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Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

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Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#121

Post by hamandcheese »

Diederich wrote: post #80
airstrike wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider soylent or other meal replacement items and military rations for emergency. Stock up on non-perishable grains, pasta, tomato sauce and canned fish. And I really mean stock up – at least 3-4 weeks worth of meals. Not in the SF Bay Area, but WF through the Amazon app is still what's been working for us, though I have to log in repeatedly to find a delivery window available...

Thanks for your response. We do have a fair amount of such emergency supplies, primarily in the form of protein bars, but a lot of other things as well. We would rather leave those be until (and if) there's an actual legit emergency for us to face. I think the Whole Foods via Amazon is still working, it's just extremely over-used in the bay area, so the orders we actually manage to get through are very small.

I find the chocolate Soylent drink to be quite yummy now and then, especially for breakfast (far above what my standards would be in an emergency) and Amazon is showing delivery this Friday to my apartment in SF.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#122

Post by Diederich »

ipsum2 wrote: post #112
Diederich wrote: post #41

Help requested. My wife, who is in her 50s, is immunocompromised, and she also has a history of fast escalating and difficult to treat respiratory problems. We are and have been (for the past 32 days) treating this bug very carefully. If she catches it, she has a very good chance of not surviving it. Our son and I are at less risk, but we can easily bring this bug home. We've been having more and more trouble getting…

I'm happy to purchase groceries for you, I'm in the same area. Email is in the profile. For other people who are also in a similar scenario: NextDoor and local FB groups are great for this.

Wow thanks! We might take you up on that, very much appreciated.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#123

Post by maerF0x0 »

MisterTea wrote: post #26

Can someone please explain to me like I'm 5 why adults have to be told that other retail outlets exist besides Amazon? If you are one of these people, please kindly explain to me how you forgot there are other shops.

> please kindly explain to me how you forgot there are other shops.

I will provide one anecdata. Often times the first place I look for the existence of an item is Amazon. That is if I want a certain cable, I do not open and search 5-10 different places (overstock, target, bestbuy et al). I just go to amazon and choose from what they have. There may be better, there may be cheaper, but unlikely with a sufficient margin to compensate for the overhead of searching more places, learning more nuances (return policy, shipping) etc.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#124

Post by dawnerd »

serf wrote: post #50
nataz wrote: post #17

Amazon shipping hack - order what you want to order, wait 48 hours to see if it ships, and if it doesn't cancel and order elsewhere. This assumes you value ordering through Amazon (I do b/c prime shipping, easy return policy, and I have a large gift card balance) One thing I've noticed is that amazon may list a delivery date far out in the future, but it's possible you still get the product quickly, depending on what…

> Amazon shipping hack - order what you want to order, wait 48 hours to see if it ships, and if it doesn't cancel and order elsewhere. Amazon used to have a history of banning 'bad customers' (lots of returns, cancelled orders, etc), is this no longer the case?

Anecdotal but I've cancelled a TON of orders and haven't been banned. Returns I can see, but definitely not cancelled orders.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#125

Post by dawnerd »

secabeen wrote: post #36
nataz wrote: post #17

Amazon shipping hack - order what you want to order, wait 48 hours to see if it ships, and if it doesn't cancel and order elsewhere. This assumes you value ordering through Amazon (I do b/c prime shipping, easy return policy, and I have a large gift card balance) One thing I've noticed is that amazon may list a delivery date far out in the future, but it's possible you still get the product quickly, depending on what…

I've also noticed that if you order multiple items, and one of them has a short shipping time, they'll suddenly ship your other items that are waiting. Presumably if they're all at the same warehouse, and they're already shipping one thing, they put the other stuff in the box.

Flip side is sometimes something that could ship fast ends up being delayed so they can group it with something that comes from a further away warehouse.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#126

Post by sosborn »

selykg wrote: post #65
larrik wrote: post #47

Right when this all was starting, I had finally chosen a bass guitar I wanted. I decided to try and support a non-Amazon business in GuitarCenter (the local music shops focus a lot more on school band instruments). So, I order online, and pick the "pick up at store" option, since it says they are in stock. I show up, and an hour later they figure out that they don't have it in stock, they only have the floor model (w…

Check out Sweetwater next time. They are significantly better. Their site actually shows you each guitar/bass they have in stock and they have an entire gallery Of photos for each. If you order one they’ll send a zip or the whole collection of photos. If you call and talk to the sales rep for you (you’re assigned one) they can usually knock 5-15% off. They also make sure each guitar/bass is setup to factory spec befo…

I second this recommendation. Sweetwater is great and their sales reps know what they are talking about.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#127

Post by ravenstine »

jakearmitage wrote: post #72
ebg13 wrote: post #23

I tried ordering some things from Home Depot the other day, and they silently cancelled half of my order while still charging me the same amount for delivery from the store and while saying that some things can only be delivered from a warehouse and that some things can only be delivered from a specific store and that delivery from each store has a $45 minimum purchase before they'll even consider delivery despite th…

HomeDepot's ecommerce is a joke. Not only the shopping experience is poor, they treat logistics as if they were doing you a favor. And, on top of all that, you get damaged items. I made 7 purchases and all 7, in different periods of time, had to be returned or replaced. Same for Lowe's. There's a reason people shop on Amazon. Other than BestBuy, no other retailer "gets" ecommerce.

To be fair, the in-person shopping experience at Home Depot is exactly the same. They're staying true to their ethos. ;)

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#128

Post by goatforce5 »

dvtrn wrote: post #78
x0x0 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite is how home depot lists stuff in stock on the search results page, but then when you click the individual item it's out of stock. It's a store. Why the fuck would a store ever show me an item -- at least by default -- that it isn't willing to sell me? Like who exactly wants that "feature"? It makes attempting to buy something from home depot's site an infuriating experience.

This has long been an issue I've had when trying to use online shopping/curbside pickup for grocery stores, and this comes even before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived and pushed more of us fortunate to live in cities where online grocery buying is a thing to....well start buying groceries online. Found myself just as baffled/apoplectic as you are: why would this be on your online storefront if you don't have the invent…

Last year I tried setting up a subscription for some pet food from a mid-sized pet store chain.

The first order went through fine.

3.5 weeks later I get an email saying my next order is about to be processed, now is the last chance for cancellations, etc. I ignore it, as I want the order to be processed.

A few days later I get an email saying they're out of stock and they'll retry again later. I get these emails every day for 2 weeks, and then my order is automatically cancelled.

This happens for 2 or 3 months before I get fed up and cancel the subscription.

If I put in an order effectively a month in advance you'd think they could make sure they had enough stock for that upcoming order.

(And it wasn't a complicated order, just multiple boxes of a single SKU.)

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#129

Post by jefftk »

Diederich wrote: post #41

Help requested. My wife, who is in her 50s, is immunocompromised, and she also has a history of fast escalating and difficult to treat respiratory problems. We are and have been (for the past 32 days) treating this bug very carefully. If she catches it, she has a very good chance of not surviving it. Our son and I are at less risk, but we can easily bring this bug home. We've been having more and more trouble getting…

Have you considered buying from stores that normally target commercial businesses? They generally have a lot more slack right now with restaurants not running. The minimum order size is kind of high, but if you buy non-perishables it might be good? https://www.webstaurantstore.com is what I've used.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#130

Post by greenshackle2 »

ehsankia wrote: post #39
nataz wrote: post #17

Amazon shipping hack - order what you want to order, wait 48 hours to see if it ships, and if it doesn't cancel and order elsewhere. This assumes you value ordering through Amazon (I do b/c prime shipping, easy return policy, and I have a large gift card balance) One thing I've noticed is that amazon may list a delivery date far out in the future, but it's possible you still get the product quickly, depending on what…

I really wish they could provide more clarity. I haven't tried ordering things that list as May, but browsing items, I randomly see individual items that for some reason have much closer dates. I even saw one with 1-day shipping. It makes no sense to me. I wish they could give a slightly better window prediction than "this may take a month"...

They are shipping "priority items" quickly. Who knows how they determine what are "priority items".

When I ordered hygiene items (shampoo, soap, etc.) they shipped the next day. But my order of kitchen equipment has expected delivery in May (which I'm totally fine with).

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