Shopping Sucks Now • Hacker News Board

Re: Shopping Sucks Now

#181

Post by egypturnash » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 6:12 AM UTC

qrbLPHiKpiux wrote: post #101

egypturnash wrote: post #12

When I was living in the PNW and realized I direly needed gloves, I just hit up a few of the department stores downtown until I found some that met my criteria. Which are probably similar to those of this author, I wanted some that looked cute, had a conductive patch on the finger so I could use my phone without taking them off, would fit on my long hands with long fingernails, and weren’t super expensive gloves desi…

At Sam's Club today, eyeing a watch. Waiting for associate to let me see it. Open Amazon, read reviews. Over $20 less on Amazon. Asked if Sam's price matches. > No. In two taps, right in front of her, ordered it. Said she understood. Thanked her for showing it to me.

Dude, that’s a total dick move.

Is twenty bucks really that precious to you that you’ll throw money out of your local economy into Bezos’ pockets? Right in front of someone who just helped you decide this is the watch you wanted and could have put it in your hands right now instead of waiting for shipping in the middle of the super-busy Christmas season and hoping it’s not gonna end up be a counterfeit copy?

Re: Shopping Sucks Now

#182

Post by vineyardmike » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 6:13 AM UTC

Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #170

egypturnash wrote: post #12

When I was living in the PNW and realized I direly needed gloves, I just hit up a few of the department stores downtown until I found some that met my criteria. Which are probably similar to those of this author, I wanted some that looked cute, had a conductive patch on the finger so I could use my phone without taking them off, would fit on my long hands with long fingernails, and weren’t super expensive gloves desi…

Many many times I've consciously thought "I'm going to give retail a chance!" and go out of my way to find something at a physical store. Often it's because I might want it that day; sometimes I've just wanted to explore. Yet I always end up wasting many hours. I can't drive, so it's public transport and walking everywhere for me (that's fine, it just adds to the time). My experience has been that if you know exactly…

> physical stores treating their employees like shit

Wait until you hear about amazon.

Re: Shopping Sucks Now

#183

Post by egypturnash » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 6:25 AM UTC

vector_spaces wrote: post #43

egypturnash wrote: post #12

When I was living in the PNW and realized I direly needed gloves, I just hit up a few of the department stores downtown until I found some that met my criteria. Which are probably similar to those of this author, I wanted some that looked cute, had a conductive patch on the finger so I could use my phone without taking them off, would fit on my long hands with long fingernails, and weren’t super expensive gloves desi…

I feel this so much. Sometimes I'll look up objects I've bought in brick & mortar stores that I've been completely happy with, and find that they have dismal reviews. This is why for certain items I make a conscious effort to not bother looking at the reviews. Even if it were possible for me to find the best doormat, it simply wouldn't be worth the time, labor, and emotional energy of sifting through reviews and foru…

Go outside and find a reasonably solid stick, clean it up a bit, and take the cord and toy off of one of your broken cat wands. Or visit the hardware store and get a reasonably solid dowel and do the same.

It won’t be The Best but it will have a much lower carbon footprint than buying another plastic one made in China, shipped across the ocean, and then shipped around three or four times while people try to arbitrage costs between major e-commerce sites. And if you have any kind of mystical bent then it can also have the bonus of being charged with you thinking about how much you love your little mouse-murderer, and that will make it far better than any mass-produced toy.

Re: Shopping Sucks Now

#184

Post by lonelappde » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 6:30 AM UTC

egypturnash wrote: post #12

When I was living in the PNW and realized I direly needed gloves, I just hit up a few of the department stores downtown until I found some that met my criteria. Which are probably similar to those of this author, I wanted some that looked cute, had a conductive patch on the finger so I could use my phone without taking them off, would fit on my long hands with long fingernails, and weren’t super expensive gloves desi…

You can buy duplicates of a consumable.

Re: Shopping Sucks Now

#185

Post by lonelappde » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 6:32 AM UTC

qrbLPHiKpiux wrote: post #101

egypturnash wrote: post #12

When I was living in the PNW and realized I direly needed gloves, I just hit up a few of the department stores downtown until I found some that met my criteria. Which are probably similar to those of this author, I wanted some that looked cute, had a conductive patch on the finger so I could use my phone without taking them off, would fit on my long hands with long fingernails, and weren’t super expensive gloves desi…

At Sam's Club today, eyeing a watch. Waiting for associate to let me see it. Open Amazon, read reviews. Over $20 less on Amazon. Asked if Sam's price matches. > No. In two taps, right in front of her, ordered it. Said she understood. Thanked her for showing it to me.

Why didn't you give her a tip?

Re: Shopping Sucks Now

#186

Post by erezsh » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 7:36 AM UTC

loblollyboy wrote: post #90

bartread wrote: post #67

Sorry, but I just can't get on board with this point of view. Shopping has always sucked. Badly. Going to the shops has to be one of the single most annoying and unpleasant day to day experiences I deal with[1]. If you live anywhere even remotely populous when you visit the shops there are people milling around just ####ing everywhere. Dithering, dawdling, standing around chatting at every choke point in the aisles,…

Sounds like you just hate people

To be fair, have you met people?

Re: Shopping Sucks Now

#187

Post by askafriend » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 7:45 AM UTC

graaben wrote: post #60

ropiwqefjnpoa wrote: post #2

Something that has been lost is genuine reviews. First you have all the sponsored reviews and then all the equally worthless "I don't know how to use it so it's junk" or "it never arrived" 1 star reviews. And so many "review" sites look like they've been procedurally generated then SEO optimized and filled with ads.

I used to work for on of those "review" websites and it completely ruined my trust in most online product review sites. It's all just affiliate links, optimized for which offer pays out the highest conversion fee, with little to zero regard for the actual product. I would pay a decent amount of money for a tool that just filtered out any sites in Google search that promote products using affiliate links.

What about something like The Wirecutter? Would you trust them?

Re: Shopping Sucks Now

#188

Post by iwazaki » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 7:51 AM UTC

Shopping online costs everything more except traveling and getting other customers’ opinions.

Amazon search result provides about 10 items per click to next page. In a traditional store you can see hundreds of goods at a glance, plus tons of rich info like smell, size, texture.

For products with standard specs like cable and socket, it’s pretty good to shop online. But for basically everything else, I prefer to travel downtown.

Re: Shopping Sucks Now

#189

Post by rawoke083600 » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 8:09 AM UTC

bartread wrote: post #67

Sorry, but I just can't get on board with this point of view. Shopping has always sucked. Badly. Going to the shops has to be one of the single most annoying and unpleasant day to day experiences I deal with[1]. If you live anywhere even remotely populous when you visit the shops there are people milling around just ####ing everywhere. Dithering, dawdling, standing around chatting at every choke point in the aisles,…

Agreed ! Going shoe shopping is usually something I have todo to find a nice fit, after wittering down the look/style/options I travel into the shoe stores only to be met by workers that couldn't care less, don't have my size in stock and then yea all the people mulling about you !

Re: Shopping Sucks Now

#190

Post by Too » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 8:39 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #47

basseq wrote: post #4

That "tyranny of perfect information" begets FOMO. If you'd looked at one more site or one more review you might have discovered a "better" (cheaper, high quality, higher utility) item. I'd add that's it's worse because the world is flatter. Why should I buy Brand Item when I can get a version from Alibaba for 10-20%? If it truly is comparable, then why pay the markup when the internet lets me cut out the middleman?…

Consistent quality is the entire point of brands. Find a soap you like and you can mindlessly get the same thing for the next 20+ years. Which also generally means you can pick a random brand and not end up with junk as long as trust the supply chain. The issue is when you want something different than the millions of other people out there. Sure, things change and the quality may slip, but there is only so much time…

A lot of brands also try to push cheapo goods under their good brand, usually by adding some stupid suffix like "express" to the brand name, which you don't realize until after you've bought the item.

Electronics especially is very difficult. Take Samsung for example, any phone that is not the latest S-model is really disappointing. Less educated consumers just know that "samsung phones are good", when most reviews only refer to S10. Likewise I can't mindlessly go into a store an buy a Sony TV even if my last Sony TV was good, i need to do the online research to figure out that the last 2 characters in the model-nr indicates if this is the premium version or not. Things change so quickly also that the brand that had the lead one year ago is no longer having the best options.