Amazon Silently Discontinues Post-Order Guarantee

Effective September 1st, Amazon has discontinued the Post-Order Guarantee -- previously, this allowed a customer to request a price adjustment if the price of the item dropped within 30 days following the purchase of the item. I always enjoyed this bit of customer service from Amazon, as it allowed for me to get the discounted price of the item without much effort -- I just had to be aware of the price drops.

Interestingly, their return period for the item still remains at 30 days, which means that any price adjustments will probably be done in the form of returning items, and then repurchasing the same item at the reduced cost.

There are many reasons for discontinuing the Post-Order Guarantee, I am sure, such as the fact that nearly everyone takes advantage of it, and that online websites have made it easy to automate such requests. By doing this, it also allows Amazon to keep the difference, and make the customer work harder at getting the difference back. Someone who buys a $19.99 DVD probably isn't going to go through the trouble of sending the DVD back if it drops to 18.99, and that's another dollar earned by Amazon. Conversely, someone who purchases a large ticket item -- say an Amazon Kindle ($359) sees that the price of the Kindle has dropped another $30 to $329, they might not be bothered to return the Kindle to get the discounted price, as it would mean:

1) shipping the item back to Amazon
2) ordering a new Kindle at the discounted price (adding a large expense to the credit card)
3) wait for Amazon to process the return.

For $30 bucks -- in this case, Amazon would likely keep the difference, and that's the most obvious benefit to Amazon if enough people aren't willing to return items due to their pricing.
I suspect, however, that this policy change has more to do with Amazon's movement into the digital download domain where they don't want to be caught in a bind when they discount an ebook or a direct download video -- people who purchase physical goods can still get the lower price through returns, but Amazon's digital downloads are more or less "All Sales Final" type goods.