News

Actions

Apparent Prime Day pricing error may cost Amazon

Posted

Whoops: Amazon, apparently in error, priced a bunch of very expensive camera gear for $94.48 on Prime Day—and is honoring at least some of the sales.

First, someone noticed a camera normally priced at $548 was listed for $94.48 and submitted the deal to Slickdeals. It made it to the site’s front page, and soon commenters realized a bunch of other pricey cameras, camera gear, and camera bundles were listed at the same price, PetaPixel reports.

Users started sharing their hauls, including one commenter who bought a $13,000 lens and one who scored a $5,500 camera, both for $94.48 apiece. Some even reported successfully price-matching at Best Buy and other retailers. Fuji Rumors reports that there were similar reports of Amazon (likely accidentally) marking camera gear 90% off on Prime Day 2018.

But would Amazon cancel the orders? No, or at least not all of them: Many users reported getting notification their orders had shipped; others spoke to Amazon customer service and were told the orders would be shipped.

By the day after the orders started getting placed, some had even already received their order. Some people, for reasons that are not clear, could not see the $94.48 price on their Amazon accounts; others saw their accounts locked after multiple orders; still others simply didn’t see the deal before it expired and came to the post to bemoan their bad luck.

PetaPixel theorizes that if orders were placed on backordered products, those might get canceled and refunded, but “anything already handed over to shipping companies seems guaranteed to arrive at the price paid.”

Will Amazon lose money over the incident? PCMag thinks so: “That’s going to hurt.” Amazon hasn’t commented, per Business Insider. (Read more Amazon.com stories.)

More From Newser: