Disney’s ‘ The Lion King ‘ collects a $185 million record setting during the opening weekendJess Bolluyt More Articles Amazon prime box | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images You’re probably turning to Amazon more frequently when you decide to purchase anything online, if you’re looking for household critical appliances media apparel or something else purchased on the website. And you’ve already shelled out for a Prime membership or are considering doing so due to all of the irritating practices Amazon uses to make a subscription seem like a necessity to take advantage of the site’s great bargains. But you shouldn’t believe all of Amazon’s bargains and rebates. David Streitfeld writes for The New York Times that retailers and marketers in the “bizarre world of Internet ‘ discounts ‘” regularly say you’re getting a lot because someone else’s being paid a lot more for the same thing you’re purchasing at a bargain in this case on Amazon. Streitfeld argues that the origin of some of those discounts is a phenomenon known as list price, or suggested retail price by the retailer. List price he reports is a largely fictitious concept promoted by the brand or manufacturer and adopted by the retailer to compel the customer into pushing the buy button. The Times cites examples like a cat litter pan with a list price of $2159 and an Amazon price tag of just $28 a bag of dog treats that normally costs $822 and is available on Amazon for just $8 or a windshield wiper blade that presumably costs $1504 somewhere but has been marked down 99% by sellers on Amazon. Streitfeld reports that the question of whether sites like Amazon deliver on the low prices they promise is a particularly significant issue as Internet retail shifts from being mostly about price to being largely about convenience. That’s a shift that will make it much more difficult for customers to accurately judge whether they ‘re really getting a deal or are just being encouraged to think that they are. Ripen eCommerce, a company that helps third-party buyers get their Amazon listings on the first page of online search results, examined 746000 product searches on Amazon and found that slightly more than 44 per cent of items were priced as discounted. “It’s less than I actually expected,” Dave Rekuc Ripen’s marketing director told the Times. “Basically, you can name your own list price.” Providers enter the list price in their own Amazon data, and the system can be described as “self-regulating.” In addition, Streitfeld spoke to CamelCamelCamel.com’s Daniel Green who monitors Amazon prices. Green argues that while the method “can seem unethical to consumers,” it is easier for retailers to use the list price as a benchmark than alternatives such as the current price that would allow sellers to “jack the price ahead of the sale.” Retailers and even politicians have argued that there are no losers when it comes to massive MSRP-based discounts, including those that rely on fantasy. But others think these discounts are a violation of the pledge of openness made by e-commerce. The Times observes that the only possible defense is the laborious comparison of prices through websites. But even that is far from simple with services such as Amazon Prime enticing customers to buy as much from a single company as possible, and the consequences of shipping cost deals discounts and loyalty bonuses further complicating the situation.