Amazon Says it Erred on Price Test

Amazon.com on Wednesday issued a statement that calls a recent five-day price test that offered different DVD prices to different site visitors "a mistake" and said itŐs refunded the 6,896 online customers who bought the test items at higher prices an average of $3.10 each. In the statement, the company denied that different prices amounting to 20% to 40% discounts had been offered on the basis of individual consumer demographic information, which had raised privacy concern among consumers who learned of the test. The test instead was characterized as a "totally random" effort to determine how much sales were affected by lower prices. "Even that was a mistake because it created uncertainty for customers," said Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezoz. Amazon has since changed its policy to give any shoppers who purchase a test item the lowest price for the item at the end of the test period. Currently, Amazon has no plans for future random price tests, he added.