My neighborhood stores have huge markups and bad customer service. I don't love Amazon but they are a better alternative for most things.
People should check again. After I decided to avoid Amazon, I’m surprised by how many things are cheaper and/or better quality at my local stores. I think Amazons reputation for lowest prices is less true every year.
Amazon was better in 2012, but now it's all just drop shipped shit that arrives broken. Local stores are surprisingly way better these days
Did they ever have a reputation for lowest price? I assumed I was paying more for the convenience of not having to go to 5 different dollar stores to find the thing I need.
I'm sure most people here don't remember when power strips and HDMI cables were $40 and coin batteries were like $15 each pre inflation because stores wanted to make money on them. We could only read, listen to, and watch what our local stores decided to stock and most things didn't have reviews. If we needed a new power adapter for that one device with a special shaped connector, too bad. It's literally impossible to buy it.
Europe:
- 'Local' stores were/are often ridiculously overpriced, had a very limited range, and it's not like we're talking about independent stores either. Many of those were killed by the unfair practices of large corporate chains who would sell at a loss. Before amazon killed chain mall businesses, the mall killed independent businesses on the high street.
- Packages are delivered to me personally. If I'm not there, they don't deliver and are forced to try another time.
- No need for a PO box, as small independent stores and grocery stores often have a side hussle as a pick-up point. You go to pick-up your parcel and buy something in their store or do your groceries.
- Amazon prime is entirely unnecessary. You simply have to wait a bit longer.
- You can find independent sellers on amazon, then if their product is good, you buy from them directly next time around.
- Thanks to amazon, ebay, etc. it's become far easier to buy second hand products. In the past you'd have to go to a second hand market, garage sales or visit twenty vintage/antique stores to find what you needed.
Amazon is evil though. So, yeah.
But there are perfectly rational reasons to use amazon.
Same here in the US Midwest. 90% of these fabled amazing local businesses are incredibly overpriced and often run by assholes who treat you like shit, treat their employees even worse, and often don't know their products any better than a Walmart employee. Also often incredibly right wing, which of course connects to them treating their employees like shit again.
If I'm going to support bad people and bad business I'd rather do it in a way that benefits me.
Spot on. The OP doesn't need to make up reasons Amazon are shit and should be avoided. There are plenty of legitimate reasons
Yeah if you live in like, Germany or France
More like Europe: sorry we don't ship there lol. Oh we do? Hope you like paying twice the price for shipping that takes two weeks if you're lucky
I’ve found a lot of times, trying to buy directly from the independent seller is still fulfilled by Amazon assuming they don’t just do all of the e-commerce through Amazon. I end up with slower, more expensive shipping and Amazon still gets a cut.
We don’t have many “local” stores where I am, except for the hardware store which is a franchise. The local stores are all owned by a large out of state corporation. I still try to support them since they employ people in the community. We have multiple Amazon warehouses in the area too, between that and the delivery stuff they employ a lot more people than the local stores do and many products have same day delivery, so even there the math isn’t simple. The options are usually how much do I want to pay and which corporation do I want to give money to.
I wish Amazon didn’t treat their employees so shittily. But I really don’t want to find out which of the stores around me have the thing I want and go there by bus. Even without prime the tickets are more expensive than shipping.
Yeah that's a big thing for me. I hate having to check out 2-3 local stores to find out they don't have the product I want. A lot of small businesses have such shitty online presence.
Yeah, and shopping locally is so hit-and-miss. Some smaller stores are great, but there are also plenty that seem to act like serving you is such a fucking inconvenience. Oh I'm sorry you have to get off your phone because I want to buy something. You have to make change from £10? Sorry it's inconveniencing you that I have to bring fucking cash just because you want to dodge some tax by not taking cards.
Sucks that my packages keep getting stolen
And that's why in other countries, delivery services aren't allowed to drop a package at the door unless you've explicitely told them to do so
Amazon totally drops packages outside in Ireland
Here in Romania that is unheard of. The courier will personally hand it to the recipient. If you are not home, you have the option to redirect it to a different address, courier HQ or some local stores that they have contract with. And even so, they ask for a verification code you get via sms in the morning. It's very unlikely to lose a package.
Not true here in Sweden, tho. I work in parcel delivery and I'm instructed to leave at the door (or next to the mailbox if it doesn't fit), at least if it's Class A or Express. Class B get one delivery attempt and then sent to service point if unsuccessful.
Although I don't do all types of parcels.
I am also from Sweden, I have always been called (or texted) and asked (if I am not home) if it is OK to leave it outside. Some call me before hand to check if I am home before trying to deliver it even. You can (most of the time) choose if you are OK with them leaving it outside if you aren't home otherwise they will not do that unless you say it is OK through text or a call. But maybe only the delivery companies I have picked have this kind of policy. I never pick a class for my packages so maybe I always get b class? What kind get A class?
Depends on the area. Where I live I’ve never had a package stolen, Amazon or otherwise.
Some countries stupidly accept non delivery as the norm, and that's on them.
If your delivery person leaves your package outside your house, that's NOT, I repeat NOT delivered.
They got 99.9% of the way to delivering it and then abandoned it on the street at the very last step. It must be handed to an occupant or pushed through the letterbox to be delivered. This is obvious.
What do real delivery companies in normal countries do? If they can't deliver the parcel, they don't just drop it on the floor and wander off, because they're not insane. They either try to leave it with a neighbour, or they try to deliver it again another day (or depending on the service, they may leave a paper slip in the letterbox indicating that it can be collected from the local depot).
Countries that accept delivery people throwing their stuff on the floor undelivered have nobody to blame for that but themselves. That is not the norm, it is not reasonable, and they only do it because the people in those countries allow it, and don't do anything about it.
It's madness. Utter insanity. Imagine if the postman did this with important letters!? "The letterbox is stuck, better just leave then on the floor outside!" Can you imagine! MADNESS.
Speak for yourself. I’d rather them leave the shit at the door then have to trudge my ass down to the post office to pick it up, which I have had to do for certain deliveries and it’s annoying every time.
You know even FedEx delivers packages into customers hands in Europe? You have to sign on their tablet that you received the package. They call you in advance if you are there for delivery and if you are nearby they even do a detour. This is general practice for all big delivery companiesike DHL, GLS, DPD, FedEx and many more.
You know they give us the option. If im not here I can select what happens to my package. Post office, post box next to the supermarket, give it it a neighbor, deliver it sometimes else or place itnon front of my door.
I prefer having my shit left at the door as opposed to being bothered to have to come to the door to personally accept it from them.
I'm typically busy and I'll get it when I get to it... But, I don't live somewhere where I have to be paranoid that someone is just waiting to steal my shit either.
But like you are still gonna go and get the package so what's the big deal with doing it when it arrives? You lose nothing by doing it that way. Or if you know you are gonna be busy at a certain time set the delivery at a more appropriate time (now that I think about it is this not a common option?)
Brazilian here. Had a package get home when no one was there. Delivery girl called me and asked if she could leave it with a neighbor and which one. Told her the one to leave it with and that was it. Leaving it on the street is insane
I have an unlocked box outside on the street where letters go. That's where the postman leaves them. Tampering or stealing the mail = 30 years in prison.
nah I prefer them to leave. before covid the post here was notorious for not knocking, and dropping a card meaning you had to go to a post office and collect it in person, but only during business hours, you had to line up behind all the old people who paid bills at the post office, finally get your chance and if you are lucky they would find your parcel, but usually either way they would make out like you are being the biggest inconvenience in the world.
these days they drop and scan, sometimes knock, sometimes not, but it doesn't matter. havnt had a theft ever
Wow you're about to blow a gasket about something you apparently don't have to ever experience
Who the absolute hell is doing this? I've had very few packages stolen in my decades of experience. Maybe, 1 or 2 out of hundreds?...
Yeah this is such a strawman argument lol. There's lots to hate about Amazon as a company, but to act like it's actually an inconvenient service to use is fucking stupid. And Amazon didn't put all the small businesses out of business, Target, Walmart, and friends had already done that. At this point it's just Amazon vs the giant retail corps, and frankly I couldnt care less who wins that battle, except that I'd love to see the final outcome be mutual annihilation (not that that's likely)
Same. And the thing with Amazon is most of the shit I buy on there, I can't really buy local. Computer shit especially. Used to be, we had a Fry's that was about 2 hours away. So, far enough that it required planning and usually would wait for the weekend, which usually meant amazon would be faster anyway.
edit: just to be clear, I wish that amazon didn't have as much utility as it does because they're a shit company, but I kinda feel like this is the norm with just about every corp these days.
That s not very few imo. I ve had zero out of hundreds
I mean, I've been getting packages a long time. I am not saying it's happened for sure... or hasn't for sure. But if it did it wasn't memorable
Plus you just mark it as not delivered and they'll send you another.
For me Amazon delivers to my doorstep, listens and acts on complaints if undelivered or product is faulty, arrange replacement for free, allow me to use stuffs for a month and then return no questions asked, and is way more cost effective.
Say whatever about their business practices, they beat local stores in every possible way and it's not even close.
For me as a customer, local stores doesn't make any possible sense.
I absolutely agree that local shops closing is a bad thing, but for a lot of niche goods companies like Amazon are a good thing. Delivery by one vehicle is far more efficient than everyone driving their own vehicle to whatever niche shop has your stuff. Don't get me wrong, Amazon is 100% a big evil corporation with huge problems... but the fact that they deliver goods to your house is not the problem lol. Doubly so since you can designate a day for them to deliver and just be in on that day!
Recently needed to buy a KVM switch to swap between my work computer and my personal computer on the same monitor. Not a single brick and mortar store in my entire area stocked them.
That's exactly the kind of niche goods that it makes sense to stock primarily in warehouses and ship out by post. Most people don't even know what a KVM switch is lol, I didn't when I first read this and I own one!
Niche shops are great, but fuck Amazon. The majority of what they sell is available directly from the companies that supply them.
Never had a package get stolen before, but if I ordered something expensive I have it sent to the Amazon locker about 5 min away. Last year I needed an ironing board, I went to Walmart, Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Roses. The only ironing board I found was at Bed Bath and Beyond for $120. I bought my ironing board on Amazon for $25 and it arrived the next day, also I didn't have to pay shipping because of prime. I have prime, but I cut Netflix when I got it. Now I get my packages faster, with free shipping, and I get Prime Video.
Recently I bought a new foam mattress and they brought it to my house, unboxed it, put it on the bed frame, and took the old one away. This cost me $200 and I had free shipping with Prime.
Hate on Amazon all you want, there are plenty of reasons, but they're doing the business better than big box stores which had already driven most small businesses out years ago.
This bit about the big box stores is where I'm at. There's a Target and two different Walmarts near me. There aren't any mom and pop independent stores. Everything is a chain.
That's pretty much my life as well, any local stores that were decent went under 20 years ago. Anything left is a specialty store or boutique that costs 20% more. Sometimes they're worth the added price, but not for many things.
This is only my personal experience but...
I've never had a package stolen. Even when I lived in a sketchy apartment years ago. If it's a high value item I either have it delivered to me at my work (this is a privileged position to have, I know) or get it delivered at an Amazon locker a mile or two down the road.
Would it be a pain in my ass if I lived in a high crime area, worked somewhere that didn't accept my deliveries, and relied on public transport? Absolutely. But I'm guessing that's not who the majority of Amazon's customer base is.
It's one of those opportunity crimes where the easiest victim generally picked. It usually comes down to just two things:
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How many people see your porch
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How easy is it to walk up and walk away?
You'd be surprised how much of a deterrent a mild inconvenience is. You'll get significantly fewer packages that walk off if you live on a big hill, or have a bunch of steps, where it's mildly inconvenient for someone to walk up.
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I lived in a high crime area and I still didn't have any packages stolen. I lost more packages to the delivery person delivering it to the wrong apartment versus porch pirates.
I mean this buisness model is a dream for introverts
To be fair, the delivery really is handy if you're shopping for something niche enough that it isn't sold locally, or if you don't have a car and are trying to buy something not sold within walking distance/within easy access to transit if available, or which is too heavy to carry without a vehicle. There's definitely a point here about local stores not being able to compete or with Amazon's monopolistic business practices though. The ideal thing I suppose would be some sort of website that local stores could sign up with to let people order stuff from to be delivered by the store or by a service the store uses, run as a non-profiting venture just at breakeven to avoid a motive to exploit stores that use it and have less individual power, combined with some kind of law against averaging shipping costs into the base costs of products and making shipping seem free, so as to ensure that local items are generally cheaper due to less needed transportation. In such a scenario, the central online shopping area wouldn't end up as a competitor to smaller local stores since it wouldn't actually sell anything itself, customers would be encouraged to buy items that take less transportation and thus fewer carbon emissions, and the convenience of having an online space in which almost everything for sale can be found and delivered can be preserved.
Such a system could very much exist in a decentralized manner with blockchain, it's just a matter of time until somebody builds it. All stores could have constant visibility into the shipping/logistics network capacity, lead times, etc and list their items with those prices baked in. Importantly, a single party like Amazon can't dominate the market. Importantly the entire system could be administered by the participants in that system (stores and consumers) instead of some third-party siphoning off value from the interactions between the two (rent-seeking leads to enshittification).
Examples of things you could do:
- You could get a discount for choosing a slower shipping option that only used "un-booked" capacity in the shipping chain.
- Different couriers could compete for different parts of the shipping/logistics network (so you could have a package routed via DHL internationally and have last-mile delivery completed by a local bike messenger company). Consumers could have some choice in how routing for their packages was done, and eco-friendly routing methods could be incentivized by however the system is administered.
- You could actually trust product reviews to be honest since there's a built-in reputation system and you don't have the same incentives Amazon has to allow fake products and fake reviews to proliferate.
- Because you, as a consumer, can get insight into the whole supply chain, you can make more educated choices about the environmental/social/etc impacts of the products you buy. A whole ecosystem of apps would exist to help assign ratings to products and you could pick which one you liked.
The problem in this scenario is that the biggest player will still have an opportunity to dominate. Proof of work blockchain? Well, Amazon just has to outspend all the others—which they can handily do, or run computation on AWS. Similar with staking, except worse because more money = more direct influence.
Our local stores, as discussed in other comments, can’t even offer shipping or workable websites. And we expect them to self administer part of that blockchain? They are just going to pay Amazon to do it.
And big data companies like Amazon would love to peer into the blockchain and see the throughput for each of these competitors and discover patterns. Edit: and they already do that for vendors selling on Amazon, which is where all these Amazon-branded products come from.
That’s probably the biggest turn off to the MBA-types; it would require sharing information, even if obfuscated.
Ehh, call me a 🤡 but I kinda like sitting at home to browse, pay for the thing that doesn't even exist at another store, then go get it at the post office 2 blocks away from home, right beside the grocery store, on my way home when it's ready.
I don't think your a clown at all. That convieince of ordering hard to find stuff is alluring as fuck.
Same jar of fish food at my local pet store is $24 and on Amazon it's $12.
I used to go to a local book store, until they stopped stocking any new science fiction. Then they went out of business and I was forced to buy books at Amazon as there was no other book store to go to.
We didn't have a local book store. We had Border's, Barnes and Noble, and a couple of used book shops. I frequented used book shops for the majority of my childhood and teenaged years. Then they all closed and it was just The Big B's. And then Border's went and it was just Barnes and Noble. I'm not convinced that this was all Amazon's fault. I'm actually inclined to believe that Border's and B&N both forced out the book stores and then got their crap pushed in by Amazon.
I mean, I take advantage of everything Prime offers. Movies, discounts, games, books, all of it, so I definitely get back more than the cost. I've also got a locker within walking distance of my house, and Walmart already did in all my local businesses, so I'm not worried about hurting their bottom line.
USPS has lost a dozen or so of my checks and packages but I have never had any of the hundreds of packages delivered stolen.
Amazon Lock boxes are like PO boxes but free, you just order with one as a destination and you put a code in and it unlocks a locker with your item in it
I don't like Amazon but I mean this does pretty much defeat porch piracy
Lol, I never thought of it that way. I will admit, though, that package theft was already a thing. It's really bad if you live in an apartment.
Get a locking shipment container for deliveries. From Amazon, of course.
But what if someone steals the container before I can bolt it down? Sounds like an insecure bootstrap process to me.
My intent was absolutely this as a joke.
I'm in the middle of downtown in a small city shops are heavily weighed towards convenience or kick nacks. EG 2 different gift stores and no hardware store. Lots of convenience stores and two specialty markets but only one grocery store and that at least double the cost and 1/100th the selection of the chain stores with the floor space of 7-11.
Looking back small shops always had shitty prices and selection
Ditched Amazon altogether when they started pushing Prime at every corner. Nobody needs to buy and get instant shipping for tons of useless crap
Where I live, prime isn't instant shipping. Some things, yes. A lot of things.... it's just free shipping.
We ordered some things for our house which we needed urgently (a capacitor for the air con during a heatwave) earlier this year, around spring time.
Took nearly a week to arrive despite being "prime shipping" or whatever. The shipping was free, but it was not fast.
So all that stuff about prime being fast and free shipping, is at most 50% right most of the time.
If you purchase any tech over $150, and need to return it, you'll be waiting a month for your refund. Amazon has been slowing down refunds for the last nine months or so, before that, refund issued day of return to ups.
I ordered a MacBook that got damaged in shipping before it arrived at my house. A month later after it was returned during transport, Amazon hasn't refunded me. I just did a charge back on the credit card, that took 3 minutes for a full refund.
Be a local shop owner.
Have "opportunistic" prices.
Always try talking people into buying shit they don't need.
Not_in_stock.jpg
"Customer support" = Its your fault, no refunds, go fuck yourself.
Why is Amazon taking over?
Yesterday, a user asked how I stopped using Amazon. I don't have the heart to tell him, you just stop.
Honestly though, is there a site to find other places you can buy that's not from amazon? Maybe ebay, alibaba, AliExpress? Those options aren't as reliable and still have iffy ethical practices.
I quit Amazon in 2019, and eBay supplanted them. Sometimes I get eBay purchases delivered as Amazon drop ships and it pisses me off. All I can do is leave bad feedback, so I do.
Or alternatively, I live in the woods and it’s 60 min round trip to anywhere and there were never local stores near me to begin with, and between kids, jobs, chores, and house projects it’s just too damn convenient not to pull out a phone and have something come the next day- not like I’d have time on a week night to go out and buy it anyway, and then I get all the way to the store and they dont have what I’m looking for.
I detest Amazon practices, but I don’t have a real alternative that doesn’t just shift all the burden to me. I could “make a stand” but it doesn’t solve any of my problems and adds quite a few.
People want what Amazon provides, and I’d happily give my money to another company without shitty practices if one were available- but there in lies the problem. It’s a near total monopoly.
My anxiety ridden ass loves Amazon. My house is in a private enough area that I've never had a package stolen, but I live near a distribution center, so I can often get same-day delivery.
It started taking 5 days for deliveries during COVID so I cancelled prime and just get $35 free shipping.
I did exactly the same. It's fine if they can no longer ship in 2 days, but then lower the cost of Prime or something. It's no longer worth it, and tbh I'm going to spend a lot less money on Amazon since I won't order until I have enough for free shipping.
This is also what I do. Not very difficult to hit the free shipping. I put stuff in my cart then save for later.
Scamazon prime started looking like a bad deal to me well before COVID. When they were not meeting 2 day delivery and not compensating for it I was done with prime. I don't care much about video or music or whatever other shit comes with prime...it is all about the shipping.
How much is Prime now? And is what you get really worth that much?
Depends on what I need tbh. Comics? Got three locals, and if they're out of whatever back issue I need than mycomicshop, then ebay, then amazon if they are the only ones with it in stock. Books? Local bookstores or direct from publishers, then same pattern with the comics if need be. Records? Local shops or discogs. But electronics or general "life" shit, my "locals" are best buy and walmart, fuck them too I might as well order from amazon at that point.
how do i get in on the retail smash and grab mobs on the news lately? where are they selling? do they deliver
Right? I just watched a video of a guy who walked into a drug store, used a mapp gas torch to melt the locks off a plastic security case, and filled a bag with the OTC drugs from the case. Two people filming him, an employee on the phone with 911, and he just walked out.
Any other time in history, he would have been shot.
I don't know about everywhere, but in many places the last point is kinda irrelevant since the Amazon lockers exist. I think there is one at most QuikTrips, even.
The last point is that the one of the advantages of shopping from home disappears, since you still need to get to either P.O. Box or Amazon box or whatever. You could as well go to the store to begin with.
Functionally it's the same thing though. From my own experience they are less common than PO boxes but that depends on the neighborhood.
Online shopping used to mean lower prices and a bit of a wait.
Nowadays it's: more expensive because of shipping, delivery not doing their job or even stealing your shit, which leads to you having to pick it up at a place further from your house than the store that sells it.
Over here they are supposed to deliver it to you in person but half the time (if not more) they'll just leave a "you weren't home note" even though you took the day off and then drop it off at a pickup point.
Downside is that i can't stop online shopping because the stores never carry what i need.
Lolol, I've had 1 Amazon package in 15 years stolen and it was when I lived in DC. Nearly all of my deliveries are spotless and I've probably spent 20k there over my life. Like over had maybe 5 minor screwups, all resolved to my favor and satisfaction.
Normal people laugh at you if you try to tell them this stuff.
Sucks that every book I order comes without padding and arrives super damaged.
Fuck Amazon
It doesn't even come to my door anymore I have to drive to the locker on the other side of my complex and god help you if you don't have your phone
There are things that you can only buy in amazon.
some amazon storefronts have their own web storefront not on amazon; same with etsy.
I once had an Amazon package I didn't order come to my house and the slip inside had an address in a completely different town. I felt bad for them at first but when I saw it was full of homoeopathic shit I consoled myself that they were probably retarded.
Scamazon.
Never had a package stolen. Amazon either gives the package to me directly, to a neighbour or lets me pick it up at the post office which luckily rarely happens
