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Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

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Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#21

Post by jacobolus »

thesimon wrote: post #13

Their return policy is really great during the holidays, which might contribute to it. As a (late) holiday shopper and Prime member, their shipping guarantees are top notch though. No praying that it arrives in time. (Whereas Amazon says, order within x hours for delivery tomorrow, a lot of other shops here just feel like "Usually shipped within 1-2 days, if your hair is green, Tom is working in the office and your o…

Unfortunately I had several things in my Amazon cart which said “order within 8 hours and it arrives December 24” (or whatever), that when I looked back at 3 hours later had lost the guarantee, and now could only promise to arrive by the 26th/27th.

Didn’t turn out to be a big deal, but folks shouldn’t take those guarantees for granted.

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#22

Post by rconti »

randycupertino wrote: post #2

I shopped for Christmas on Amazon, it was kind of a pain. I had to ship it all to myself, wrap it, put on gift notes and then pack it all up and ship it all to my family across the country. I was going to do their individual gift wrapping but it was $6 PER ITEM. Considering I got about 15 items, that really adds up. I think I'll still do some shopping on there next year, I just wish they had cheaper gift wrapping and…

Considering what USPS, FedEx, and UPS charge us plebes without a corporate account, I'm surprised you could even ship 5 packages for under $90 ($6*15), let alone all 15 items.

Not to mention the cost of standing in line. I spent 30min at the post office mailing a SINGLE package back in mid-December.. and I thought I was ahead of the christmas game!

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#23

Post by scoot »

randycupertino wrote: post #2

I shopped for Christmas on Amazon, it was kind of a pain. I had to ship it all to myself, wrap it, put on gift notes and then pack it all up and ship it all to my family across the country. I was going to do their individual gift wrapping but it was $6 PER ITEM. Considering I got about 15 items, that really adds up. I think I'll still do some shopping on there next year, I just wish they had cheaper gift wrapping and…

"I shopped for Christmas on Amazon, it was kind of a pain. I had to ship it all to myself, wrap it, put on gift notes and then pack it all up and ship it all to my family across the country."

I'm struggling to understand how that is any more of a pain than trawling around town to find appropriate gifts, then completing those very same steps. And with Amazon, you at least have the option of their (admittedly overpriced and ugly) gift wrap.

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#24

Post by lotsofpulp »

mmmBacon wrote: post #19
randycupertino wrote: post #2

I shopped for Christmas on Amazon, it was kind of a pain. I had to ship it all to myself, wrap it, put on gift notes and then pack it all up and ship it all to my family across the country. I was going to do their individual gift wrapping but it was $6 PER ITEM. Considering I got about 15 items, that really adds up. I think I'll still do some shopping on there next year, I just wish they had cheaper gift wrapping and…

The biggest savings of Christmas shopping on Amazon is not having to go to a physical store to do the shopping. No driving around wasting hours in traffic, waiting in lines, and dealing with cranky people. The added benefit is that Amazon also usually has the thing you are looking for too. So if you add up all that time saved, time spent wrapping is really not that bad.

It's really the biggest saving of shopping online, period. I would pay a great deal more to not have to stand in a line and get stuck behind someone pulling out coupons and a checkbook and doing a price check at a checkout aisle in a store.

Physical stores can't even implement the obviously better solution of getting everyone in one queue, and then directing them to the next open register (except for TJ Maxx and Marshalls and a couple others)

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#25

Post by hnnicker »

randycupertino wrote: post #2

I shopped for Christmas on Amazon, it was kind of a pain. I had to ship it all to myself, wrap it, put on gift notes and then pack it all up and ship it all to my family across the country. I was going to do their individual gift wrapping but it was $6 PER ITEM. Considering I got about 15 items, that really adds up. I think I'll still do some shopping on there next year, I just wish they had cheaper gift wrapping and…

I opted to have Amazon gift wrap and ship directly to my sister this year. The surprise was that what she opened was not what I ordered. I'm guessing they have a gift wrap station and once it was wrapped, it looked just like the other gifts, so the wrong one got put into the shipping box to my sister.

The return process does not handle this well.

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#26

Post by gutnor »

chrischen wrote: post #14
zitterbewegung wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much time did it take for you to wrap it? I usually say for myself if I were paying myself minimum wage and it exceeds that then I rather pay someone else.

People usually would only be paid minimum wage for the hours they work in a day (~8). So just pretend you gift wrap after those hours, where you are paid $0/hr.

It is a way to measure if something is really expensive.

Another way to look at it is that $90 is about a regular night out. The choice is between investing 1 evening of your time to save for 1 night out later, or instead invest nothing but lose one night out that you need to spend in front of the TV.

YMMV, but probably the tipping point in GP specific situation is that he also had to post them all by himself, which is a huge pain and is probably alone worth it to have amazon do it.

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#27

Post by jedberg »

scoot wrote: post #23
randycupertino wrote: post #2

I shopped for Christmas on Amazon, it was kind of a pain. I had to ship it all to myself, wrap it, put on gift notes and then pack it all up and ship it all to my family across the country. I was going to do their individual gift wrapping but it was $6 PER ITEM. Considering I got about 15 items, that really adds up. I think I'll still do some shopping on there next year, I just wish they had cheaper gift wrapping and…

"I shopped for Christmas on Amazon, it was kind of a pain. I had to ship it all to myself, wrap it, put on gift notes and then pack it all up and ship it all to my family across the country." I'm struggling to understand how that is any more of a pain than trawling around town to find appropriate gifts, then completing those very same steps. And with Amazon, you at least have the option of their (admittedly overprice…

> (overpriced and ugly)

My parents bought my daughter a present and got the gift wrapping option and it was this amazing blue velvet gift sack. We saved it so we can use it again it was so nice. In fact, for the $6 my parents paid, we couldn't get a bag that nice ourselves.

I guess my point is, YMMV.

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#28

Post by pmorici »

rconti wrote: post #22
randycupertino wrote: post #2

I shopped for Christmas on Amazon, it was kind of a pain. I had to ship it all to myself, wrap it, put on gift notes and then pack it all up and ship it all to my family across the country. I was going to do their individual gift wrapping but it was $6 PER ITEM. Considering I got about 15 items, that really adds up. I think I'll still do some shopping on there next year, I just wish they had cheaper gift wrapping and…

Considering what USPS, FedEx, and UPS charge us plebes without a corporate account, I'm surprised you could even ship 5 packages for under $90 ($6*15), let alone all 15 items. Not to mention the cost of standing in line. I spent 30min at the post office mailing a SINGLE package back in mid-December.. and I thought I was ahead of the christmas game!

Why would you stand in line at the post office to ship something? Buy and print the labels at home using something like Paypal's shipping url[0] if you don't have any idea about the weight use flat rate boxes. Fedex has a similar flat rate box shipping with their "OneRate" rates. Then all you are doing at the shipping place is dropping packages off so there is no line waiting.

[0] https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_ship-now

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#29

Post by yial »

Fjolsvith wrote: post #4

For me, Amazon is the way to go. I live an hour from the nearest Walmart or department store. The FedEx and UPS delivery people know me really well.

Where do you live? I didn't realize places that remote still existed! (Only partially joking)

Re: Amazon Is Capturing Bigger Slice of U.S. Online Holiday Spending

#30

Post by [deleted] »

randycupertino wrote: post #2

I shopped for Christmas on Amazon, it was kind of a pain. I had to ship it all to myself, wrap it, put on gift notes and then pack it all up and ship it all to my family across the country. I was going to do their individual gift wrapping but it was $6 PER ITEM. Considering I got about 15 items, that really adds up. I think I'll still do some shopping on there next year, I just wish they had cheaper gift wrapping and…

[deleted]
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