Buying Shoes on Amazon

[troywellbuilt]

Does anyone here buy shoes on Amazon? Their pricing is a mystery to me. Two examples I've had in the last couple of weeks - a pair of Timberland shoes that go for $130 on Zappos were $87 on Amazon - a good deal, right? I put them in my cart but didn't buy and a week later they were down to $69. A few days later they were down to $55 and I bought them. They went as low as $52, currently back up to $87.

A pair of Sebago shoes that go for $110 across the internet were $110 on Amazon. I liked them, but wasn't going to pay $110, so I put them in my cart to see what happens. A couple weeks later they were $38! I bought a pair and a couple hours later thought, "that's a great deal, I'll get another pair". Went to do so, price back up to $110.

Why do they do this? Are they making anything selling at such a discount?

On any given shoe style the price varies wildly by size and color.

Anyone have any insight?

[Acer]

I have bought shoes there several times, and experienced the same wide price swings.

I pick out what I want, leave it in the cart (or the saved for later list) then wait for a few weeks while the price bounces around, consulting camelcamelcamel for a realistic range. When it hits my target, I hit buy.

I'm guessing the margin on shoes is massive so they can play these games and still come out ahead.

[dk62]

I bought a lot of shoes on Amazon and have not seen such wide price swings. But I am looking only at the Ecco brand, so YMMV.

[Acer]

Keen brand are what I have shopped. They show the swings.

[Mike Johnson]

And to top it all off, Amazon owns Zappos.

[3d]

Acer wrote:
Keen brand are what I have shopped. They show the swings.

Are they discontinued styles?

[Buzz]

Not sure about shoes specifically, but Amazon does a pretty good job of matching the lowest available mass market pricing on a lot of goods they sell. They also seem to wiggle prices on stuff you look at and/or put in your cart, perhaps to temp/trigger your purchase decision. Shoes are a bit of a mystery to me, as with most other products I can usually find the vendor whose price they are matching. Perhaps since shoes come in sizes whereas other goods don't, maybe there's an inventory management component to pricing, including time on the shelf.

[NewtonMP2100]

.....if the shoe fits......

[Acer]

3d wrote:
[quote=Acer]
Keen brand are what I have shopped. They show the swings.

Are they discontinued styles?
No, not in my case. Here's a model I have bought twice, three years apart.

[space-time]

dk62 wrote:
I bought a lot of shoes on Amazon and have not seen such wide price swings. But I am looking only at the Ecco brand, so YMMV.

I am also looking at Ecco, and have seen prices fluctuate between ~$70 and ~$130, FWIW.