amazon price fluctuations

i have been a long time amazon shopper. i shopped at amazon back when they only sold books. but it wasn’t until earlier this week that i realized that amazon’s prices fluctuate from day to day! i’ve been stalking the canon rebel xsi (not to buy for myself, but a friend wants one) and i have seen the price go from as high as $828 to now as low as $799. at $799, the body + kit lens is a steal.

it’s amazing to me that every day i check the price it changes though. i think that is so strange that it changes by so much. from what i read around the web, amazon is doing this to see how they can maximize profit. they are looking to see just how high of a price they can sell an item for before it reaches some critical threshold for people to stop buying it. there are other factors that come into play like where their supply is coming from and prices from their sources, but i never thought that there would be so much fine tune controlling in the price of items. it looks like this is applicable to new items, though, so most of my shopping should be unaffected by this sort of thing.