Amazon tests native price tracking to give shoppers pricing clarity, tighten compliance with fair pricing rules, and reshape seller discount strategies.
Shoppers constantly hesitate before buying, asking themselves, “Is this a good deal, or should I wait?” They want to know a product’s price history to see if the current cost is a genuine reduction or just a marketing gimmick.
This indecision costs sellers sales. To solve this, Amazon is testing its own native price tracking tools, empowering buyers to see the highest and lowest prices of a product over time.
This feature puts immense pressure on sellers who rely on high-velocity sale periods. If your “lightning deal” is not a true historical low, shoppers will know instantly and may choose to wait for a better opportunity.
Amazon Quietly Tests Price History Button on Mobile
Ivan Marynych, Founder at Best Seller Hunter"Amazon launches price transparency - fake discounts might be over soon."
Amazon is testing a new “Price History” button on mobile product detail pages, giving shoppers access to historical pricing data directly within the app. Raya Gurnett, Director of Amazon at Legendairy Milk, shared on LinkedIn that she spotted the feature appearing just below the list price while browsing from her mobile app.
Until now, price tracking was largely managed by third-party tools such as Keepa and CamelCamelCamel. This marks the first time Amazon has offered a native way for customers to verify if a discount is genuine or simply part of a pricing cycle.
The feature may be small in appearance, but its implications for both shoppers and sellers are significant. It signals Amazon’s continued focus on transparency and accountability in pricing practices, particularly during major sales events like Lightning Deals, Coupons, and Prime promotions.
Why Amazon Is Testing This Feature
This new tool appears designed to build shopper confidence during promotions like Prime Day or Lightning Deals. By offering price history directly, Amazon strengthens its reputation for honesty and helps buyers feel certain they are getting a real deal.
The feature also helps Amazon comply with growing global scrutiny over artificial discounting. Providing real price data helps the company meet truth-in-advertising standards that regulate brands inflating prices just before a sale.
This test also serves as a warning to sellers. Amazon is encouraging pricing integrity and showing that its algorithm can prioritize authentic deals that show a true price drop.
Key reasons for this test, according to Gurnett, include:
- Strengthening Consumer Trust – Shoppers are tired of fake deals, and seeing a real price history builds buyer confidence.
- Meeting Regulatory Pressure – The tool helps Amazon stay compliant with global standards against fake discounting practices.
- Pressuring Sellers – It encourages sellers to avoid inflated list prices and maintain consistent pricing across all marketplaces.
- Improving Conversions – The algorithm may use this data to favor authentic deals, boosting both sales and buyer satisfaction.
What This Means for Sellers
If this feature rolls out globally, it will make “list price games” much riskier. Sellers will be pushed to maintain pricing discipline, as any artificial inflation will be visible to shoppers.
This change will likely affect how brands plan deal messaging and A/B pricing tests. It could also impact Buy Box eligibility if off-Amazon price drops trigger repricing wars that are now visible to consumers.
Rufus AI Paved the Way for Price Tracking
The new “Price History” button is not Amazon’s first attempt to offer native price tracking. The company previously integrated a similar function into its AI shopping assistant, Rufus.
An October 2024 article from Wired, written by Paresh Dave, detailed how the chatbot was being used to answer user questions about price changes. Shoppers could ask Rufus directly for a product’s price history.
This feature allowed users to see a line chart showing price fluctuations over the previous 30 days. It also indicated if the current price was the lowest point within that period.
According to the report, access to this data was straightforward:
- Shoppers could click the Rufus speech bubble icon on Amazon’s app or website.
- They could then ask Rufus for the “price history” on a specific product.
Amazon’s stated goal for the Rufus feature was to enhance transparency for its customers. The company aimed to help consumers make more informed purchasing decisions and boost conversion rates by verifying deal authenticity.
Pricing Transparency Raises the Bar for Sellers
The native price history feature fundamentally changes customer expectations around pricing. It places immediate pressure on sellers to prove their discounts are legitimate.
Research by Consumer Watchdog showed how widespread this issue is. Their findings indicate that 61% of Amazon products have used inflated reference prices to create a false perception of savings.
Academic studies reveal similar tactics. One study examining vacuum cleaners found that over 26% of listings pretended to offer discounts while actually increasing prices by an average of 23%.
With Amazon’s AI and new tracking tools, these 30-day price histories become immediately visible to shoppers. Price manipulation tactics that previously went undetected will now likely damage conversion rates and erode customer trust.
Amazon explicitly monitors for pricing practices that could harm this trust. Sellers who violate these policies face significant consequences, including:
- Removal of Buy Box access
- Suppression of product listings
- Account suspension for serious or repeated violations
Price History Adds New Pressure to Buy Box Competition
Winning the Amazon Buy Box is a critical factor for seller success, as it drives an estimated 80-83% of all sales on the platform. While price remains the most important factor in this competition, the new transparency from price history features adds significant complexity.
Amazon’s algorithm already polices pricing heavily. Information from the FTC’s lawsuit against Amazon revealed the company uses an “anti-discounting” algorithm that can exclude sellers from the Buy Box if it detects lower prices on other platforms.
This algorithm effectively forces third-party sellers to maintain price parity across all channels. Sellers who offer a lower price elsewhere risk losing access to the Buy Box, which accounts for the vast majority of potential sales.
The new native price tracking tool creates a double layer of price verification for shoppers, who now have access to both third-party data and Amazon’s own feature.
This increased visibility pressures sellers to maintain consistent, competitive pricing rather than relying on temporary promotions or inflated “sale” prices. The clear seller impact is that savvy shoppers will now use these tools, making pricing integrity more important than ever.
Rising Costs vs. Price Transparency
Amazon sellers are facing significant margin pressure. A Forbes article by Gary Drenik noted that over 65% of Amazon sellers raised prices in 2024, a necessary move to offset increased FBA fees and operational costs.
This creates a difficult paradox for sellers. While they must raise prices to remain profitable, Amazon’s algorithms and new customer-facing price history tools create a ceiling for those increases.
Amazon’s Fair Pricing Policy actively works against sudden price hikes. The policy allows Amazon to suppress listings or remove the Buy Box from offers that appear “significantly higher than recent prices” or exceed market rates.
This leaves sellers caught between rising costs and an algorithm that demands price consistency. As a result, dynamic repricing software has become essential.
Reports indicate a sharp rise in the adoption of automated pricing technology. According to industry data, 27% of brands and private labels now use these tools, an 18% increase from 2023.
Sellers must now balance this automated repricing with the new transparency tools. Frequent, visible price fluctuations within the 30-day history window could erode customer confidence and make them hesitate to purchase.
Third-Party Tool Value Shifts to Deeper Analytics
Amazon’s native price history feature does not make third-party seller tools obsolete. Instead, it shifts their value proposition away from simple price tracking and toward more sophisticated, in-depth analytics.
While shoppers can now see a basic 30-day price history, professional sellers still require more advanced data to remain competitive. Sellers must look beyond what the native tool offers to effectively manage their business.
Key data points still required from third-party tools include:
- Extended historical data beyond 30 days for long-term trend analysis.
- Competitor tracking across multiple sellers and various products.
- Sales rank correlation to understand how pricing affects sales velocity.
- API access to feed data into automated repricing software.
- Multi-marketplace intelligence to monitor pricing on different Amazon domains.
Professional sellers, and the Amazon agency teams that support them, will likely continue to invest in services like Keepa and Jungle Scout for this deeper competitive intelligence. However, the existence of Amazon’s free native feature will pressure these tool providers to enhance their analytical offerings and clearly justify their premium pricing.
Focus on Pricing Credibility and Value
This major shift toward transparency demands that sellers focus on pricing credibility rather than relying on artificial discounts. Research shows that price transparency builds significant customer trust, especially when a price is accompanied by justifiable reasoning.
Sellers must now shift their strategy from winning the click with a “slashed” price to justifying the price they are asking for. This means communicating value more effectively.
Sellers should adopt the following strategies to adapt:
- Maintain Price Consistency. Sellers must maintain consistent pricing across all their sales channels to avoid triggering Amazon’s Buy Box suppression algorithms, which penalize sellers for offering lower prices elsewhere.
- Justify Premium Prices. Instead of relying on fake discounts, sellers should justify premium pricing by highlighting superior product features, excellent customer service, and the reliability of FBA fulfillment.
- Use Data for Seasonal Pricing. Proactive sellers can use historical data from third-party tools like Keepa to identify optimal seasonal pricing patterns, allowing them to adjust prices logically rather than reacting to competitors.
- Monitor Competitor Positioning. It is still essential to monitor competitor price histories to understand market positioning, but the goal should be strategic alignment, not engaging in destructive price wars.
- Leverage FBA Advantages. The benefits of Prime eligibility and faster delivery that come with FBA often allow sellers to maintain slightly higher prices, as customers are willing to pay for speed and reliability.
Austin Mac Nab, Senior Writer at Business.com"Pricing is one area where consumers of all types expect complete transparency. Companies that don’t provide accurate and complete pricing information foster mistrust and lose an opportunity to build customer loyalty."
