wtf?

[waider]

From Amazon.com:

Price "Too Low to Display" Explained

The "too low to display" message indicates an additional discount is in effect, and this discount is calculated in the Shopping Cart. You can see this price by clicking the product name and then selecting the Add to Cart button on the product information page. Please be assured that simply adding an item to your cart does not obligate you to buy it--you can always delete the item from your cart if you decide not to purchase it.

I'm still no clearer on why they don't actually display the price, particularly since the "too low to display" figure is $629.87.

Comments

[kodi]

When they started doing that, at least, they did it on items for which the manufacturer prohibited advertising a product below a certain price, if you wanted to be a "certified reseller," or whatever that particular manufacturer called it. So you could be the shady guys in New York advertising Canon's latest camera for $425 instead of the Manufacturer's Enforced Retail Price of $699.99, but then... Ah... Canon wouldn't link to you from their webpage. I'm sure there was more to being a certified reseller than that, but there you go. So finally someone hit on the idea of not actually advertising the price - they pretend they're offering it at the enforced price, but then adding a special discount for people who actually add it to the cart.

It's entirely possible that they've since discovered that enough people are stupid enough to complete purchases with things artificially added to their carts like that that it's profitable to set up more items that way.

[wisn.livejournal.com]

Speaking as somebody who once worked in a non-certified store...

When you're a certified reseller, you're authorized to retail the products. You're under a contract: Thou shalt not scalp other authorized resellers, thou shalt participate in promotional programs, thou shalt honor our warranty, as well as more obscure terms, such as thou shalt not sell mail-order from a brick-and-mortar storefront, and thou shalt move /n/ amount of product per year to sustain authorized status.

'Price too low to print' usually means, 'We're selling this below the manufacturer's allowed price range.' Sometimes it means, 'We're selling this outside our permitted sales territory,' but I assume that Canon would not be restricting Amazon (or its partners, usually Adray and J&R for camera gear in the States) to an arbitrary region.

When you see a retailer promoting a product marked noticeably lower (or higher) than the median price (such as $150 for an iPod), they typically purchased it through a wholesaler who isn't bound to reseller contracts. The reason why manufacturers require you to supply purchase information when registering a warranty on hardware is, aside from selling you to direct mail marketers, is so that they can decline warranty support if you didn't purchase through the appropriate channels.