Canada has implemented a new tax savings from December to February for some things like taxable groceries, crafts, and gaming physical media. I wanted to get a new Xbox controller and found the best price at Walmart for $55 a week ago. The tax holiday starts today and I now see that the $55 has increased to $62 and change, which is about how much tax I should be saving. Great to see this thinly veiled attempt to help Canadians ( /s - win votes) is just going to be extra profit in the corporations’ pockets.
That’s probably illegal.
It has been ruled illegal in the Netherlands only last year but companies still do it and het away with it.
It was so hastily-implemented that I think it’s either an oversight or by design.
It is in the US.
From here
tell that to amazon and every other retailer that jacks prices up the week or so before a ‘sale’
For Amazon, I use camelcamelcamel to see price history. Personally I’ve not seen price increases just for holiday sales but I also don’t buy a lot of stuff on these sorts of days, I just set a price alert and wait for the email.
Sites like these are why amazon has been using more coupons at check out instead of straight discounts. Messes with the price tracking
How does that help Amazon if on the price tracker it appears $20, but with the coupon it’s actually $10?
If I’m using a price tracker and see it for $20 pre-coupon but another site has it for $15, wouldn’t that just drive my business to the other site?
It seems like with using coupons it’s just artificially inflating the price on whatever trackers, and that seems like it would be bad for sales to me.
The goal is to mess up price history. So it will have a list price of $50 but with a coupon to make it $35. Then a sale day happens and they lower the price to $40. It’s 20% off! Good deal.
It doesn’t really help if you’re comparison shopping with alerts. I don’t know that Amazon thinks you’re going to go to another site.
Ah, yeah that makes sense now.
The price hike in Canada’s instance, wouldn’t violate US law.
They aren’t advertising a “sale”. You just aren’t paying taxes on what you buy, and it isn’t wal mart doing it, it’s the government. Wal mart is just choosing to screw over the buyers and the government all in one go.
In that case, they won’t lower it in February than it’s not illegal because they’re not offering it for a higher price for a short amount of time.
It is, and they don’t care.
When fines are “the cost of doing business.”
Fine should be a direct cut of company value or profits. Proportional, not an absolute value.