Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 495 posts

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#371

Post by sjwright »

fmela wrote: post #332
noncoml wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another B&H Photo Video happy customer here. Pity they were forced to start charging state taxes. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but can't help to think that Amazon was somehow involved in that.

Right or wrong, you can get around the sales tax using B&H's Payboo credit card (for use on their site only): https://www.bhphotovideo.com/credit-cards

It’s a discount offer, I don’t think it actually elides tax payment. According to the URL you cited:

“B&H will collect and remit state sales tax in accordance with state sales tax laws and regulations. So, customers do pay required sales tax and do not need to keep track or file anything separately.“

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#372

Post by jakearmitage »

arkades wrote: post #313
jakearmitage wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Try mcmaster-carr. They beat the stuffing out of home depot, lowe's and amazon all when it comes to hardware.

Holy crap, this is awesome. I could find the EXACT pipe fitting I needed. How did I not know about this?

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#373

Post by gtm1260 »

Kalium wrote: post #319
gtm1260 wrote: post #314

Its so unfair to expect consumers to go through hell on these random websites with poor UI/UX, customer service, logistics, and inventory monitoring systems. I don't think amazon should be able to crush small businesses etc, but I don't think appealing to people's sense of personal responsibility is the answer. There needs to be a viable way for other businesses to compete with amazon's level of service if they want…

The logistics, inventory management, and customer service operations at the scale of Amazon are something that become possible with truly immense scale. They're crushingly expensive at small scale - call center, warehouses, pre-positioning goods, etc. There are definitely ways to outsource any or all of these things, but at a cost in quality. I know I've often had unpleasant experiences with outsourced customer suppo…

Ah totally! I agree with your conclusion. I guess with the measures in place right now to fight COVID, the areas where Amazon might not have a vast advantage like niche selection, deep knowledge in a certain product area, being able to buy something in store immediatley etc. didn't occur to me.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#374

Post by boomboomsubban »

sneak wrote: post #261
boomboomsubban wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still stealing, the correct move would be to go back and pay the correct amount as you likely would have done if they overcharged you. That said, I doubt you could legally be held responsible and I see no problems with what you did morally either. If you noticed at the time I'd find it morally questionable, but you can't fix every mistake.

Stealing requires intent, generally.

Generally, but it can happen by accident. Have you never accidentally stolen a borrowed pen?

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#375

Post by boomboomsubban »

filoleg wrote: post #366
sneak wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stealing requires intent, generally.

Not just that, but like, the parent commenter actually got his items rung up in the store. So the parent wouldnt have even noticed they didn’t get charged for those items unless they were constantly checking their bank account for actual dollar amounts charged for every purchase. I find it difficult to believe that anyone would be able to claim that the parent commenter is at fault here.

I said they weren't at fault legally or morally. That doesn't mean it wasn't stolen.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#376

Post by wozniacki »

dawnerd wrote: post #119
cpascal wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Other than BestBuy, no other retailer "gets" ecommerce Target.com is a pretty solid experience. Walmart.com is also surprisingly good. Although I'm sure people can provide horror stories for both retailers.

Walmart still suffers the same problem Amazon has with 3rd party sellers. Quality can vary greatly depending on who you're buying from on their platform. Target and Best Buy definitely nailed it.

Walmart has been spot on with both their delivery as well pickup-in-store items. I wish they installed FREEZER SILOS at all of their locations for their pickup-in-store FROZEN foods that can be ordered online. Right now only select places have them. You cant order frozen foods online at the rest of the locations. But otherwise they have been great with all of my orders.

HomeDepot and Lowes are a joke. HomeDepot.com even tried to sneak in a 'handling fee' at the checkout ( paraphrasing I forget what they called it ) for a small kitchen appliance though it said 'free shipping' at first glance next to the item description.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#377

Post by FridgeSeal »

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.

Chain Reaction Cycles for bike gear is unmatched, and outdoes Amazon by a mile.

Search, sorting and faceting features are unmatched: Looking for a pair of handlebars: you can filter by material, colour, width, diameter, rise, sweep, brand, stock level, price. Need some wheels, specifically a wheel set that has a 25mm internal rim diameter, for road biking, disc brake compatible, with 6 bolt disc mounts, 28 spokes, made of carbon fibre, in stock, and then arranged by discount level? Then want to buy it for an actual reasonable price, and receive it within a calendar week (pretty great considering I'm on the opposite side of the world), then CRC is literally unmatched.

Components etc are sensibly, correctly and consistently arranged by type and feature in a way that makes me wish every other online retailer would take several pages out of their book.

I've hunted for bike components on Amazon, it was a painful experience that resulted in a lot of manual searching, going between several pages trying to compare between half a dozen differently formatted and arranged spec sheets just to figure out which components were compatible, and even then the prices were not worth it.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#378

Post by Diederich »

caymanjim wrote: post #174
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…

It sounds like you're shopping with alarming frequency, almost daily. Why so much? I stocked up over a month ago because it was clear this was coming, and while I've supplemented a little bit with one delivery and one shopping trip since then, I certainly didn't need to. I especially wouldn't be relying on InstaCart and other one-off prepared food deliveries with an immunocompromised person at home.

> alarming frequency, almost daily

We've only been able to get pretty small orders for a few weeks.

We incorrectly focused too heavily on building up the (not so tasty/suitable for 'normal' consumption) emergency supplies as the crisis was unfolding.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#379

Post by jgust »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #278
jgust wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Amazon is re-solving problems that traditional supply chain companies like McMaster-Carr solved 1-2 decades ago. It would be fascinating to read a case study comparing the two.

Amazon is trying to shed all possible liability as a merchant and collect their 15% or whatever rent, since that’s where the margins are. That’s at odds with what I’m looking for as a buyer, which is a seller that will vet and stand behind their products.

As any reasonable, educated consumer would be.

I would like to know if a McMaster-Carr, Grainger, et al had fallen into the same traps Amazon has when it comes to supply chain and if eventually Amazon will be shaped into a similar company & business model.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#380

Post by 373hbedudu »

sneak wrote: post #266

A lot of the things I used to buy on Amazon I buy on eBay instead using “buy it now”. Even free shipping items are frequently less than Amazon. I’ve already phased out AWS, I hope to stop using amazon.com by the end of the year. I don’t like doing business with military contractors.

I've done similar for almost the exact opposite reasons ironically. I don't care about them being a military contractor but I don't order from a soulless Megacorp to deal with their PR campaigns like self imposed sale restrictions of mask or sanitization supplies. It's driven me to order more from Wish and Alibaba.
Post reply on HN