School me on Amazon "lightning deals", suddenly got 45% off an item in my cart

[ilikegunspdx]

Had an item that cost $142 in cart. Went back about 4-6 hours later and looked at same item (not in cart) and it said "lightning deal" for $92. I added the $92 one and deleted the $142 one that was in the cart. Same exact item.

What is this lightning deal thing? If you let an item ferment in your cart for a certain period of time do they make lightning deals in order to get you to buy it? Or does it go off of your browsing history, again to get you to buy it after a certain period of time (i.e. buyer is "on the fence")?

I would like to figure out how it works cuz I was ready to pay the $142 price and that is a huge discount. Would be nice to know how to repeat the process for the future if possible.

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[V4Cascade]

You mind sharing what this "deal" is? I might need it to......

 

[grapo13]

I believe it is a totally random thing, eg putting it in your cart had no effect on it becoming a lightning deal. Just something they happened to have a sale on while you were looking at it. I know its a common thing for amazon shoppers to do is fill their cart with things they have their eye on to keep track of how the prices are changing.

 

[ilikegunspdx]

Sure it's for autovox wireless backup camera in your mirror https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J863EI2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[ilikegunspdx]

I believe it is a totally random thing, eg putting it in your cart had no effect on it becoming a lightning deal. Just something they happened to have a sale on while you were looking at it. I know its a common thing for amazon shoppers to do is fill their cart with things they have their eye on to keep track of how the prices are changing.

Well I think the chance of that is probably about the same as winning the lotto jackpot two months in a row. Let me explain why I think that. First, there are 100 gazillion items on amazon. Second, when it said lightning deal it said something like "you must purchase in the next 15 minutes" and there was a timer. The timer just started so the chance of that item being randomly on a lightning deal and just happened to have a timer that started exactly when I went back x hours later is pretty much impossible. It has to be tied to either browsing history or cart. Also I don't leave things in my cart to watch prices. It was only today I put it in there while I was researching those types of cameras for the wife.

It would be cool to figure out how their system works so we can do it more often. I'm hoping someone here might already know how it works.

 

[grapo13]

Maybe your right. I can tell you when I go look at the item on amazon it now shows it as a lightning deal for me. Has a % claimed number and a sale ends in 3 hours or something. But again I'm not positive how it works.

 

[P7M13]

Didn't read any other replies.
If you got an extra discount, bonus!
The equivalent would be K-Mart blue light specials: crap you dont need at prices that challenge your discipline.

 

[66PonyCar]

Here you go!

Lightning Deals - Amazon Customer Service

A Lightning Deal is a promotion in which a limited number of discounts are offered on an item for a short period.

www.amazon.com

 

[ilikegunspdx]

Maybe your right. I can tell you when I go look at the item on amazon it now shows it as a lightning deal for me. Has a % claimed number and a sale ends in 3 hours or something. But again I'm not positive how it works.

Wow that's weird. If it's the same item I was looking at it had a 15 minute timer for me.

Knowing amazon they could have an algorithm that looks at your buying history and maybe even how long you looked before buying etc. It's geared to get u to buy, that's for sure, but how their system works, I dunno.

 

[OldBroad44]

The lightning deals are short term limited-number-available offers. You can find them on the Deals page. Nothing personal about it. Has nothing to do with what's on your later or wish list. Or what you're likely to be interested in. The offers are a limited number of items available at that price for a limited time. So there is a ticking clock plus an indicator as to how many/much is/are left. Presumably chance that one lightening deal item was in your cart. You lucked out. Since there are pages of deals every day, not very low odds.

 

[Tarawa86]

Have you tried using the 'camelizer' to track price data on items you're interested in?

Amazon price tracker, Amazon price history charts, price watches, and price drop alerts.

camelcamelcamel: Amazon price tracker, Amazon price history charts, price watches, and price drop alerts.

camelcamelcamel.com

 

[NCW_Robert]

Link to amazon page

Here is a lightning deal plus coupon I just scored. Needed to extend internet across a room for a desktop computer that I wanted to run dish anywhere and just internet surfing on when I am using the treadmill.

I was watching this and thinking it over. Logged on and 6.00 off on lightning deal and 5.00 coupon stacked for 11.00 off. I was looking at it and was thinking huh.... What is this? Is it because I kept coming back and mulling it over???

What ever the reason I made the score and the little bugger [wifi extender] is working like a charm. It has a cat6 plugin and works as a wifi extender. I needed the cat6 connection so it is functioning as a wifi bridge. I get about 60 meg download speed with it. Plenty for my needs.



~

 

[Alexx1401]

Since we shop Amazon almost daily between us, we end up with several of those. Many times it's been something I was going to buy and was just waiting for payday or such. So when they pop up hell yes I jump on it.

 

[xtratoy]

My experience is if you leave something in your cart the price generally goes up.

 

[Alexx1401]

As far as the cart I use mine as a place to keep stuff I both want and stuff I buy. There is a lot of stuff I repeat buy but, some times its a long while between. I found rather than searching past orders I just keep the stuff in the cart but click save for later. I regularly see a long string of price increase and decrease for the stuff there when I go to my account. Shows the percentage up or down. Normally don't pay much attention unless it's a large increase. They have some rather strange systems that set the price. A good example is wiper blades I just ordered for one vehicle. One was $15.27, pack of 2 was $43.93. So of course ordered 2 one packs for $30.54. Now why the 2 pack is so much more? Who the hell knows. Don't know if they do this hoping some will not pay attention and order the 2 pack? Possible but I really find that hard to believe they would be so blatant about it. So have to guess it's supply kind of thing. That place they are getting them from is setting that price at that time. Maybe the machine factors in which warehouse the stuff is coming from so what it costs that day to get it to me? Would be interesting to some day talk to some geek there who knows how this works and hear exactly how and why they do it the way they do.

 

[The Heretic]

My experience is if you leave something in your cart the price generally goes up.

Ditto.

I think the OP was just lucky

 

[Lasers]

I sell on Amazon as my full time job. They do track cart ads and recommend to sellers when they think a lightning deal will be beneficial, so having it in your cart probably contributes to the algorithm they use.

Amazon has a "Single shelf-multiple seller" setup for a lot of products. The price can change (up or down) if the primary seller you were buying from when adding to the cart has now sold out and the next seller in line gets the next cart add, at whatever price they've set at. This can go both ways too, in that a seller that has added inventory to an item they were sold out at, and it's at a lower price than the one you added to your cart (if that makes sense).

Some products have multiple "shelf" spots, where you'll see the same product multiple times in your search results, but being sold by different sellers (or even Amazon themselves).

Not sure if this will help or just add more questions, but happy to answer any I can about how Amazon works from the back end