I posted this on the Amazon Help forum, but considering there are people here who know everything from structural engineering to how to make great lemonade, I thought I'd copy it here to see if any of you know this answer!

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Hello all!

I searched and didn't find an answer to my question.

I have many items in my cart (Saved for Later) and check a few times a day for price changes, purchasing that CD, for example, when I see that the price went down $2.00.

Normally when I do this, I get a listing of all the items in my cart that have had a price change by the order that they reside in my cart. So, it reads "This CD increased .47 cents,,,, this DVD decreased .84 cents, etc. Oftentimes, I might have 30 or 40 items that have changed pricing.

When I just checked my cart from my sister's computer, it still showed all the items for which there had been a price change, but it ordered those items by the amount of price increase or decrease. In other words, it showed all the items that have decreased...starting with the item that had the biggest dollar amount of decrease, working it's way to items that only decreased a penny, through items that increased a tiny bit and ending with items that increased the most in price.

It was wonderful! Rather than poring through the whole list it items, I was able to see right at the top of the list, the items which decreased in price most significantly that I may want to "move to my basket" and buy right now.

I had thought that Amazon made a permanent change, but returning to my computer now, I see that my cart still displays the old way.

My sister is in another state and using a different OS, etc... but I don't know why Amazon would list these items in a different way on her computer than mine.

Is there any way to change my display order? I've looked and looked and am not finding anything to indicate I can change my preferences in how these items display!

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For those of you who keep items in your cart, when you return, are the "price changes" listed in order of price change, or are the items listed in the original sort order in your cart?

Beats me, I have never carried items in my cart but hold them in my wish list and whenever I'm ready to buy I move them to my cart for purchase. I wonder if the wish list items changes the order by item price change also, I've never really paid attention ... as usual.

Rick, if you put them in your cart instead, you can monitor the pricing and buy when the price is right. I -literally- have hundreds of CDs in there. Every time one of you fine folks say something like "Hey, if you like Keb Mo's first CD, check out the Martin Scorsese Compilation", I just throw it in my cart to review later.

There's an option on your cart to "save for later" that allows price monitoring without interfering with you buying something that you "move to cart" to purchase.

Edit:
This is what it looks like. These prices have changed from when I checked a couple of hours ago:



Try it... it's pretty cool to justify buying a CD or something because the price is $2 less than it was the day before! It was even better though when it was sorted by price and you could quickly see what items had big price drops!

PS- I'm not really cheap in general, but I place probably 3-5 Amazon orders a week, so it adds up!

Since I noticed that other prices in your Wish List basket have increased, aren't you just taking unecessary risk by denying yourself instant gratification? That's how I see it anyway.

I didn't know that Mark, thanks for sharing that information

BTW, that Jeff Beck's Rock'n'Roll Party BR disc is a good one!

Oh, there's lots of instant gratification. Some items I just need pretty much now... that's just not the case with many CDs and stuff.

Today I'm expecting a garden hose, a quart of Sta-Bil, a garden hose "hanger", a small gas ca, and a Jethro Tull CD. Tomorrow, it's a Husqvarna backpack leaf blower, a Tai-Chi DVD set for my FIL, and a bottle of 2-stroke oil. All of these items never sat in my basket for more than an hour or two, except for the JT CD which has been in there for a couple of months and suddenly dropped down $6.

I really do almost all my shopping on Amazon now that I'm a Prime Member.

More and more, it's all my business supplies as well!

So whaddaya gonna do when the last retailer in Concord closes it's doors?

I support the local business' when I can. Of course, I'm biased towards feeling that way.

But that Husky blower wasn't available locally.... though I almost went for an Echo at Home Depot.

The reality, though, is that despite Concord having a pretty healthy downtown, many little hardware stores that WERE around are already gone in favor of HD, Lowes, and WallyWorld. And I'm just fine with giving my money to Amazon instead of Wallyworld.

I went to a good, old-fashioned hardware store in Fall River yesterday looking for a pretty basic cabinet hinge for my parents kitchen cabinets. They still didn't have it, and neither does Lowes or HD. I'm going to have to try to find it online later.

Mark, I'll bet you've satisfied the time requirements for maintaining that signature line, wouldn't you agree?

Yeah, the smaller the city or town, the more likely (and quickly) its independents bite the dust when the nationals arrive. Hey, Foxborough people (read: already live with The Pats Stadium) killed Steve Winn's Casino deal for good last week. And some town in MA was sucessful at keeping Mal-Wart at bay for the 2nd attempt.

The first 2 nationals arrived in my hometown only in the last 2 years---Staples and Subway. The Dunkin Donuts there predates their national and even regional aspirations. It opened in the early 60's.

I like to support local business also but sometimes they are way out of line with their pricing, to give you an example, we just renovated our bathroom and the plumber our contractor uses wanted $799 for the plumbing fixtures while Amazon had the exact same hardware for $499 ... you add the 18% the contractor would have tagged on would have been another $143 onto the $799.

They would have charged $942 for something I paid $499 for? That kind of local I cannot support.

Mark, why don't you just use your sister's computer?

Mark, Amazon has a script that will lower prices to entice a person to buy. This also happens if you view an item more than 2 times, i think it is after the 3rd time you view the item, the price may change slightly... My cousin told me about this a couple years ago.. Also, if you look closely mark, all but one of the items you listed were decreased in price by cents.. there was only 1 item that the cost was reduced by 3$... So, this is much more of a psychological tool than an economic tool.

Does this answer your question?

I so agree with you, Rick. Contractors should not be allowed (by law) to act as retailers. Pick one, please, greedy trash.

Ha! Mark's been psyched by a retail website! Ha!

I keep telling you guys that I'm not bright!

No, seriously, I haven't heard about the scripts or anything, but HAVE noticed most fluctuations are minimal.

But yes, I'll bite more often when there's a substantial difference. There's lots of CDs that I want, but don't really want to be buying more than 1/2 a week. I might as well go for the ones that have dropped a few bucks.

Mark, I really think that you deserve more than a half a cd per week.

Especially since gluing them back together can't be good for playback.

Andrew, do you think they're halved circumfrentially or diametrically?

Sorry about that.

1/2 = one or two.

In his perfectly square room, it's probably more of a quantum waveform split. Every time he chooses to start a CD on track 3 instead of track #1, he creates an alternate universe.

Look at Mark using slashes instead of hyphens! Ha ha /millhouse.

JP, you wanna take this one?

The Grammar Guru can take many forms. In some cultures, he's known as the Grammar Nazi. In others, he appears as an unbelievably big dog and gives you the staredown until you relent and repent.

I was actually referring to the fact that it's Nelson, not Milhouse. Less'n there's another Millhouse that Tom's referring to.

/irritating pedant

Wow, that sure slipped by me.

Maybe Milhouse laughs at Mark, but Nelson laughs at Tom. And me.

I use the Saved for Later a lot, but I didn't notice the brief change in order. I've always thought it would be handy to have them appear that way, though. The tiny decreases in price haven't prompted me to buy an item yet.

Something I noticed when ordering something yesterday was it defaulted to standard shipping, and it was without the bonus $1 in MP3 credit. Good thing I was paying attention and selected the normal Prime 2-day shipping. It's fine if they want to entice Prime members into opting for standard shipping, but to default to it and not give the credit isn't cool.

All the characters on TV shows laugh at me.

Mark, did you sign up for Amazon prime? if you haven't it is well worth the money. Since signing up for Amazon prime i have found that i buy a decent amount more products from Amazon, and i get them in 2 days for free due to the membership... The membership is 75$ a year, you get 2 day for free, and you can stream movies for free as well. There are other things that you get as well, but the shipping is the big thing for me.

You don't get it "for free" you get it for $75 dollars a year.

Sorry, I'm just used to picking on my brother in marketing and sometimes it carries over.

Hey, i use the definition of "free" liberally...

Actually you get it for 79 bucks a year.

Bob, I'm curious ... is 18% the norm for a contractor to add for his cut on materials his subs use for a job? I thought that seemed pretty high myself.

Not if your a student!, Students get a free year of amazon prime... I've had to pay for my account since January....

I did not know that, cool beans.

yep, when you sign up for amazon prime, there is a student option. When you register, you enter a .edu email.. Then you get it for Free... The real free, not the pay then receive for free...

As a Prime member you also get access to a semi-decent amount of free movie streaming. I've been watching all the original Twilight Zone episodes via amazon for free.

I've been enjoying the free streaming on my PS3 quite a bit!