How Amazon raised prices to profit from the pandemic

 by Alex Harman

Part 3 - A Note on Methodology

 

The purpose of this report is to examine the ongoing price gouging on Amazon.com, both by third-party sellers as well as by Amazon itself. This involved tracking specific products through direct observation on Amazon.com, as well as through tracking websites Keepa.com and Camelcamelcamel.com.

 

Where possible, an effort was made to identify a contemporaneous price online at another national retailer of a similar or identical item. Despite reports of all manner of products experiencing significant price increases, including inflatable swimming pools and hand golf carts, products tracked in this report were limited to essential items to stick closely to items that would be covered under existing and proposed price gouging statutes.

While there certainly have been reports of price gouging on other retail platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic, most public reports have been about price gouging on Amazon.

Further, from the beginning of the public health emergency, Amazon itself has been outspoken on the issue of identifying, stopping, and issuing policy proposals to address price gouging on the platform.

The focus on Amazon is also a product of the dominant force in retail that the company has become. Amazon reportedly accounts for 40% of all online sales, with its closest competitor making up around just 5%. Amazon carries all manner of consumer products, with one estimate of 1.5 billion items listed.

As the report will show, there are numerous products offered by third-part sellers that have been listed with significant price increases weeks and months after Amazon made public proclamations that it had taken action to stop the practice. What is more troubling is that the highest percentage price increases that this report has identified were on products listed as “sold by Amazon.”

Source, links, references:

https://www.citizen.org/article/prime-gouging/

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