Amazon's Dynamic Pricing is Ruining Christmas

Inflation aside, the Grinch has officially set up shop in an Amazon warehouse near you.

If you are toy shopping this month, you have probably noticed the crazy prices. But Amazon is always the cheapest, right? Not this year, and it's all due to the Amazon monopoly and dynamic pricing.

Dynamic pricing refers to products with prices that change rapidly and sometimes drastically based on the demand in the market. Rather than being overwhelmed by this fast-paced pricing dilemma, e-commerce stores like Amazon have used dynamic pricing to their advantage by adjusting their prices at the same rapid pace of market demand. This means the price goes up based on demand, rather than the actual cost of the product.

What does that mean? It means $40 Fidget toys:

Best Price?

Here is the same item on kappatoys.com (heads up, I'm biased)

Consider this your friendly reminder to shop around. Amazon gained control of many markets (like the toy market), by originally offering toys for a couple bucks under MSRP. Now they are tripling prices without even letting the consumer know how far off the mark they are.

You can fight back by shopping small. Your local toy retailer doesn't have dynamic pricing. Their prices are based on their costs, and they may be going up, but at least you know it's a fair equation.

Special thanks to my sources:

https://www.pragmaticinstitute.com/resources/articles/product/the-amazon-effect-dynamic-pricing-done-right/

https://www.amazon.com/nee-doh/s?k=nee+doh

https://kappatoys.com/