Clear Price Gouging

colinph970

I bought two printer cartridges from Amazon in March 2020 for £17.99. Today i went back to re-order to find the cheapest price was now £43...........I'm not paying that and it seems a clear violation of Amazon policy on the subject - what can be done about this?

Caz3121

are the cartridges being sold by Amazon or by a third party seller? 
what price are the cartridges from another store? - could you not buy elsewhere?

lincroft1710

If the new price offends Amazon policy then you will have to speak to Amazon about it

mattyprice4004

This happens all the time, and it's just the joy of a free market. 
It's on thing pricing essentials at stupid prices, but printer cartridges aren't an essential item; it's likely just market forces at work.

Supply drying up in China earlier in the year creates a knock on effect - less sellers can get stock with the same level of demand, so they increase prices to manage demand. 

In terms of what can be done, you can either pay the higher price, find a cheaper supplier or don't print things. If you mean what can be done to stop it, then nothing - it's just how the market works. 

Thrugelmir

Find an alternative source of supply. 

RyanHello

You should switch to laser printer. Inkjet cartridges are a rip off. We use toners every single day printing hundreds of papers, it lasts about 5 / 6 weeks. Inkjet would probably last about a week. Price gouging on inkjets have been happening for ages. Ever since the big companies have stopped compatible use in the new printers.

Grumpy_chap

Price fluctuations on all things electronic is regular - I think it is wrong, but it is regular.  Even with Amazon own products (Alexa etc) or major retailers.  I saw a watch at John Lewis at Christmas at £136, but could not get to a store, then it went to £150 so I held off, then £119 (which I would have got but credit card limit was exhausted) and now £146, so I will just have to wait until a better price comes back.

All made worse right now, as the price tracking websites have agreed to the request from Amazon not to update to reduce traffic to the websites as they are struggling to cope with increased demand with everyone stuck at home and now Amazon think they are an essential business and the website cannot crash.  It could be that very altruistic reason, or it could be they are price-gauging and want to hide it.

[Deleted User]

Contact Amazon to report the seller for price gouging.

daveyjp

OP.  Check historic Amazon prices using camelcamelcamel.com

[Deleted User]

Try buying a set of dumbbells to go with it, if you really want to see price gouging!  They've literally tripled the asking price.

Grumpy_chap

daveyjp said:

OP.  Check historic Amazon prices using camelcamelcamel.com

Sadly, they have stopped tracking prices "to avoid overloading the site with traffic" at Amazon's request. 

A cynic might say this looks like Amazon do not want to allow visibility of price-gauging because Amazon make money from it.  Fortunately, I do not know many cynics, so only suppose that is what they might say