1000 Words in Russian

Stateside, I'm an avid Amazon customer. I will order a package on Amazon an average of a couple times a month, usually through Amazon's "Super Saver" program that provides free shipping on orders over twenty-five dollars. Basically, I cannot stand paying for shipping instead of for items I get some value or enjoyment out of. But sometimes the effort not to spring for shipping gets me into weird situations. It has also gotten me to notice a few things about the way Amazon operates its business I might not have otherwise.

Most recently, I got into my never-ending effort not to pay for shipping when I went searching for voltage converters to take with me to Moscow. I found some good and reasonably priced converters that work on the 220 voltage system, used in Russia and most of continental Europe. I had expected that, combind with a book on Russian grammar I wanted, I would easily be over the $25 threshhold for free shipping. But no--the voltage converters are sold not through Amazon but through a third party, so I had to look for something else to get to the magic twenty-five dollars.

I looked at a few different items in my quest to find something that would put my total over. I looked at a couple of different books on medieval history. From reading a more general book of Russian history, I've developed an interest in knowing more about the history of medieval Russia and thought one of these might be a good choice. I also looked at various other materials for learning Russian.

That, oddly, let me to a children's picture book, Usborne's 1000 Words in Russian. When I was young, I remember leafing through similar books Usborne had for French and German. I was happy to learn that, not only is there a similar title for Russian, but that all of the Usborne 1000 Words books have recently been updated to include online pronunciation guides. This looked like a good resource for building up some basic Russian vocabulary.

Another aspect of my shopping on Amazon is that I often have trouble making up my mind. I can leave books in my shopping cart for weeks without actually buying them, only to delete them or replace them. I find I have a particularly hard time when I'm trying to choose something to get over the $25 threshhold. So I put the Usborne book and a couple of the medieval history books I liked into my cart and let them linger.

Having done this a few times over the years, I've noticed that item prices frequently change between the time you put them in the cart and the time I check them out days or weeks later. Amazon always puts upa little notice when the price of an item has changed since you put it in the cart.

I put the Usborne book in the hopper two days ago. Yesterday, I looked into the cart and found that its price had risen slightly, by 65 cents. Not a big deal.

But today, I noticed that it had dropped again--by the same 65 cents.

I've written a couple of times already about not understanding how items are priced. Next to the price of prescription drugs, I understand this one the least. I'm sure Amazon uses some kind of program or mechanism to raise and lower prices in response to sales and inventory. But I am amazed that whatever they're using is sensitive enough to raise and lower a price literally every day if need be.