Amazon.com Inc. wants some online shoppers to “Make an Offer” on the prices of some 150,000 items sold in the e-retailer’s sports, entertainment, coin and fine arts collectible web stores.
Amazon, No. 1 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, says its new Make an Offer program enables shoppers seeking to buy those relatively rare items to negotiate with sellers directly. Let’s say a baseball fan, eager to hold onto some of the glory of Derek Jeter’s career, wants to buy via Amazon a souvenir baseball branded with the name (but not the autograph) of the recently retired New York Yankee shortstop, along with a commemorative seat from Yankee Stadium. The product package also includes a display case and “authentic game used dirt,” and has a listed price of $359.99 (plus free shipping).
That shopper can add the item to his cart immediately or click a button along the right-hand side of the product page to make an offer to the seller. The potential buyer proposes a price in a new box, and the seller receives that offer via e-mail, Amazon says. The seller can accept or reject the price, or make a counteroffer. The negotiations continue via e-mail for as long as necessary, Amazon says.
“The new ‘Make an Offer’ experience is a game-changer for Amazon customers looking for great prices on one-of-a-kind items, and for sellers looking to communicate and negotiate directly with customers in an online marketplace environment just like they do normally in their own physical store or gallery,” says Peter Faricy, vice president 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.”
Amazon says it would expand the program to “hundreds of thousands of items from sellers in 2015” but gave no further details.
“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,” says Keith Anderson, vice president of strategy and insight at Profitero, a provider of pricing technology. (“Reserve pricing” refers to to the lowest price at which a seller is willing to sell an item.)
He doubts Amazon will offer this pricing program off of the e-retailer’s marketplace. “Amazon’s brand and market perception depends to some degree on the idea that it offers all shoppers low prices fairly and equitably,” he says. “Amazon also favors automation. If the negotiation is truly interactive, as it appears to be, it’s almost certain that Amazon won’t enable this for its own products.”