It appears that RRP prices on Amazon.co.uk have disappeared. We’re not sure exactly when the vanished, but Tamebay reader John noticed “that this happened for 24 hours around a month ago but the RRP’s have now been removed for over 4 days”.
There could be any number of reasons for this, we’ve seen enough complaints over the years regarding RRPs on eBay, especially on deals. Perhaps Amazon has decided that RRPs are too often largely fictional and simply removed the issue by no longer displaying them.
Above is an image of a current Amazon product and here’s what a similar product previously looked like when RRPs were being displayed.
John says “Is this a good change? I don’t think so. As a third party seller it is important for us to show customers their saving against RRP”.
What do you think? Would you prefer RRP prices to be displayed on Amazon or are you not bothered that they’re currently missing?
6 Responses
Difficult one, we have a Chinese competitor seller on Amazon who sell at a similar price to our goods however if we sell an item for £9.99, theirs is RRP £49.99 then on sale at £9.99, every single item they sell is on ‘sale’.
There are rules around this, so perhaps Amazon have been pulled up on these rules, hence the easiest way is to remove RRP.
It’s a total nightmare to manage and I have no idea how you would, but I think sellers with their whole inventory on ‘sale’ would need looking at first.
I noticed this yesterday for the first time in Clothing.
But the RRP hasn’t been removed, it’s been replaced with “Suggested Price”.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00P21870M
They still appear on books. Practically all other RRP prices are in breach of CAPs “Misleading advertising” rule 3.40, which states:
“Price comparisons must not mislead by falsely claiming a price advantage. Comparisons with a recommended retail prices (RRPs) are likely to mislead if the RRP differs significantly from the price at which the product or service is generally sold.”
Play.com got in trouble a couple of years ago with the ASA for using RRPs on pre-order games (since absolutley no retailer sells games at their RRP!) so had to remove their RRPs from all their games (they had already done so for music and DVDs due to similar complaints).
Books, however, all have “official” RRPs and there are plenty of booksellers that sell books at their RRP, so Amazon can still display them.