Gear Price Flux - Powers SS Bolts on Amazon (An Odyssey Begins)

I am betting that the bizarre gear price changes on Amazon (up and down) are experiments in commerce based on our highly probable interests.

As I was often searching very specifically for "Powers 07313 Power-Stud 3/8-Inch 3-Inch 304 SS Wedge Expansion, 50" it only makes sense that Amazon pegged my interest perfectly.

Over a month, the price would seemingly decrease repeatedly, until ultimately it displayed (to me) as $50.17 for 50 - 3 inch stainless bolts with free shipping, this is pretty good so I went ahead and bought it... (Just a footnote as you may see a different price, but if I try to re-purchase the same order the price now is $62.48, or available as a completely different offer of higher visibility of $124.96 plus shipping if I check from a different browser without logging in).

11 days later, and with an apology about the oddly long turn-around, the bolts have arrived but as a counting game with my 3yo I decided to bag them up in lots of 5...

Surprisingly there were only 41 bolts in the sealed box.

o545 AM and I, who never chirps on the internet, is writing reviews on Amazon warning folks to count their bolts after they arrive, this is too big a delta to be the fault of DeWalt, etc...

My wife wakes up and pretends to give a shit about my climbing-related purchases, but mentioned that (as a shopper with a lot more experience) they will probably just send a new box pretty quickly with another apology.  Now my anger is turning to greed, and I am daydreaming about the math on this as it would mean having acquired 91 SS 3" power-studs for $50.

Either way, I am a bit obsessed now and I will update this post as it unfolds.

I am genuinely interested in what you see (price) if you search Amazon for this specifically:

"Powers Fastening Innovations 07313 Power-Stud 3/8-Inch by 3-Inch Type 304 Stainless Steel Wedge Expansion Anchor, 50 Per Box"

Amazon has screwed up orders in the past and it is easier for them to write them off and send a new box rather than deal with a return 

I went through something like this several years ago when I was shopping for a SUP.  I knew what I was looking for and Amazon kept tempting me with the exact board at a good price but the ad was very confusing.  Description and title matched my search but the picture was for a different version of the same line of boards and was not what I wanted.  The price was nearly 40% off and with free freight on something 14' long and probably close to 40# all boxed up.  I crossed my fingers and hit "buy now" and then took a screen shot of the page with the product description just in case I needed to make a return.  The board I wanted showed up!  I looked a few more times after that to see what the prices were but they never dropped down that low again.

Check out camelcamelcamel.com for Amazon price history tracking, pretty useful for me

Don’t support amazon!

When I search using those terms I get two results. One with Prime free shipping was 62.48. The other without Prime was exactly twice as much 124.96.

I'll try again in a few days.

So just a quick update, Amazon is sending another 50 right now with a guaranteed delivery date for no charge and no requirement to ship back the short-changed box. Pretty crazy. That brings the overall price of 91 stainless power studs down to .58 cents a piece.  Regarding the price changes, I noticed someone else posted a review of the same bolts high-lighting the fact that he was pretty happy getting them for $80. I think the moral of the story is search for something by name ten times, like Jason did with the SUP and I did with the bolts, and there's a chance the price will decrease substantially as they try to close the deal later in the month.

Same result on Amazon two weeks later.