A few days ago, it was ready to show the consumer explicitly, how much an import tariff is making the product more expensive. Instead of just embedding the cost of the final value, the platform considered highlighting a line next to the price, stating that that $ 140 vacuum cleaner, for example, was leaving 195 because of the tariffs imposed by the US government. The measure had a short life. It was enough for the initiative to become public for the White House to react, accusing the company of politicizing the trade. For and the idea was removed from circulation.
Amazon’s decision was not an ideological nod. It was market calculation. In a context of persistent inflation, slowdown in consumption and tight competition with retailers such as Walmart, the company. If consumer will complain about the price, at least know that the problem is not in the store, but in the tribute. The tariff becomes a visible villain. The product, a victim of commercial policy. And the consumer, a possible ally against protectionism.
The problem is that this does not usually work as well as it seems. Some empirical studies show that the consumer reacts more strongly at prices when extra costs are discriminated against. In a classic field experiment, Raj Chetty, Adam Looney and Kory Kroft showed that the simple act of including the tax in the shelf, instead of adding it to the cashier, reduced demand by about 8%. This is because, even if the final value is identical, the way it is presented directly interferes with the purchase decision. The price that appears is the price that weighs. And what does not appear, the consumer tends to ignore.
This is a well -known dynamic in digital retail. The so -called partitioned prices, where the main value is separated from fees, tariffs and freight, increase the purchase propensity, as they reduce the protrusion of the total cost. The literature in behavioral economy calls this the effect of limited attention. Consumers do not process all elements of supply with equal weight. If the base price seems affordable, there is more chances of following the purchase, even if the later additions make the final value higher than in competing products with more transparent prices. Competition is not only between real prices, but between artificial perceptions.
Amazon’s attempt was risky. Showing the fare as a separate item may even please attentive consumers, but it tends to scare. In the end, the guilt consumer who is closest. Even when the surcharge comes from the government, it is Amazon who appears on the screen, who delivers the product and who pays the price of dissatisfaction.
In global retail, the less visible the costs, the greater the risk that transparency play against those who try to practice it. In Brazil, this is even more evident. The country imposes some of the highest import fares in the world, especially on dynamization goods such as electronics, tools and productive inputs. Nevertheless, the impact of these tariffs rarely comes clear to the consumer. He sees the final price, but not the mechanisms that inflate him. The tariff structure remains diluted in acronyms, transfers and layers that make it almost impossible to identify where exactly the value makes it expensive.
If the sites showed clearly how much of the final value corresponds to import tariffs, perhaps the public debate would gain another quality. Perhaps it was more difficult to justify protectionist policies that punish their pockets and lock access to innovation. But it is also possible that nothing would change. That the consumer simply rejects products with visible rates, preferring to buy from those who keep disguising costs.
In the end, making the impact of tariffs visible is not just a technical decision. It is a political, strategic and brand choice. It is also a test of how much the consumer is willing to know.
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