[andyford]

As much as I like dunking on Amazon and Bezos, I can't help but wonder if this could be applied to brick and mortar stores where you go in and ask for help finding something and they pitch you the product that's best for their sales commission

[mgas]

You can rest assured that if you go into a store and get pitched on a product, if the salesperson works on commission, the product they push the hardest on is the one with the highest profit margin (and consequently the one they make the highest commission on).

Generally, stores will offer a low priced option that they are willing to sell by keeping large quantities in stock, but on which their margin is very small. They'll make money by selling those in volume, and you won't get the hard sell for that. If they sense you walking away, they'll make the low-cost argument to at least get a product in your hands.

There will be the God-level products with enormous markups that only fools will buy. Nobody really tries to sell those, but they'll happily ring you up for the commission.

Then there is the sweet spot in the middle; the products that are moderately high priced that take a value-proposition to sell. You can rest assured these are the money-makers for salespeople.

Sadly, Amazon has found out that the three-fold approach is no longer worth it. They already deal in massive volumes, so there is no need to carry the name brands and make advertising pushes to sell those products. Instead, they focus on the low-end garbage and let the third party sellers go to war each with other for your purchase. The odd God-level-priced product still exists and they'll happily sell it to you, but you'd be a schmuck to buy it from Amazon.