New Price Beat Offering @ Amino Z (Would Love Your Feedback)

Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 25/04/2018 - 16:51

Today we've just launched our new price beat offering at Amino Z and I would love to gather some honest feedback on the changes.

Key Features

  • We will price beat 10% of the difference between our prices
  • We beat on a product-by-product basis. So you can have one item in your cart with a price beat, and another one that isn't (if we're cheaper for example)
  • You price beat directly from the product page, for example see: Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey
  • If the other company has free shipping, your order will also attract free shipping
  • The price beat can be done instantly from your browser
  • We will price beat sale prices (for example, if the other company has a coupon code)
  • We will beat Australian stores only
  • Price beats cannot be combined with a further Amino Z discount (it's one or the other)
  • There will be no delay on the dispatch of the order, so long as the correct information has been entered (as we will manually release the order)

So for anyone familiar with our previous offering, you'll note that our biggest change is that we now price beat on a product-by-product basis. Previously, you could only price beat against one of our competitors with an identical shopping cart. So essentially you had to add everything into their cart and also add everything into our cart. Then if they worked out cheaper (for everything), we would beat that price. However now, you can just pick the products that they are cheaper on and we will beat them on an individual basis. You can even pick multiple competitors for different products within the single order (unlike before, it was one competitor per order). This is a pretty major change for us and is based largely on the feedback received through OzBargain.

The only real "negative" change to our customers is that we no longer beat international websites. There are a few reasons for this change:
* A lot of customers had problems with exchange rates, often quoting USD and leading to a really poor experience
* Shipping costs present an issue. One international website may sell something $20 cheaper than us, but charge $40 in shipping.
* Many overseas products are different to our products (for example, with banned ingredients), again leading to a poor customer experience
* Overseas orders often incur additional charges (tax/duty) and/or shipping delays
* By eliminating an overseas price beat, this allows us to offer a more aggressive overall price beat policy

I'm hoping that these changes are a big step forward, but I would love to hear your thoughts - good, bad or indifferent. Thanks so much in advance, I really appreciate any feedback!

  • Jay (Owner of Amino Z)
    //EOF Essay
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Comments

  • HA on 25/04/2018 - 17:05
    +1

    Are you be able to price beat sale prices on products from eBay? For example the recent deal from Genesis eBay
    Cheer Jay

    • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 25/04/2018 - 17:24

      Thanks HA for the question. Yes we do. If there's a coupon code on eBay (for example), then you just need to input the coupon code into the "Extra Notes" section on the product page.

      It does however need to be in stock and available at the other store also.

      Can I ask - do you think we should make it more obvious that we do this? If so, do you have any suggestions on how to more clearly communicate this?

      • HA on 25/04/2018 - 19:47

        That's pretty awesome.

        For sure - Ozbargainers love their eBay deals. Maybe consider an amino Z ebay store?

        But for sure you'd definitely have to monitor eBay coupon sales when it involves other stores (e.g. Genesis) that sell supplements. But more often than not there is always someone in the community that posts a good protein/supplement deal from eBay whenever these happen.

        • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 26/04/2018 - 07:32

          Thanks for the feedback HA. We did have an eBay store in the past, but we closed it about 18 months ago so we could focus our efforts on our website.

          Good point with us having to monitor eBay coupon sales which pop up in our industry from time to time.

  • Quantumcat on 25/04/2018 - 19:37
    +3

    We will price beat 10% of the difference between our prices

    If you will price match online stores then you're setting yourself up to be taken advantage of. I could set up a fake online store and "sell" something for $1 that you sell for $1000. Now you'll have to sell it for $900.10 if you didn't want to reneg on your policy.

    At the same time, the 10% of the price difference isn't enough to sway a lot of people (I reckon). Eg you sell something for $30 and someone else sells something for $20. With your policy you'd be selling it for $19.00. So someone who has already gone to the trouble to find it cheaper, now has to jump through the hurdles to get the price match approved, all to save $1. I personally would not bother, I would just buy from the other store for an extra $ and save an hour + of my time.

    All this policy will do is make more work for yourself and then you'll be encouraging people to look for it cheaper elsewhere, and once they find it there's little reward in ending up buying it from you, they'll probably just buy at the cheaper place.

    • shapers on 25/04/2018 - 20:42

      They've had this price beat tool for a while, would be surprised if they didn't think through some of those issues. I used it a year or so ago and it worked well and only took a few mins to complete btw

      • Quantumcat on 25/04/2018 - 21:59

        True, after having thought about it a little more, if you can get price beats from multiple stores, then you don't have to make multiple orders at different places and pay multiple lots of shipping. So it would be worthwhile if you can get price beats from multiple places on multiple different items

      • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 26/04/2018 - 07:49

        Thanks @shapers. I really appreciate your support for the company.

        Quick question - since you used it with us, have you used the price beat again? Why or why not? And do you still shop with us, or do you shop elsewhere? I'd love to understand how your experience was with us and how you feel we could improve.

        Thanks in advance.

        • Jay
        • shapers on 26/04/2018 - 19:03

          No worries.
          I haven't used it again, only because I don't take any supplements anymore. If I did I'd definitely go with you guys though :)

        • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 27/04/2018 - 06:44

          @shapers: Okay thanks shapers, appreciate the help!

          • Jay
    • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 26/04/2018 - 07:47

      Thanks very much for the feedback @Quantumcat

      I completely see your point about being taken advantage of. You would not believe the lengths some individuals will go to to save a few dollars. We have had people set up their own websites - something that would take hours of work to save a relatively minor amount. This is probably the most extravagant example, but we have plenty of them! These obviously don't get approved as it needs to be a legitimate company and you cannot be affiliated with that company (as per our terms).

      Also a very good point about the time versus savings. We are very active in reviewing competitors pricing, but of course prices change all the time and so we wanted to offer the price beat as some form of guarantee. The objective was to make it as simple as possible to do and build confidence with our customers that they will receive the best value from us rather than shopping elsewhere.

      Can I ask then, would you have any suggestions on how we could make the process more appealing, either in terms of the offer or the time it takes? I see @shapers made a mention below about the price beat only taking a few minutes, but how can we communicate that it isn't a long drawn out process? Or could we simplify this process in any way? I'm open to any suggestions.

      • Jay
      • Quantumcat on 26/04/2018 - 08:23
        -1

        Is the process automatic? Like I said before I can see the benefit if you can price match on multiple items from different places in one order. If it is automatic somehow (maybe they just need to mention the store for each item) then people would use it, but if you have to send off a contact form request and wait for a reply and maybe get some things approved and some things not - that would be annoying for the user who just wants to send off an order not work on it for multiple days. In reading your original post it sounds like you have something automatic going, but I think it would be really difficult to code. If you really have it going automatically your website admin should contact price hipster because that is price hipster's only job and it doesn't even do it very well!

        • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 26/04/2018 - 08:51

          @Quantumcat Yep it's fully automatic. No contact forms, you just put in the price and it applies an automatic discount into your cart.

          Would you have any suggestions on how we can make this more obvious? I designed this process because the whole "contact form" process is slow and painful. How could we more effectively communicate that you just punch in a few things (will take under a minute) and it's instant?

        • Quantumcat on 26/04/2018 - 10:39

          @aminozcomau: if you have extra time on your hands you should work on a competitor to price hipster - price hipster's failing is that it tracks prices within stores but not on the same product across stores (as far as I can see). If you can track pricing on the same item across stores you are doing really well.

          I don't have any suggestions to make it more obvious as I haven't bought from you yet, but if I do and this thread is still alive I will let you know :-)

        • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 26/04/2018 - 11:57

          @Quantumcat: Yeah thanks, I'll look further into this one for sure. Appreciate the help!

          • Jay
  • mick123 on 25/04/2018 - 20:48
    +3

    One thing I have not liked about Aminoz policy (and has actually stopped me from placing an order) is that you cannot use credit for a purchase on top of any discount code.

    I get you should not combine different discount codes or price beats, but store credit should be treated like gift card/cash. Whether the customer uses price beat or discount or RRP, they should be able to use that credit.

    Most other stores follow this practice.

    • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 26/04/2018 - 07:54

      Thanks for the feedback @mick123

      I 100% agree with you and we do allow store credit (in the form of Z points). That's part of the policy. We just don't allow to use another discount to "further" discount the product price on top of the price beat.

      In light of this, I'd really love to understand how you came to this understanding? Did customer service create a coupon for you (as store credit) instead of adding Z points? Or was that your understanding from the policy? Or something else?

      Looking forward to your feedback on this one because clearly we are going to need to fix this up. And if you have any suggestions on how we could fix this please share as I would love to jump on to this issue as a matter of priority.

      • Jay
      • Quantumcat on 26/04/2018 - 08:25
        -1

        By having this policy you make it look like store credit isn't worth its face value, so anyone who received store credit for a faulty product or something will feel cheesed off.

        • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 26/04/2018 - 10:11

          @Quantumcat thanks for the feedback.

          Point taken. Most of the time our pricing is at the lowest in the industry (otherwise we would be shooting ourselves in the foot with a price beat). But let's say you pay $50 for a product and let's say it's faulty. We would then either refund, replace or provide a store credit (completely up to you). If you choose a store credit, this can then be applied to any future order, including to price beats.

          So for example, let's say you have $50 of store credit. You want to purchase a product which we sell for $100, but someone else is selling on sale for $90. We will beat that price by 10% of the difference, which equals an $89 selling price. You can apply the $50 to that, so you end up paying $39 only.

          Alternatively if you chose a $50 refund originally, the net result still works out the same.

          • Jay
        • Quantumcat on 26/04/2018 - 10:35
          -1

          @aminozcomau: looks like you'll always be better off with a cash refund since store credit isn't worth as much as cash

        • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 26/04/2018 - 11:59

          @Quantumcat: Sorry I don't quite understand. In the above example, it would work out exactly the same. If a $50 refund was issued and a second order was placed, you would pay back the $50 (above example this was store credit) plus the $39.

        • Quantumcat on 26/04/2018 - 12:13
          -1

          @aminozcomau: except that you can't use a discount voucher if you use store credit

        • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 26/04/2018 - 16:09

          @Quantumcat: Yes you can. Store credit is in the form of Z points which is applied in the checkout. You can apply a coupon code separately in the shopping cart. They can work with each other.

          So in light of this, what made you think that you could not use store credit AND a discount voucher at the same time? Perhaps there is something we need to improve to make this more transparent?

        • Quantumcat on 26/04/2018 - 19:48

          @aminozcomau:
          Because of Mick's comment:

          One thing I have not liked about Aminoz policy (and has actually stopped me from placing an order) is that you cannot use credit for a purchase on top of any discount code.
          I get you should not combine different discount codes or price beats, but store credit should be treated like gift card/cash. Whether the customer uses price beat or discount or RRP, they should be able to use that credit.
          Most other stores follow this practice.

        • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 27/04/2018 - 06:47
          +1

          @Quantumcat: Ah got it.

          Okay see my reply above, we DO allow store credit to be used and it is treated like gift cards or cash.

          Hopefully Mick will be able to let me know how this understanding came about. If it was a lack of clarity on our website then we'll have to fix that up. But if he had an experience where store credit was somehow issued as a coupon code then I would have to look into that one because that's not standard procedure for us. You just cannot stack a coupon code with a price beat, but coupon codes should always be discounts and never store credits.

          • Jay
        • mick123 on 27/04/2018 - 17:27

          @aminozcomau:

          Sorry for the late response Jay.

          I am working off memory here as it was maybe 3 or 4 years ago.

          I am not sure if you still do it, but some of your Ebay listings used to have a cashback component to the sale. Eg. Buy a 10LB bag of ON Gold Whey for $145 and receive your choice of either $10 cash back or $20 store credit. (don't quote me on these figures, I'm just giving you my story).

          A few months down the track I tried to use my store credit and I used a price match and was told through emails by staff that I could not use both the store credit and price beat, it would be one or the other.
          Its like Myer telling me I cannot use a gift card on an item that has been price matched (Myer would never do so).

          To be honest, other than that your store had been fine and I was buying from you as I was happy with prices and delivery times etc, but I have not bought from you since

        • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 28/04/2018 - 06:28

          @mick123: Ah okay thanks for the explanation. Now I understand completely.

          We did previously do a campaign of this nature a long time ago (3-4 years would be about right!). Back then yes, we did have a different procedure for store credit, it was offered in the form of a coupon code. And coupon codes cannot be stacked, nor applied to price beat items.

          Store credit now comes in the form of Z Points and we made this change precisely because of this issue. Z Points just get applied as checkout and are applied in the same way as cash. So if after discounts, your order comes to $100 (say), you can pay $50 in store credit and $50 in cash, as an example.

          Back then we didn't have the price beat policy and we traded on both eBay and on our website. Now, we only trade on our website because it gives us much greater flexibility to do what we want.

          Mick I really appreciate that feedback and you taking the time to explain. I do have one more question if you have the time. You mentioned that you had no issues with us, but haven't bought from us again. Can I ask why? Do you shop elsewhere or no longer buy supplements?

          Thanks Mick!

          • Jay
        • mick123 on 28/04/2018 - 20:04
          -1

          @aminozcomau:

          Jay,
          That makes no sense.
          If I buy from a store (doesn't matter if its Ebay or direct) and the merchant says, if you spend $150, we will give you $30 in store credit; no store I know of would turn around and say no you cannot use it on a discounted or price-matched item. It is not discount on top of discount, it is like using a gift card (a comparison you seemed to agree on in earlier post). At that time, your company did have price-beat as I went through the price-beat process via email and was told no by staff then when I brought up my point as above, was told management agreed with staff, so it was definitely not a case of staff acting opposite to management/store instructions.

          And yes, this was the main why I havent bought since (now buying from Supplement Warehouse and Bulk Nutrients)

        • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 29/04/2018 - 07:13

          @mick123: Thanks for the clarification. Yes there was a problem with that old system where we issued coupon codes. So this different procedure (issuing a coupon code in the form of store credit) resulted in exactly this situation. However now this has changed.

          Did you ever end up redeeming that code? Because if not, if you want to PM me over the details (your email will suffice) then I can get the team to convert over to Z Points so you can use it as store credit.

          Also again, I greatly appreciate the assistance in sharing who you shop with and the reason why. Clearly this is a fault on our behalf so I would really like the chance to rectify the situation if you're willing.

          • Jay
  • th123 on 03/06/2018 - 16:03

    Is there some restriction with this function? There was an item I found for cheaper, applied price beat ($20) but it removed $0.80 (4% discount)

    • Store Repaminozcomau @ Amino Z on 27/06/2018 - 08:42

      Hi th123

      Sorry I didn't see this earlier, for some reason I didn't receive an email notification.

      The discount is 10% of the difference. So for example if we sell at $100, they sell at $90, then we would beat their price by $1, new price being $89.

      If you apply this logic does it equal 10% of the difference? Based on your previous comment it seems not, though I just want to be sure about this. So if not, could you PM me over the details you're typing in so I can check this out myself? You shouldn't be getting any less than this and I'll look into it for you.

      • Jay
  • deemax33 on 22/08/2022 - 19:41

    Hi,
    I really loved the price beat tool you had on your website but sadly it has been removed now. I used to just run the price beat tool - Amino Z matched the price and I would buy there and then :)
    Can this be put back please - perhaps comparing only Australian sellers ?
    Also, your customer service is 100% I am a regular customer but sometimes price is a bit much.

    Regards
    Dee

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