Amazon's Fire sale; clever marketing ploy or just reeks of desperation?

Asked by Buttonstc (27605

) September 9th, 2014 from iPhone

Just prior to the announcement of Apple’s new iPhones, Amazon dropped the price of its Fire phone to 99 cents.

Will enough consumers jump on it to keep it afloat and viable for the long term?

Will it still be around two years from now?

Why did Jeff Bezos decide to get into the highly competetive and saturated phone market anyhow?

Do you think his gamble will pay off eventually as it did with the Kindle Fire Tablet (which started off being sold for less than it cost the company to make them; albeit not $200 less).

But enough people did eventually succumb to Amazon’s charms and the Fire tablet is now a staple in the marketplace.

Your thoughts on all this?

I guess Amazon gives new meaning to the term “fire sale”.

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5 Answers

99 cents is still with a two year contract. You can get a iPhone 5c for free with a two year contract now.

The fire phone is just a bad device and my money is on that they didn’t realize how badly it sucked and they figured having it on Amazons homepage would move them. That didn’t work (it might have if it was unlocked) so nobody bought them. With the Kindle Fire it wasn’t bound to a contract so that makes it a lot easier to buy. But with the phone you have shit like carriers and early termination fees.

There is a reason Apple does major phone upgrades every two years. It is the two year contract most people have with their carriers.

johnpowell (17881

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Since Amazon is a corporation their exclusive purpose is to screw as many people as possible.

I mean, DUH.

SecondHandStoke (9522

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Desperation. The phone was a dumb idea from the start.

Think of how much money they threw away on this project.

elbanditoroso (33520

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As @johnpowell mentions, a phone’s price is irrelevant due to the contract. And it appears that this phone is not selling well. And that is a good thing. I can’t believe anyone has purchased this phone. The sooner Amazon scraps this absurdity, the better.

hominid (7357

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