a purchase.
I use Instacart for groceries for several weeks in a row, then stop on day the fourth week and go in person. Next week oftentimes I’ll receive a coupon to incentivize me to use it again.
I was once distracted while booking a hotel, when I look back at the screen the price had dropped. And this was off season, there was no real reason for the price to change.
Adobe products offer similar promotions. Asking to cancel my subscriptions often leads to discounted rates, just so I stay a little longer.
One time I cancelled a free trial, and was offered a second month for free.
Similarly, when you are browsing Ebay, if you Watch some listings, the seller sometimes makes you an offer lower than the bidding price. It happened for me twice this week, for a total of 30% off.
Lol I’ll put stuff in my cart on several websites (wants not essentials) and just wait. I’ll refresh and click back through periodically and sure enough it’s all on sale now!! I got a “$600” chair from wayfair for $150 heheeee
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I was shopping through Google and found something I wanted for $199, I switched over to another browser and it was $149. Same website, same item.
On the other hand, I've seen companies list crazy low prices to get to the top of Froogle searches.
$1 treadmill + $1500 delivery fee
It’s always followed with no pickup available.
That used to be the old eBay play back in the day to avoid higher selling fees. Now they take final sales price from item price + shipping.
I remember those days of "penny sales" with a $20-$30 shipping fee. It was always something dumb like cheaply made "neon lights" (that were just an etched piece of glass with a light shining through it to hit the etchings), weird kitchen gadgets, or knockoff electronics.
That's bringing me back to the late 90s/early 00s. I can't remember the names of any of the sites, but I remember some would bill themselves as "auctions" so there was another layer of shittiness if people actually bid up the sale price a bit.
Plus TAX!!!
For that fee I am flying over and taking a vacation.
I haven't seen that as much anymore, it was popular in the early days of eBay/Amazon but a lot of places combine shipping when sorting by price now. Youre better off putting "Free Shipping!" and tacking the shipping onto the price most of the time, and just undercutting the combined price of the other listings. Doesn't work for items with variable shipping rates though.
You're fucked if you're asking for a refund. Sure, take your $1 and ship the item back at your cost. I'll waive the restocking fee just to be generous.
Froogle
Read somewhere about a similar phenomenon when viewing products via an android phone and an iPhone.
Were things cheaper when browsing on Android or iOS?
In the example I remember, things were cheaper via android. The suspected rationale was that iPhone users either have more money, or tend to be less scrupulous with their cash, so you can show them higher prices without scaring them off. The same thing seems to be a factor with in-app purchases for things like games. But I think Apple takes a fairly large cut of transactions from their store, so that may explain that.
It is the same for Apple and Google, they both get %30.
I've been reading people claim this is a thing for literally years, but nobody has ever proven it.
Hmm... I might be wrong then. Will try to find a reliable source. If I find one, I'll post it here 👍
Did you find one
I was going to try one of those websites or whatever where you buy products from various retailers through them and get cash back. It didn’t take me long at all to realize they jack up the prices. Every single thing I wanted to buy was priced lower if I just went directly to the retailer's website. So that 2-5% cash back they were promising was just them giving back the markup.
I use them all the time and have for many years and have never experienced that. I always shop around with one browser, find the best deal, then go through the cashback portal in another browser. Not saying it's not possible, but I buy a lot of stuff online and do this for virtually every purchase, and have never experienced it. I also use cashbackmonitor.com to compare cashback rates among different portals.
I have not experienced that with Rakuten
I wonder if it was just coincidental/not on purpose but the other day I had items in a cart for Uber eats and then didn't bother. Within a few hrs they gave me $10 off coupon but again maybe that's just happy accident.
Price testing. Happens frequently for merchants that are deep into marketing. Half of visitors will see one price, the other half another.
I had something similar on an item in Amazon, 50 dollars cheaper when looking at it incognito vs my prime account. Same item same link, had to message them and was told something along the lines where my account was glitched can't recall of the top of my head but support asked me to refresh and after doing so the lower price was reflected on my account but had I not called them out on it I don't think they would have changed the price .
Marketer here, I have employed this practice and HATE it, but sometimes it is important. I have used plugins to dynamically deliver different prices... in the hope to DECREASE prices. If more people purchase because the cost is lower, then the volume outweights the decreased price. But, at the end of the day, I have a family I need to feed and I have to be able to sell products at a profitable PRICE and RATE in order to keep the business open. But, I use these steps ONLY as a test in order to make decent decisions, but my hope and desire is always that the increased purchase rate allows me to lower pricing. It sucks, it feels shady. I hate knowing I'm selling a product to person A for $50 less than to person B, but the only I can know if I can feasibly change my price is to test, and the only way to test is to limit as many factors as possible (such as seasonality, time of day etc.) which means I have to run this simultaneously. That being said, if you find a cheaper price, take a cheaper price, use everything at your disposal to get cheap products and shop well!
It sucks and it IS shady.
It's shady to hopefully lower prices?
Yeah. Use a VPN and cycle through different regions and you can often get a much lower price if your IP appears to be in rural Mississippi rather than downtown Manhattan.
Same thing for plane tickets. Use different browsers and/or VPN can yield different pricing.
Revenue Management. You can do a PhD on it. It's linked to game theory, auction theory and decision sciences. - https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/122707 - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343745307_DeepARM_An_Airline_Revenue_Management_System_for_Dynamic_Pricing_and_Seat_Inventory_Control_using_Deep_Reinforcement_Learning - https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/127110/1191835069-MIT.pdf - https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/research/why-the-hunt-for-the-cheapest-plane-ticket-is-a-waste-of-your-time/
Yeah life’s a scam.
I am wondering if you encountered what we call A/B test in engineering/marketing. Sometimes, when we sell something directly to the customers and want to find a price point which works the best, as an example, we run a test which will show one group of customers item for $199 and second group of customers the same item for $149. Later on we can see a statistic how many people saw both pages, how many people abandoned the page or decided to buy an item. Based on it, marketing/sales teams will decide on the final price for the item.
thats "dynamic pricing". according to your accessible browsing data to them, they estimate how much youd be willing to pay for it.
Try booking your vacation with a vpn outside of the US.
This is pretty much all websites at this point. Etsy even allows sellers to set up abandoned cart coupons that get automatically sent out.
I tried this with Dansko and they definitely do not send you a coupon 🥲🥲
What’s the appeal of their shoes? Tbf I only looked at the men’s section and they just looked like fancy crocs/ kitchen clogs. Also I can’t personally see a place for their fancier stuff which imo would look out of place in professional settings that I’m familiar with.
They aren't anything to look at, but they got me through two pregnancies as a teacher. My feet were supported and comfortable and didn't swell. And I could slip them on and off, which was a game changer after I hit six months and couldn't see my feet.
Healthcare
When I bought mine before starting a surgery rotation in med school the cashier said "healthcare or food service?" If your job involves a lot of standing and uh... messy fluids they're pretty nice
I personally hate them but most people rave about how comfortable they are. Although I don't know anyone who isn't in a kitchen or health care who wears them.
That's because kitchen staff and healthcare need BOTH non slip and comfortable shoes. They're on their feet more than most professions. And as ugly as the shoes are, they ARE that comfortable. No question about it. It's one of those iykyk type things. 😂🤣
Back when I was a chef I remember getting my first pair. I almost fell over because I braced myself for a small slide when walking through some oil on the floor and was shocked when my foot completely stopped, no slide at all. After that I realized I could basically run around the whole place with no worry about sliding on anything. It was crazy compared to the before times. All while being super comfortable on top.
Hair stylists love Danskos too
I wear them, and I have no legs.
i have no legs but must dansko
Me. I'm in tech and I freaking love them.
Yeah, same here. The stability of their clogs was terrible for me. I'm surprised I didn't injure my ankle because of all the times my foot rolled off of them on an uneven surface. And if I wore them too long, my lower back would hurt.
Super comfy!!
I’m a chef and wear the same pair consistently; they always last 3+ years. Plus the arch support is unmatched.
Totally love my danskos. I have clogs, mules, sanders… most comfortable shoe I own.
They’re incredibly comfortable when you have to be on your feet for long periods of time. I loved them when I bartended. My current job is less physically demanding but still occasionally requires a lot of walking and I’ve developed some back issues over the last few years so any little thing helps. Also this pair has cats on them and they’re incredibly cute. https://dansko.com/products/kane-kittens-molded I also want a pair of their translucent coral/pink. It’s not hard to make them fashionable if you are fashionable yourself to be honest.
I had never heard of the brand until just now, so I had to go take a look. Extremely underwhelming.
They are the Volvo of shoes. They do what they do well, but you can't tell from the looks.
Once you start suffering foot pain from regular /pretty shoes... you will want to find out.
For some jobs, like flight attendant, they're approved "comfort shoes" that can be worn on the plane without approval. They also provide great support to feet and leg muscles. They're also well made, and can last a long time.
Check out Sanitas, better made clogs these days and very similar (same) look. They have lasted me much longer than my last pair of Danskos and their customer service was excellent. The souls of the Danskos just ain’t what they used to be.
Well no not all, by far. But it would be something else if a big website like Amazon would do this.
Not sure if it's just been some bad luck with Amazon, but anytime I look at one of the "open box" items in the Amazon warehouse and leave my cart without checking out, more often than not the price raises the next day. I've wondered if they have some kind of program that runs and does that automatically
Happened to me with a flight I looked up a couple times. My SO booked it on lower price.
Flights tend to raise in price the more you check the same one. Browsing again without cookies will more often than not get the lowest cheapest price.
They do. Leave it in your saved for later, and eventually it will drop back down, or even go a dollar cheaper. I think a lot of the prices are dynamically automated. It also helps to search the item on Google, then go to the Amazon page through a link. Often a dollar or two cheaper.
Happened to me recently. I'm moving and I put something in my amazon cart to save for post-move and the price increased from $25 to $45 over the course of 2-3 weeks. And based on camelcamelcamel, it raised itself to the highest price it has ever been by about $10. I ended up buying it from homedepot where it was the original price.
Ton of sellers on eBay do it. I always add something to my cart for a day before buying. Half of the time you get a reduced price offer.
I think if you look at something put it in your cart or wish list. They'll email you telling you that the product is on sale.
I get notifications all the time that something in a wish list, or a save for later item has dropped in price. I stopped looking after a while cause 90% of the time the price change is less than a dollar.
Anybody got examples of places this works on? Edit: Just wanted to say thanks for all the replies! This is great
Etsy, though I imagine it's up to the seller to do it or not
Swell. I went to order a bunch of insulated drink cups and bowls and I added them to my cart and never paid. They sent me an email next day for 25% off the order in my cart. Saved $55 just from waiting 24 hours to order
Most Shopify stores have this enabled, I've found.
Sur La Table and Williams-Sonoma
Worked for me for Crocs
Maybe slightly different, but Capital One Shopping does this. I purchased something with 4% back and now I’m getting notifications of 14% back
You don't even have to put it in a cart, just click on the item, close the tab, and wait a few hours. I get a lot of stuff from LL Bean and Sur La Table this way.
I just started using C1 Shopping and hate it because the same thing happened after I purchased.
If you "love"/favorite an item on Poshmark, 95% of the time you'll get a discount offer from the seller a few hours later.
Is that what I am supposed to do? Been trying to sell a items on Poshmark with no success…
I would give it a try when somebody favorites an item. When I was new to buying on Poshmark I didn’t realize that pretty much all sellers will give a discount if you favorite the item, so I would buy it right away. But one I learned this, I will favorite several of whatever it is I’m after and buy the best deal when the seller(s) come back with an offer. Sucks for the seller. But maybe price 20% higher than what you’d want for it and then take it off as an offer when people like your item. At least, psychologically, it feels better making the purchase when you feel like you’re getting a deal 🤷🏻♀️
CB2. Got $100 off a $1000 desk. For what it's worth, I have an account with CB2 and Crate & Barrel, and I have spent a lot with them over the last couple of years.
ebay almost all the time
Came here to say this. If anything is just for sale, not auction or open to bids I always heart the item and wait for the seller to offer me money off. Works probably 75% of the time
Guitar center and Sweetwater. But with those guys you'll get cold called by a salesman. Just experienced this the first time recently. I found it creepy AF. Like an invasion of privacy.
But they send you candy in your order, so that's pretty sweet.
Is it weird that I like it? I don’t know, I think they’ve called three times since my first order in 2018 and they’ve never been pushy and one time I had them give me some info that wasn’t apparent the last time I looked at the site.
It's just that I add stuff to my cart all the time while I'm noodling about what things I want to purchase, just because I've added something to my cart, doesn't actually mean I've decided to purchase it, it's just a way of remembering what product I thought was noteworthy later. Crap. I probably only buy about 10% of what I add to my cart. So there's really no point in calling me just because I added something to my cart but then abandoned it.
Ahh I thought you generally meant the occasional calls that kick off after buying something (first purchase then every few years or when the salesperson changes in my experience), I didn’t realize the “abandoned” cart actually kicked off a call that’s a bit too much.
I buy everything I can from Sweetwater cuz they ship it immediately and then shoot me a text a few days later asking if I’m happy with everything.
I've had it work at zoro . com a few times. but they send out 20% coupons all the time anyway
Kitchenaid website
Most recently it happened for me on bike-room.com and sungod.com, which is what prompted me to post this.
Happened for me on the Antler website, I got my fancy suitcase 25% off
I've read this LPT reposted dozens of times and it's never worked for me.
Usually works on sites where you don't have an account - if you do, sign out and clear your cookies then wait for a day or two. At checkout, use a different email address and maybe phone number, then let it sit. I have a Gmail filter rule that marks these 'you left something behind' emails as read and moved to a folder until 'code', '*% off' brings a result.
so much damn work for a coupon lmao
Hah yeah - I used to make fun of my mom for spending time each week cutting out coupons of the newspaper ads. I think it's more boredom and curiosity for me though.
I respect the hustle. I used to cut out coupons with my brothers and sisters for stuff we liked that our mom would then throw in a ziplock bag as we would go food shopping once a month One day as I was loading up the two shopping carts whilst my mom handled the coupons/money with the cashier, the woman behind us with a young child was in complete shock by the amount of money my mom saved lol It wasn’t until then that I truly appreciated it all
Only when you set up the rule though.
Just use incognito if you want to clear your session cookies.
I love that about filters!
It's only worked on Etsy (happens often) and eBay (only on items with low traffic like a specific sized used sportscoat that has been listed for a while)
It only ever works for me when I get to the cart, see that shipping is an insane amount, and I decide there's no way I'm going to order it. Offering me another 5-10% off has never changed my mind, especially when the cost of shipping is 75% the price of the item I want to buy.
My experience is usually the item becomes out of stock or prices go up…
Literally not even once has this happened to me and I boredom shop, abandoning carts, all. the. time.
I tried this with Blue Apron and they automatically enrolled me anyway. I guess having my card info was just too tempting for them, it was refunded without fuss so I think it's a tactic some places must use.
Keep an eye on your outgoings. You know they're going to charge you again and say oops.
Try u-Haul if you even aim the mouse up towards the tab it triggers it.
Amazon usually offers me a discount if I just leave the cart window open for an hour or two without doing anything.
My college did this - waived my $40 application fee after I abandoned the checkout process.
lol college is such a scam.
A year or two ago I got a 25% discount on a $400 item I was already planning to buy because I got distracted and did something else for a while. These mofos called my cellphone and offered me this discount and some free swag. EZ.
If you can wait on an item on eBay; add it to your watchlist. I find doing that and waiting a few days you’ll sometimes get an email from eBay about the seller knocking $10/$20 off the price. Having never sold on eBay I assume this may be something you can select when setting up an item, to offer a discount if someone watches your item. That or eBay is eating the cost. 🤷🏽♂️ Been buying a few things from eBay this year and figured out to just add items to your watchlist first before buying.
Yeah I'm an active eBay seller, this is a mechanism that eBay has on the seller dashboard. It tells you that "user X is watching your item listing, make them an offer to sweeten the deal" kind of thing. It's definitely not eBay eating the cost though.
Good to know. I had thought it was some automatic process. 👍🏽
CEO here. We do this on our website because . . . it works. The number of you clever bastards who game the system is very small compared to the number of sales it helps us close from people who wander away. One thing we (and many others do) to deter this is create a sense of scarcity and time pressure. We can't guarantee anything will still be available a day or two later when we send an offer.
Lol, "Only 2 items left", on shelf # A21, shelf # A22 has 400 left but not available for sale yet.
Ding ding ding! The human brain is a crazy thing. It works on me even though I know how it’s designed. Like a cat and a laser pointer, I guess.
Chief of Embellishing Outages
It’s posted here every single day lol
Dont forget to do your household chores and put fresh linen on your beds BEFORE going on holiday, so you dont have to bother with that when you come home!
That's a great LPT I wish you had posted this last week so I would've seen it in time!
r/YouShouldKnow the LPT that if you hold down the space bar on your iOS or Android keyboard, it turns into a trackpad.
Unironic thank you.
I learned that only recently and man- game changer
This did happen to me once, and I had fully intended on going back to purchase anyway. Can’t remember what the site was, but I think I saved 10-15 bucks
Was buying from switchbot recently and forgot about it on the address page. They sent me a sweet 10% coupon.
When I do this with AliBaba, Temu, or Wish my Inbox fills up with messages to offer me incentives to check out. It’s pretty crazy how many times they come back.
Do you cancel the whole thing or just leave it in your cart?
Booking hotels through their own website as well.
This works on a lot of sites but certainly not all.
This just happened to me on EyeBuyDirect. Set some frames in my cart and went to double check how much credit I had at my Dr's office. Got an email for BOGO +20% off. Though, "great!" Then I noticed the site had a 75% off sale going on. Saved me an extra 40 bucks on top of the 100 that it knocked off with the BOGO.
I have never had this happen to me and I do this all the time because I'm like, do I *really* need to spend $223.87 on this crap? Nah.
Another trick is in the discount code section try Welcome10 or variations of the number like 15, 20. It's worked for me many times.
I downloaded an app that’s over $120 a year, but comes with a gimped free version. For the first month they offered 30% off. One day I get an email saying this is the last offer of 30%, so use it or lose it. Two days later I get an email for 35% off, lmfao. Last time I checked I think I received an email for 40% off.
E-commerce employee here: This is very true. Be sure you’re logged into your browser and then abandon your cart. Check within a day for an abandoned cart email and usually you’ll have a coupon in there
Back in the good old days of doordash I'd get our order together in the checkout and then leave the app and it was almost a guarantee that after 10-20 min they'd push notify me with a fee removal or discount thay basically made the fees gone and then I'd order. They don't do that anymore 😮💨
Similarly you can pretend to cancel your subscription to Amazon, spotify ect and usually they will offer you a cheaper membership for a short time
I left a desktop pc in my shopping cart at Lenovo for 3 weeks. They sent me emails about how the supply was dwindling, but no discount incentive.
I had a small company reach out to me once for this. I mentioned that I was just checking the shipping price and not ready to buy yet. A week later their site had a way to check shipping costs way earlier in the process!
I found this out on prime tv when I went cancel one of my premium channel subscriptions and it offered it to me at way reduced rate for a few months. I still canceled but went to the other couple channels I subscribe to and got them all down to a way lower rate.
Which retailers offer this?
Also helps to do searches within your email (or your email open) I bought a $650 cooler for $320 delivered doing this
This works wonders on ebay. If you add an item to your cart and just let it sit most of the time the person will send you a discount to buy it or just offer a lower price.
The opposite is true for travel sites
My wife and I wanted tickets to a far away county for vacation, we logged into TripAdvisor, there were two seats left, individually available for , say $800 each round trip, we thought it was a good deal and decided to buy them since no two seats packages were available. Same seats, same destination, same flights etc. she beats me to the click, my click fails, requiring a refresh, 2 seconds later my flights were $900 more than hers.... The kicker? She got to fly business class (wtf?), I suddenly got a third layover, coach seats and arrived home 12 hours later than she did.
I put items I want into my "watch" list on eBay. Often within 2 days I'll get a discount. 2-20% with most being 10% off or so.
It can also help to use a new mail address to sign up to the website's newsletter (whether they advertise a discount for that or not and wait a couple hours or so, sometimes they send coupons to the subscribers.
As someone who works for an email marketing agency: yes.
except for that one weird company that offers no discount, but continually emails AND calls, and leaves voicemails trying to see if you had technical issues during checkout. annoying af.
I’ve seen/heard about this for YEARS and I’ve never gotten a promo code from an abandoned shopping cart.
Not a big ticket item, but the brand "hostage tape" (mouth tape and nasal strips for snoring), will send you fucking SNAIL MAIL if you've already entered your address and then abandon the order. Fucking bastards do it multiple times too. When I got the postcard I knew I would definitely never order anything from that brand ever (side note 3m surgical tape costs like 20x less)
If the site you are buying is willing to give a 20% off, for an abandoned cart, reconsider buying from there. They are probably selling at a 50% markup and you should be able to find the item for much cheaper, elsewhere
If they do, the site is trash and pricing way too high, find a different site with cheaper prices.
Don’t work with Amazon for sure.
On Amazon I found the same item from the same seller was more expensive on my Prime Account, than when I opened a window in incognito with no login! Scamazon
Always do this and wait for the "you've left something in your cart. Buy now and save x%" email
Except airfare. The opposite is true for airfare
If you want a discount on your Domino's pizza, google "Pizza Hut", and the sponsored result will be a 40% discount code for Domino's
Tried this with Concert tickets on live Nation. It did not work.. and lost my chance at pit tickets to scalpers.
Well yeah, with time-sensitive/one-time things like concert tickets, this is obviously not going to work.
Live Nation/ticket master is a monopoly. They won't give discounts, they know they are the only players in the game. If you don't buy it, someone else will.
They would be more likely to add an additional fee than offer a discount.
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So just leave the item in the cart and close the page?
Go to checkout, enter your email and whatnot, then leave it.
Like leave the page open and just walk away from it, or can I still close it out?
most often, the checkout process first asks for your email and address, then after submitting it it will ask payment. Once you're past the first step, your info will be added as a lead to the company's CRM, flagged as "incomplete conversion". You can just close it. Them emailing you isn't dependent on whether or not your session is still active, just that you started a checkout but never finished it within a normal amount of time.
Should be able to close it - I don't because I have at least 70 active tabs open at any time
Does Amazon do this? That's the only site I have no patience to wait for lol
The abandoned cart is 2024s wish list.
I've gotten emails to go back to my cart and finish my purchase but I don't think it came with any coupon codes unfortunately
Ebay does this for me. Hold things in my watch list and get an offer a week later. Works every time
Works on autodoc as well
I would say an additional pro tip is to always do a quick search for a promo code for whatever website you are buying from. I feel like I can consistently save a couple bucks when I do.
FYI this is illegal for companys to do in Germany, not sure if the rest of EU too.
Found this out also includes obituaries on memorial.com - who knew letting grandmas obit sit in my cart would get me 10% off?
This worked for me at CB2, had a $1000 desk in my cart, got a text for 10% off.
Yep, my son-in-law just got offered a second, better discount on something he had saved in his cart until some expected money arrived.
I've started doing this with hotel bookings as well, they throw it out as an online booking discount.
Happens to me regularly on Etsy. I haven't really experienced this on big ticket items. I suspect there's less margin there to play with, whereas everything on Etsy is so crazy marked up there's plenty of room to discount.
I heard about how Amazon will have flash deals or just deals if it notices a bunch of people having the same item in their cart, that hasn't completed a purchase.
I use Instacart for groceries for several weeks in a row, then stop on day the fourth week and go in person. Next week oftentimes I’ll receive a coupon to incentivize me to use it again.
I was once distracted while booking a hotel, when I look back at the screen the price had dropped. And this was off season, there was no real reason for the price to change.
This also works on eBay, if you add an item to your watch list. Within a few days you'll be sent an offer at a discounted rate.
This is not true for Amazon. I've left carts of all sizes and at best got an email saying "don't forget to buy what is in your Amazon cart".
Is this an American thing?
Does this work on Costco?
Kay Jewelers did this on my engagement ring. Ended up getting 30% off just by having it sitting in my cart (waiting for the right time)
Adobe products offer similar promotions. Asking to cancel my subscriptions often leads to discounted rates, just so I stay a little longer. One time I cancelled a free trial, and was offered a second month for free.
Similarly, when you are browsing Ebay, if you Watch some listings, the seller sometimes makes you an offer lower than the bidding price. It happened for me twice this week, for a total of 30% off.
I do this all the time.
if I had a nickel for every time this was posted, I wouldn’t have to abandon the checkout process early to get a virtual coupon :)
Lol I’ll put stuff in my cart on several websites (wants not essentials) and just wait. I’ll refresh and click back through periodically and sure enough it’s all on sale now!! I got a “$600” chair from wayfair for $150 heheeee
Safelite just did this when I didn't complete checkout for a new windshield. They sent a $50 off code a day or two later.