Amazon has
introduced a new bidding option on its website that will allow
buyers to hit a button marked "Make an offer" on selected product
pages, instead of just adding them to their cart.
Customers will be able to put in a bid for over 150,000 items on
the site, including fine art, rare coins and other collectibles
that have been sold by sold by third-party sellers. The best item
we've seen so far is an actual
prop used on the set of Jurassic Park.
It's priced at $1,600 (£1,023), but if you want to snag it for
less, you could always try putting in a lower offer.
This is not the first time Amazon has attempted to introduce
bidding on the site. In 1999 it tried to launch an online auction
site that would compete with eBay, but it failed to prove
a successful challenger to the more established auction place. That
does not mean that there can be no negotiation on price on Amazon,
however, as this latest move goes to show. Bartering, after all,
has long been an integral element in retail and according to Reuters, a recent Amazon sellers survey
showed that the ability to do so would be integral to driving more
sales on the platform.
Don't
miss
Of course, third-party sellers are an important part of Amazon's
business model these days, accounting for around 40 percent of
annual sales units. The company wants to make it clear to both
sellers and buyers that the "Make an offer" feature is not an
actual auction, as the buyer will never handed over more than the
original listed price. All of the negotiations are also completely
private.
Once buyers have made an offer, sellers will have 72 hours to
reject, accept or counter the offers. If a counter offer is made,
buyers will also have 72 hours to consider it.
The feature is available as of today when bidding on selected
items, but it will be applied to many more over the coming
months.
Source Article from http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-12/09/amazon-make-an-offer http://cdni.wired.co.uk/620x413/g_j/jurassic-park.jpg
Amazon adds 'make an offer' option for art and rare items
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