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Consumer center urges caution on Amazon Prime Day
Amazon Prime Day 2022 is coming up in July, and the consumer protection center advises making conscious and well thought-out purchasing decisions in this context.
Photo: AP/Reed Saxon
Dusseldorf Amazon Prime Day 2022 takes place in July. According to the group, customers can look forward to lots of discounts. But is the shopping event also worthwhile from the point of view of consumers? We asked the consumer advice center NRW.
The annual Amazon Prime Day takes place on July 12th and 13th. These are two days when Amazon promises tons of deals and discounts to its Prime members. The group itself earns well from the shopping event – according to Amazon alone, it sold around 250 million products within 48 hours on Prime Day last year, market researchers from Statista estimate sales at around 11 billion euros. The online mail order company is carefully keeping precise data, including information on the Prime subscriptions acquired during the course of the event, under lock and key.
It is questionable whether the event will prove to be similarly lucrative from a consumer perspective. At the request of our editors, the lawyer Iwona Husemann from the NRW consumer advice center does not want to draw any fundamental conclusions. However, experience from previous market checks has shown that it is often only “supposed bargains” that are granted during corresponding discount campaigns. She therefore recommends that consumers find out exactly about the prices of the coveted products before Prime Days and compare different providers: “Consumers should always consult price comparison engines and find out in which price range the desired goods are on the The market is moving.” This makes it easier to estimate how big the discount actually is for the consumer.
Shipping costs and delivery times can be deceptive
At the Amazon Prime Days, according to the lawyer, consumers could certainly hit one or the other “super bargain”. Important for this: Knowing how high the normal price was before. However, she also points out that “the supposedly cheapest bargain does not automatically have to be the best”. Sometimes longer delivery times would have to be faced by the buyer, in other cases the return costs would have to be borne by the customer himself in the event of a cancellation. It is therefore advisable to filter price search engines according to shipping costs, availability and delivery time.
What the expert warns against, however, are marketing strategies such as offer tickers. She advises consumers not to be tempted to take hasty action by time-limited discount campaigns. Should you fall into the trap and the deal turns out to be a supposed bargain, you can make use of your 14-day online shopping-specific right of withdrawal.
The expert does not want to give an assessment of the group and the discount campaign itself, her task is to enable consumers to make a well thought-out, well-informed decision that is optimal for them. This also includes weighing up how often you shop at Amazon and whether it even pays off to sign up for a Prime membership for an offer.
Nevertheless, Amazon – like many other market providers – is constantly monitored by the consumer advice center and, in case of doubt, legally prosecuted for practices that violate consumer protection regulations. There are already a few prominent examples of this, such as legal proceedings against Amazon, in which consumer protection was granted justice. For example, the closure of customer accounts for frequent returners and the dash button procedure were deemed illegal.
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