[HN Gopher] Amazon's $23M book about flies (2011)
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Amazon's $23M book about flies (2011)
Author : slazien
Score : 164 points
Date : 2022-09-19 13:33 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.michaeleisen.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.michaeleisen.org)
| neilv wrote:
| > _My preferred explanation for bordeebook's pricing is that they
| do not actually possess the book. Rather, they noticed that
| someone else listed a copy for sale, and so they put it up as
| well - relying on their better feedback record to attract buyers.
| But, of course, if someone actually orders the book, they have to
| get it - so they have to set their price significantly higher -
| say 1.27059 times higher - than the price they'd have to pay to
| get the book elsewhere._
|
| I've also seen arbitrage where the seller will buy the
| collectible on one platform, then drag their feet on paying,
| while listing it for sale on a different platform.
| alfonsodev wrote:
| Might be a case of money laundry ? You would think it would be
| one-off then, but adding more units would make it more
| believable.
|
| Example: it is very common to find people selling a pen for 50
| Euro, by buying the pen you are gifted with concert tickets which
| are illegal to re-sell.
|
| So think anything ilegal to sell or serve, that can be gifted if
| you buy that book.
|
| edit: I agree with what user WaitWaitWha is saying.
| mellonaut wrote:
| If you want to watch basically the same information deducted in
| similar matter in video format, presented by a mathematician who
| makes hilarious youtube videos with very high production value,
| you're in luck!
|
| Matt parker made a video on this topic, and it's great:
| https://youtu.be/sseSi0k3Ecg
|
| It will not give you not a lot more information than you can find
| in this blog post (though it relates it to a stock market crash
| triggered by high frequency trading bots doing basically the same
| thing), but it's highly entertaining.
|
| ----
|
| edit: after re-checking the video, it states that is a video
| adaptation of the blog post, and the blog post is listed as
| primary source of the information :)
| croes wrote:
| Or this classic
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/6ofdt6/how_i_made_29...
| stagger87 wrote:
| Occam's razor. Automated pricing, not laundering, lol. Amazon
| provides an interface for it. Provide rules for automatically
| updating price. Very common in the online book market.
|
| https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external...
| carabiner wrote:
| Exactly what TFA describes.
| stagger87 wrote:
| Yea sorry for the confusion, this was mostly a response to
| the other comments talking about it being money laundering.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Mmm...yeah it's like ebay's auction system, you can tell it how
| high you will go but...no, just no. Better to just wait until
| the last moments of the auction and _then_ tell ebay in
| successive increments--in a real auction--how high you 're
| willing to go. Can't let people see your reserve price
| generally. It's very private, essential to private property.
| Without it, and without competition, you give up everything you
| have and nothing actually makes life better than not having it.
| Well like there can be ultimatums, that's the alternative.
| dieselgate wrote:
| Yes my thoughts as well. I've read similar account of very high
| priced items online and it was an automated pricing algo gone
| awry comparing two sites selling the item (like Amazon and
| eBay)
| rtkwe wrote:
| This has been discussed on other items before and a few people
| were able to gather price history for some and it showed a
| clear cycle between the two stores of regular incremental price
| increases with stable percentages.
| [deleted]
| xracy wrote:
| Stand UP Maths has a relatively recent video that explains what
| happened here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sseSi0k3Ecg
| riadsila wrote:
| Glad to see the prices are less chaotic today
| https://www.amazon.com/Making-Fly-Genetics-Animal-Design/dp/...
| gautamdivgi wrote:
| It tickled me no end that although the book price was $23M, they
| still charged $3.99 in shipping. Gotta charge for shipping :)
| actusual wrote:
| I have a rich aunt who would be ready to buy the $23M dollar
| book then back out because of the shipping.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Hmm. Is there a way to short-sell physical items like books?
| finnh wrote:
| Selling it in Amazon when you don't actually own a copy, then
| going out and buying a copy at need.
|
| Which is exactly what the article's author thinks might be
| happening, for the higher-priced book.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| Get a copy by other means, then list it on Amazon for slightly
| less than the cheaper ("legit") seller and order it from the
| expensive ("scam") one, hopefully before they adjust their
| prices. Then the scam seller buys it from you to sell to...you,
| and you pocket the difference.
|
| This will presumably only work if the scam seller also
| automates the actual purchasing. If there is a human in the
| loop, they may look elsewhere for a copy and you will be out 23
| million dollars (but have a copy of the book).
|
| I would assume most Amazon marketplace sellers won't have the
| liquid assets with which to automate a 23 million dollar
| purchase.
| coldtea wrote:
| Just sell them online, delay delivery, and try to print more
| copies after the demand?
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Amazon's $23M book about flies (2011)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24809866 - Oct 2020 (81
| comments)
|
| _Amazon's $23M book about flies (2011)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16247254 - Jan 2018 (106
| comments)
|
| _Amazon's $23M book about flies (2011)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10289742 - Sept 2015 (94
| comments)
|
| I recall other threads about similar cases but don't know how to
| find them. Anyone?
| whoibrar wrote:
| How do you find previously posted thrrads ? is there a specific
| script or they remember stuff really well ?
| dang wrote:
| This is a frequently asked question! here are some of the
| previous answers -
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29370676 (Nov 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28981484 (Oct 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28441182 (Sept 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27726982 (July 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27284079 (May 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27236708 (May 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26886074 (April 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26244468 (Feb 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26158300 (Feb 2021)
|
| The amusing thing (since meta is a form of crack) is that I
| used the same tool to look these up.
| shaftway wrote:
| I suspect the strategy is similar to bracketing.
|
| Bracketing isn't uncommon in small financial markets. You
| basically put a sell order in at a price a bit higher than the
| market and a buy order in a bit cheaper than the market. As the
| market moves, you also move your orders. The thing is you can't
| move them perfectly in sync with the market, and occasionally a
| large order comes in that blows through a few orders in the deck.
| So when someone comes along and buys a big chunk your sell order
| gets exercised. Someone else comes along and sells a big chunk
| and your buy order gets exercised. As soon as the orders are
| exercised you replace them.
|
| The key is that you're always buying for a bit less than market,
| and always selling for a bit more than market. As the market
| moves you strongly tend to make money, regardless of which
| direction it goes. The more volatility, the more you are likely
| to make.
|
| I think the strategy for being the higher priced book is similar.
| The seller knows it's a rare good, and they're counting on some
| class somewhere requiring the book. A bunch of students will need
| it all at once, and the cheaper copies will get snapped up,
| forcing some students to buy it at the higher price, and boom,
| your sell order at just above market got executed.
|
| Maybe they should have limits, but it's just one book and it's
| unlikely to turn much of a profit, so it probably wasn't worth
| the effort.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| The author's hypothesis sounds reasonable, but it is most likely
| not arbitrage as @neilv mentioned it. It is money laundering.[0]
|
| [0] https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/02/money-laundering-via-
| aut...
|
| (edit: spelligating correctivization)
| dwroberts wrote:
| Would you be able to pay for something in the millions via
| normal payment methods though? The laundering makes sense for
| the smaller numbers like in the link (~$500) but these huge
| values make it seem unlikely to me (and would surely draw
| attention?)
|
| I don't know about elsewhere in the world but I don't think I
| could spend >50k on a card in the UK without some kind of prior
| authorisation.
| metabagel wrote:
| I thought so at first too, but that doesn't explain the steady
| price increases. Two algorithms competing against each other
| does.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| The article I referenced is old, so it is possible that Amzn
| (and the criminals) have evolved. It used to be randomly
| generated e-books, now it is a real book. Maybe Amzn checks
| to see if the uploaded material is legit, and rejects the
| old-style random text. By latching onto a real book, this
| becomes less of an issue.
|
| As for the pricing, I am guessing it is just a side effect of
| the normal behavior. It would make sense for the criminal to
| _not_ change from default settings when setting up the
| account, ergo include it in these algos.
| thayne wrote:
| And it really doesn't explain the price going back down to a
| more competitive price.
| auggierose wrote:
| I think I stumbled across similar behaviour, but for a used book.
| I was looking for a particular computer science book, couldn't
| find it new, and then decided to buy a used one from Amazon,
| ordering from the store with the best rating. It didn't arrive,
| and after a while (a few weeks) I received a notice that the
| delivery service had lost the book. I was refunded the money,
| though. The tracking number I got for the book from the store
| never worked though, I checked multiple times during those weeks.
| So I guess the same thing was at play here: I was sold the book
| although the store didn't have it. After failing to acquire the
| book, they just cancelled my order by pretending the delivery
| failed.
|
| This boring story has a happy ending: I contacted the author (a
| retired MIT professor) if he could share a PDF with me, and he
| generated one from his old roff sources. He also sent me a signed
| copy from a stack he got from his publisher back then (80's),
| paying over $60 porto (US -> UK). I was blown away by his
| kindness and generosity.
| tomcam wrote:
| Well that was heartening. Thank you, and the prof.
| hotdamnson wrote:
| Here in Thailand, there were cases where the shop sent a
| package containing cash amount paid by the customer because
| they didn't have the item they sold. This was an attempt to
| avoid some negative repercussions from the platform they were
| selling on (Shoppe, Lazada). Totally mental.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I was sold the book although the store didn 't have it._
|
| This happens a lot, and has recently become very visible with
| the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
|
| A lot of people suddenly hit Amazon and other online shopping
| sites to buy Queen merchandise, only to have their orders
| cancelled because the sellers weren't real stores with
| inventory, but just randos on the internet used to going out to
| tourist shops and buying one or two items a month as orders
| came in.
|
| When the flood of orders arrived, they couldn't handle it,
| since their local shops ran dry of the specific items they
| listed, too.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I did this a few times on craigslist a long time ago. I went
| to thrift stores and took pictures of stuff on the shelves,
| listed them for sale at a decent markup and when people
| wanted them I went and bought them. If it was already sold, I
| would tell them they just missed it. It ended up being not
| worth the effort for me, but it was fun for a few weeks.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| a seriously troubled neighbor here would go to thrift
| stores, buy armloads of stuff.. way too much.. list it on a
| half dozen platforms, and then used Facebook to promote her
| 'sale' to friends of friends.. She generated some income,
| but fell to hoarding at the same time.. also serious
| "spend-a-holic" patterns were reinforced .. not completely
| over and it has been at least five years of this.. USA-
| California
| samuelmelo wrote:
| [deleted]
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| To anyone considering reading the article, there isn't much more
| substance than a guy stumbling upon a book that is listed on
| Amazon for an absurd price.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| and that it might be an automated price setting algorithm
| responsible..
| some_random wrote:
| Did you miss the part where they reverse engineered the pricing
| algorithm? What exactly were you expecting here?
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| They didn't reverse engineer anything. They made false
| assumptions based on nothingness.
| some_random wrote:
| I'm curious how you know that the assumptions they made are
| false and what the correct metric to look at for REing a
| pricing algorithm would be if historical price is
| "nothingness".
| more_corn wrote:
| A runaway feedback loop like this between two powerful AI agents
| is one of the proposed ways that AI can destroy the world.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| This is interesting so I actually developed what should happen
| instead, mostly. Like where to price for differentiation, clearly
| undercutting sometimes with a lower price and at other times,
| when that doesn't make sense, instead raising the price by a bit
| to end up in an uncrowded price point. Ideally to over time make
| sense to buy at that price point, with merit, or just being a
| unique price.
|
| Price is a strong indicator of quality, tells you a lot about
| clothes when there is no outside reference. Price means that is
| what the seller will take for the good, a webpage they serve is
| effectively a call option contract on the webpage when you load
| it. That's what we determined as a group, the minute
| bhphotovideo.com loads up a page with a number on it that's a
| contract to buy at that price--like until there's no stock or
| until there's a timeout of some kind, the two conditions that got
| them out of the terms back when the terms were ads on radio.
| bhphotovideo.com includes terms refusing business on Shabbat,
| Saturdays, which is uncommon, that also applies and affects
| things. I think shopping carts work but purchasing doesn't.
| Webpages about products with prices are call options. Right but
| not the obligation to buy that good at that price. The seller
| must honor that price if the right is exercised.
|
| That right lasts perhaps a day, some amount of time to decide
| without the price going up or down as one thinks about it. On the
| phone with airlines, you can get a price for a ticket this way,
| and it's valid until you end the call. Get ahold of the money
| during the call, and pay it, and it's yours. It can be an hour,
| it gets stretched out, it is reserved while the flyer is on the
| phone. The call option has a fixed price, despite the good
| perhaps fluctuating minute to minute, Amazon prices very keenly.
| In practice by authorizing the transaction all the pages involved
| with all the advertising and all the legal language and the
| pictures, the specs, they all become the terms of the
| transaction. It seems like there is a lot of liability on the
| seller's part, and it truly is, it is very competitive, but the
| number that carries most weight is the price. In the end that
| price can determine a good deal or a bad deal, or a purchase or
| losing the purchase to a competitor with lower prices. So in a
| very crowded market, with say five widgets at $10, and three at
| 11$, a good currently at $12 must decide carefully--what is the
| cost of goods sold? If it's low by all means undercut and price
| at $9, or perhaps $8. Whereas if it costs $10 already, the best
| is to sell for $13 or so, in a category of its own. And
| eventually identify that price point's needs and values, what
| they expect and what better work to justify charging that. But
| there will be more profits at the higher price point for the
| latter, the marking up on the one hand and on the other some
| number of customers will trust it to deserve that price point,
| whereas charging the same price as 5 other widgets would not
| work. Critical that the good isn't strictly inferior to the
| competition, like has or licensed an innovation that gives it at
| very least a story which cheaper widgets aren't always better, or
| that it defies the limits of the product category.
|
| So that was going to be a piece of mathematical theory, like give
| robust and consistent advice on when to undercut and when to
| instead elevate the product with a unique price. Hey, some people
| want whatever they can buy with some amount of money they have,
| others think the game is about buying the middle-of-the-road
| good, that that is most reasonable. Others will say what matters
| is the brand or how hot the tech is, if protected that provides a
| huge margin always, no need to undercut. Instead when they are
| recognized they can raise the price to be distinguished.
|
| I had it working mostly. Gave consistent answers never got to $23
| million books. Kept the prices stable.
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