Amazon has today launched a new ‘Make an Offer’ pricing feature, enabling customers to bid for lower prices on more than 150,000 items across Sports and Entertainment Collectibles, Collectible Coins and Fine Art – expanding on Amazon’s traditional fixed price model.
Amazon customers can now use its Make an Offer feature on select items from third-party sellers in Fine Art, Sport and Entertainment Collectibles and Collectible Coins.
The ‘Make an Offer’ feature is not an auction model, with negotiations conducted between individual customers and sellers privately. A customer negotiating with a seller will never pay more than the listed price.
Sellers must enable the ‘Make an Offer’ feature on items they are willing to negotiate on price; when selecting ‘Make an Offer’ on an item’s product page, a customer can then submit the price they wish to bid. Once the seller receives the customer’s bid offer by email, the offer can then be accepted, rejected or further negotiated until a price is agreed.
According to Peter Faricy, VP for Amazon Marketplace, “In a recent survey of our sellers, nearly half of the respondents told us that the ability to negotiate prices with customers would be important to drive more sales on Amazon. ‘Make an Offer’ delivers that functionality and makes customers feel confident they are getting an item they want at the lowest price possible.”
Commenting on today’s announcement, Profitero’s VP Strategy & Insight Keith Anderson, said: “This is an evolution of display-in-cart pricing. Amazon can offer lower prices to deal-sensitive shoppers without revealing the “reserve price” to everyone. However, it is important to note that it is very unlikely that different shoppers will get different prices – Amazon is not likely to be personalizing price.”
Profitero is the leading global provider of eCommerce intelligence for brands and retailers, collecting online data on more than 275 million products every day.
We provide both brick & mortar and online retailers with their competitors’ prices, promotions and full product assortment information. More than 50 global retailers, including Staples, Waitrose, Ocado, Morrisons, Walmart-owned Sam’s Club and Worten, rely on Profitero’s accurate and timely competitor price intelligence to make better informed and more profitable pricing decisions, helping them to increase sales as well as margins.
Profitero also supplies brands with critical online insights, helping to enhance their online sales and market positioning. We deliver key online metrics, including share of online shelf, share of voice, pricing, brand price monitoring and new product monitoring, in any country and from any online or multichannel retailer, updated every day.