In December 2024, I wrote here about which laptop I recommend for most people to buy (spoiler: the Macbook Air M4 or the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14).
I’ve been watching the MacBook Air M4 listings on Amazon.de this past month because I was considering buying one. In September, many of them sat at around 869 €. Now, with Amazon Prime Day coming up next week, almost all variants are above 1,000 €. That jump feels too timed to be a coincidence.
It seems like the move some retailers pull: raise the price first, then “discount” it during the event so it looks like a big deal. But when you dig into the past prices, the so-called discount often just returns things to where they were before.
You can check the history yourself:
- https://keepa.com/#!product/3-B0DZDBVCS8
- https://de.camelcamelcamel.com/product/B0DZDBVCS8
- https://www.amazon.de/-/en/MacBook-10-Core-8-Core-Shared-Memory/dp/B0DZDBVCS8
- https://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/OffersOfProduct/206043711_-macbook-air-13-2025-m4-apple.html
This kind of trick isn’t unique to Amazon. In Romania, eMAG has been accused of doing the same: bump the price before a sale, then drop it “on sale” and act like they’re giving you a deal. People noticed, got mad, and rightly so.
What makes this tactic effective is that many shoppers don’t check what the price was last week or last month. If you see a MacBook Air M4 “reduced” from 1,299 to 1,029 €, it feels like a win, unless you know it was 869 € or 879 € not long ago.
There’s also a legal angle in the EU. Under the Omnibus / Price Indication rules (Directive (EU) 2019/2161, amending Directive 98/6/EC), when a price reduction is advertised, retailers must show the prior price, and that prior price has to be the lowest price the product had over the 30 days before the reduction. That requirement is meant to stop exactly this kind of fake discount trick. You can read the legal text here. And more explanation here: “the prior price means the lowest price applied by the trader during a period of time not shorter than 30 days prior to the application of the price reduction”.
So from a consumer’s side: before Prime Day, use tools like Keepa, CamelCamelCamel, and price comparison sites like Idealo. Compare the “sale price” with the real lowest prices over the past weeks. Don’t let a flashy discount banner fool you.
Later Edit: Today, 07. October 2025, the price of an Macbook Air M4 on Amazon.de is 999 €! WTF!
nice article, i have noticed the same trend…