That’s the “actual price”. It’s been on “sale” for 95% of the time. I wouldn’t be surprised if they legally have to sell it at it’s actual price at least some of the time.
No, the scare quotes are there for a reason. They’ve determined that the most profitable price point is at $300, but they want to advertise “50% off!” without actually lowering the price, so they raise the price to some ridiculous number for as short as legally possible, then claim that it’s the “real” price and say that $300 is discounted.
It’s just lying, and it’s illegal in many jurisdictions. For example, Dell recently got fined $10,000,000 in Australia for advertising “was $x, now $y” discounts when $x was not the price for the majority of the product’s recent availability.
I highly recommend the Keepa extension on chrome or the like (camel camel camel, etc.)
Here is their chart for the last year (US pricing) - https://i.imgur.com/pKoSanC.png
I love Keepa
Thanks for the recommendation, mate. I didn’t know it was a thing, really appreciate it.
Keepa is a keeper
Wonder what caused the spike in March.
Someone said “oh crap my HDD crashed I got purchase a new drive yesterday” and paid whatever they were charged and just accepted it.
That’s the “actual price”. It’s been on “sale” for 95% of the time. I wouldn’t be surprised if they legally have to sell it at it’s actual price at least some of the time.
Wouldn’t they lose money by always having it include a discount?
No, the scare quotes are there for a reason. They’ve determined that the most profitable price point is at $300, but they want to advertise “50% off!” without actually lowering the price, so they raise the price to some ridiculous number for as short as legally possible, then claim that it’s the “real” price and say that $300 is discounted.
It’s just lying, and it’s illegal in many jurisdictions. For example, Dell recently got fined $10,000,000 in Australia for advertising “was $x, now $y” discounts when $x was not the price for the majority of the product’s recent availability.