Can You Solve This Shoe Pricing Mystery?
Last night, I was looking at running shoes on Amazon to replace my beat-up pair, and decided maybe I should go with these. Amazon says that there is a “lower price available on select options.” Interesting—I’m used to getting one price for one pair of shoes regardless of size.
But for this pair, I found that the price appeared to shoot up as the size grew from 7 to 7.5 to 8.
I tried to do a quick search for an explanation about Amazon’s pricing for different sizes of shoes of the same model, but didn’t find an answer. Perhaps you can solve this mystery!
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Previously on The Billfold
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The first pair is sold by a different company, but I have no idea about the other two…
Part of it is probably because it’s a 3rd-party seller, not Amazon itself. So the size 7′s are being sold by Watch Colony whereas the size 8′s are being sold by Sport Town (most likely because Watch Colony doesn’t have any 8′s in stock?) However, that doesn’t explain why Sport Town is charging more for size 8.5′s. Many sellers, as well as Amazon itself, use algorithmic pricing which can go screwy on occasion. Perhaps there is higher demand for 8.5′s so they upped the price, figuring most people wouldn’t comparison shop different sizes?
@stuffisthings It may also be that Sport Town doesn’t have size 8s in stock, but will be buying them from some other seller and then reselling them to you if and only someone orders them. The size 8 price might be based on the size 8 price available from another reseller not showing up on this list, or on Sport Town adding a markup to such a price.
There was a really weird episode of bizarre Amazon pricing that was discussed somewhere online a few months ago where two Amazon 3rd-party sellers were offering a used college biology textbook for more than a million dollars. Turns out that neither had it in stock and both used algorithms to scan for it elsewhere on Amazon and offer the same book at a slight markup. Both locked onto each other’s listing and as one went up so did the other in a weird circular feedback loop.
@jfruh Yeah I think Josh is right about the subcontractor in the middle.
@jfruh Oh! I just saw a paperback for sale for a million on Amazon and was really puzzled! You have solved a mystery for me, thanks!
Perhaps they do demand-based pricing? I notice that the higher-priced size 8s only had one pair left.
It’s also worth noting that the price of the shoes stay the same throughout – it’s the discount that changes. The sale is probably to move old inventory, so amount of the discount is reduced in line with the availability of the shoe.
Oh, and Mike, I have a discount code for the Adidas website that gives you 20% off already reduced items, let me know if you want it as an alternative to Amazon.
When I read the headline, I immediately thought, “OH! it’s like with bra shopping! Big titties=more money.” But all you smarties already figured it out and of course they wouldn’t do that with men’s running shoes because that would be ridiculous (charging extra for bras makes total sense though).
@iffie Sometimes charging extra for different sized bras makes sense to me. Other time I sincerely doubt that the tech and fabric requirements to go up *one* cup size are truly that cost-prohibitive.
@iffie The problem is that they charge more for higher lettered cup size, but not for larger bras (which use more fabric). So you can find tons of cheap 36Bs but have to pay tons of money to buy something in a 30D, even though the 30D uses less fabric because the cup is one size smaller than in the 36B and the band is 3 sizes smaller.
In women’s shoes at least on Amazon, I know that there are often less of the higher sized shoes available. Many retailers only stock shoes up to size 7 or 8, and so to find 9s and higher, you usually have a different seller with a different price point. My theory is that overall the shoe companies probably make the highest number of shoes in the mid sizes and there are just less higher sizes entering the market to begin with….