This reminds me of the ads for cheap drop ship garbage where they have 60,000 units in stock BUT THEY'RE ONLY AVAILABLE FOR THE NEXT 2 HOURS THEN THEY'RE GONE FOREVER! YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO MISS THIS GREAT OPPORTUNITY!!!
Or the dramatic price slashing on home shopping channels.
My mom called to buy something very early in its presentation and they sold it to her for a much lower price than what was on the screen. We kept watching and the presenter eventually slashed the price down to the amount she paid. Everyone got to buy it for that amount, regardless of when they called. It's just a gimmick to make people think they're getting a deal.
This also happened when the head of Apple Retail left and went to work at JC Penny. He did away with sales and discounts and just listed everything for the reduced price. Sales plummeted. People were buying the same stuff elsewhere for more just because it shown as being on sale or having been discounted from an even higher amount.
For me that number is only what's left at the Amazon warehouse in my city. There's always more stock or listings when I deselect 'Delivered within 2 days'. Because Amazon warehouses in other cities can't ship to me within 2 days, we're too remote.
I remember booking.com getting slapped by that a while ago so now they say 'X available on our site' because there could always be some on another site.
It's completely accurate. Thos is crazy, I know, but you can have a shit ton of things but only 3 of one specific thing.
Sometimes sellers get more inventory in when stock is low. Sometimes they don't. Amazon is just letting you know how many units they have on hand. Actually, they even let you buy units that are still on their way to the Amazon warehouse.
But it is how it works. There are literally Millions of people buying stuff on Amazon on any one day.
Amazon and in fact no store just buys 7 widgets, and that's all they're ever going to own. They have a constant supply going in from suppliers, and a constant supply going out in the form of purchases.
Anything that doesn't - isn't selling and it's costing someone a huge amount of money to sit there, taking up space.