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Is it permissible to make a profit out of fear of the Corona epidemic? In the USA, online retailers have massively increased the prices for the currently highly demanded respiratory masks. According to a report by the news magazine Spiegel, Amazon is currently punishing overly audacious retailers and even banning them from its online platform. The company justifies this with a violation of price guidelines.

Pricing expert Prof. Hans-Christian Riekhof points out an essential aspect: “Anyone who regularly reads our Pricing Newsletter knows the concept of good and bad profits: bad profits are those that come at the expense of the customer relationship. A very sensible and plausible definition, but it is not used in this form in many companies.”

Interestingly, Amazon is different in its approach to such retailers on its platform who have multiplied the prices for the protective masks in the face of the Corona crisis, sometimes by four to five times the regular price. “It seems that bad profits are feared here. After all, in this case, it is not the Amazon profits that are to be waived, but the contribution margins of the retailers on the Amazon platform”, says Riekhof.

According to the US magazine “Wired”, which the Spiegel report refers to, the online retailer has warned several sellers and deleted some overpriced offers from its platform.

Read the US original message that the Spiegel refers to:
https://www.wired.com/story/covid-19-amazon-curb-face-mask-price-gouging/

Photo: Sunyu Kim/Pexels