Their basic underlying assumption appears to be that they're no longer in danger of losing customers and can now act accordingly. Now that they've captured 50%+ of US ecommerce, they've also raised many prices, to the point where they're far from the cheapest price in many cases. A random example... the cat litter I just purchased is $17.89 at Amazon, $13.49 at Walmart. Last week I bought a chair mat for $21.95 on Eb…
I never really thought that Amazon was the cheapest. The draw for me was always the free shipping and convenience. I actually don't remember Amazon ever marketing their service as having the cheapest price but I could be mistaken?
Unfortunately Newegg also seems to have gone downhill. Allowing third party sellers is a good way to boost revenues quickly but it also quickly makes the buying experience worse. I now prefer stores where they have the same item only once and not from dozens of sellers. Or I go to eBay.
When NewEgg started the 3rd-party sellers, I quit buying from them. I don't buy from Sears for the same reason. If I wanted a flea market, I'd go find an shut-down drive-in theater. And that's the trick: I'd buy from NewEgg based on their reputation, not the reputation of some company I've never heard of. Back in the day, if I bought from Amazon I assumed (probably incorrectly) that it was somewhat curated. With 3rd-…
> Their basic underlying assumption appears to be that they're no longer in danger of losing customers and can now act accordingly. Speaking as a longtime customer, I agree: this is what Amazon's behavior feels like to me nowadays. Search no longer works well for me. Reviews and product ratings are no longer trustworthy. The authenticity of products in key categories (e.g., electronics) can no longer be taken for gra…
Amazon search and non amazonbasics products are approaching garbage-level. How about half a page of advertising to buy some Chinese knockoff of a product that will break in a month. My mom wanted some new lighting Apple headphones (earpods). Good luck finding actual Apple products on there. I bought them from B&H instead. No tax + free faster shipping.
Exactly. I was looking for a waterproof iPhone case. Finding a "reputable" brand on Amazon is near impossible now - their search results bring up pages and pages of the same rebranded knockoffs.
Any camera or electronics gear I order now comes from B&H or dare I say it - Best Buy. Better shipping options, better return options and just easier to find items overall. This is coming from a prime subscriber of years now.
I almost ordered two pvc plumbing fittings from Amazon last week for $13.99. Thanks to some Hackernews skepticism I cancelled my shopping cart. I found the same fittings at my local hardware store for $8.99. My question is, how dynamic are Amazon’s prices? Do all users see the same prices or is it more like google search where results are “personalized”? It seems like they could dynamically change prices based on use…
You were likely buying from a 3rd party seller. I know of some people who do this. Basically, list tons of items on Amazon from local speciality stores, Costco, etc. They markup prices, of course. Then once a day, on their way back home, they pickup stuff that was bought, pack it at night, and then ship it in the morning. You are basically paying for someone else to shop. I was introduced to this side-hustle by my fr…
Even better are the drop shippers, who just scrape retailers online and create marked up listings on Amazon. When a user orders from their Amazon shop, they just place the order immediately on the boutique shop with the buyer's delivery information. Get a lot of these scripts running, and you can make a good bit of money.
I am also not about to renew my Prime membership. You list gave me a lot of confidence. But one of important benefit I use Prime for is Amazon Photos. Unlimited backup of your photos. When I look at other solutions such as Backblaze, they will all cost at least $50 a year. Then another benefit I like is Prime Music. Which again is going to cost money if I get music subscription from Spotify or somewhere else. So when…
You can substitute Google Photos for Amazon Photos. I have several Google accounts that have soccer photos, family photos, etc. I want to keep pictures of other people's kids from trying to be recognized as my own. And the family photos account can be be given to someone else to control without giving access to my email. You get 15G of storage with unaltered originals, unlimited if you let them compress. If you set u…
Unless you know exctly brand/make/model you wan't to buy on Amazon, the search is useless. Hundreds of similar results from dozens of vendors of varying quality. I liked it better when they sold things themselves, now they're just an eBay clone selling cheap knockoffs trying to hide the fact.
Indeed. It has been common practice for PC parts to use Newegg's search and buy from Amazon, but lately Amazon's price hasn't actually been lower so you can eliminate one step.
My last PC was built in 2016 from Amazon, but you'd be crazy to do that now. All the parts were sold by Amazon besides the case. I'd ordered a 6600K, the box said it was a K processor, but it wasn't (reported itself as a 6600). Amazon was good about the return, and as far as I can tell the replacement was genuine, but that was too much money to risk on getting counterfeit parts. I've had poor luck with anything electronic in the last 2 years, trying to get a USB-C cable that meets specs might actually be easier on AliExpress. I'm needing some new spinning rust drives for the Nas, and I haven't even considered purchasing from Amazon. Even if they were cheaper, I'll gladly pay 5-10% more from micro center to ensure my backup drives are legitimate.
As a company, yes. As a customer experience, not really. At Walmart, I have to interact with employees who never seem happy to be there. A good quarter have no real reason to do more than minimum. I have to wait in line most times. Now, it has been over 5 years since I've had a walmart in the same country as I am, but I remember the horribleness of 2am walmart, mostly because they would only open one or two registers…
To be honest, with the growth of self-checkout at Walmart the times I actually interact with a Walmart employee directly is now probably close to 30%.
They could reduce fees and cut ad prices. That does have a big impact. They can also offer better deals to brands. They tend to offer really crap deals to brands on the vendor side, but they could easily just give them more margin.
If you're referring to Vendor Central, I've no idea since we've not participated in that yet. Cutting fees and slashing ad prices would be a start - but it would take a while before people trust it. We got into FBA heavily because it dramatically boosted sales... even on products we co-listed FBM on (nuts, you pay more to fulfill it via Amazon's network, but they boost your sales, so it washed out). Recently, they've…
Yeah, they tend to give bad deals to brands selling to Amazon through Vendor Central. If Amazon wanted to be more price competitive vs. other retailers they could offer to subsidize coupons, stop requiring fees on lightning deals, subsidize lightning deals, cut prices on ads, etc.
There are a lot of people in your boat and there are some companies that provide sophisticated software solutions to determining the best mix of FBA vs. FBM for your business.