The first one sounds like something you would expect, unless they were only raising prices for amazon prime members, which would obviously be bogus. I believe book depository does something like that, where books will cost slightly more or less in different currencies depending on how far they have to ship it (but really you still normally win with their free shipping, unless you buy in large batches on some other sites).
The employee thing sounds horrible. I would CERTAINLY want to be paid if you made me stand around for more than 10 minutes. Heck I want to be paid if you make me take 30 seconds longer to get into work.