Elbais: This is how Amazon tries to rein in the price of muzzle insanity

Suddenly, the package price of 100 medical masks increased from about 4 to 149 euros within days, but the internet-selling technology giant "Amazon" is seeking to track down greedy sellers and prevent them from speculating, according to a report published by the Spanish newspaper "El Pais".

Writer Victoria Nadal says in the report that the spread of the Corona virus outside China triggered a state of panic, with sales of preventive medical equipment in Spain increasing, as demand for masks increased by 10,000 percent compared to the beginning of the year.

These developments - the author adds - have caused masks to run out of pharmacies, so people have turned to the Internet to get what they need, but some sellers who use the Amazon platform have decided to take advantage of the situation and increase the prices of gags and means of sterilizing hands that are in high demand.

For its part, the Amazon company warned that it is continuously monitoring the buying and selling operations at its site, and is seeking to identify merchants who exaggerate the prices, according to the author.

Fair pricing
In his interview with "Elbais", the company spokesman said, "Amazon's trading partners set their own prices in our stores, but they must nevertheless adhere to the fair pricing policy that has been imposed."

"We are working hard to monitor the site, and we will block and cancel all offers that violate our policy," he added.

The writer notes that these decisions come as a response to the crazy rise in the prices of hygiene and health-care products in recent days, since last Wednesday, for example, hand sanitizer and gags were the most requested products on Amazon.

This rise coincides with the discovery of new confirmed cases of infection with the Corona virus in Spain, despite the fact that experts have shown that these masks are not useful in preventing infection. The health authorities in European countries also did not recommend the use of masks, and they focus on other more effective measures, such as washing hands carefully with soap and water, the author adds.

Price control
The writer says that more than half of the products available on the Amazon site are offered by sellers who use the platform to promote their merchandise, and it has been observed that many of these have raised prices exaggerated in recent days.

She adds that in order to prevent this greedy exploitation of the state of emergency and anxiety that afflicts customers, Amazon decided to impose a fair pricing policy, by referring to the same prices of these materials weeks before the start of this crisis, or by comparison with their prices in other sites and stores.

The e-commerce giant "Amazon" seeks to monitor the movement of buying and selling in order to ensure that all operations are carried out in a manner consistent with its policy, and it warns merchants in the event of violations, and if they insist on raising prices, the penalties may include canceling their offers from the site and stopping the process of shipping the goods, Or permanently prohibiting the seller from performing his activity on this platform, according to the report of the Spanish newspaper.

And social media buyers complained about the high prices for Amazon products. This is not the first time that such complaints have been received. The same happened in previous crises. When Hurricane Irma hit Florida in 2017, the price of water bottles increased by rocket, which caused anger among Internet users.

At the time, the Amazon administration made the same comments to the media saying, "We are working to monitor our site and cancel offers to sell water that exaggerate the price hikes," according to the author.

The authorities in Italy, which has the largest number of cases of coronavirus in Europe, had opened an investigation into the prices of selling medical equipment over the Internet and considered it unreasonable, but they did not mention any specific location, the author says.