Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#441

Post by econcon » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 6:55 AM UTC

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…

India doesn't even have any homedepot/McMaster Car equivalent.

There are some online shops which sell chemicals but they charge a lot for its delivery.

Meanwhile, you can't buy Welding rod, helmet or machines online.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#442

Post by yCloser » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 7:09 AM UTC

EU here, things seem pretty good here.

* I ordered 20kg of oranges from sicily, no shipping costs, arrived in 2days

* Coffee, same thing

* a bass guitar, same

* groceries are delivered in a day from local shops

* for electronics i bought from many shops, usually takes ~1week. still OK for a washing machine or those big items

...seems that "the infrastructure" that amazon required for ups/dhl/* are being used by any other (even tiny) buisiness.

My only complain is Ikea. Ikea doesn't cooperate.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#443

Post by _n_b_ » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 7:15 AM UTC

yCloser wrote: post #442

EU here, things seem pretty good here. * I ordered 20kg of oranges from sicily, no shipping costs, arrived in 2days * Coffee, same thing * a bass guitar, same * groceries are delivered in a day from local shops * for electronics i bought from many shops, usually takes ~1week. still OK for a washing machine or those big items ...seems that "the infrastructure" that amazon required for ups/dhl/* are being used by any o…

Totally OT but where did you order the oranges from? I am in need of a few kg for juicing and it's expensive from the local grocery delivery folks around me...

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#444

Post by SifJar » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 7:19 AM UTC

gregmac wrote: post #364

Spooky23 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s crazy. Target smokes Amazon for most things these days, especially with pickup. Ditto for NewEgg and Walmart. Amazon is increasingly overrated, they peaked a decade ago and have declined to a warehouse club/flea market.

I honestly don't understand the 3rd party seller thing. I went from buying almost all PC parts from NewEgg (without even bothering to price shop), to pretty much avoiding the site entirely. If you look at almost any of the 3rd party sellers' pages and sort by rating, you'll pretty much see the same pattern on all: a tiny handful of 4-5 star reviews, 1 star reviews by the bottom of page 1, and the remaining 80 pages o…

> Is this really helping Walmart/NewEgg/Amazon/etc vs them just selling the same products directly themselves? Why do this -- are they just trying to avoid these sellers starting competing no-name e-commerce sites?

My thought would be this allows them to pivot from being a "logistics" company to being a "tech" company, providing a "platform" for others.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#445

Post by _n_b_ » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 7:23 AM UTC

FreshFruitGuy wrote: post #417

williamdclt wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if they can be delivered, but frozen vegetable can be kept forever and are often better than "fresh" supermarket vegetable because they are frozen right after being picked, so they actually are fresher. My only source is my mom though, you might want to double-check this claim

Here you go! Evaluate at your own risk 1. https://books.google.com/books?id=64FJDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT144&lpg=... 2. https://books.google.com/books?id=vFNpcwXlDT8C&pg=PA37&lpg=P...

Very on-topic username, FreshFruitGuy.

Here are a couple more citations that have more data behind them, if somebody wants to dig into it (and has the journal access):

* https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030881469... * https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4615-5975-7_... * https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jsfa.2825

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#446

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 7:25 AM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #206

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…

Definitely try alternate services. We had much more luck with local stores than with Prime Now. In our area, Prime Now for Amazon has never had a delivery window, Prime Now for Whole Foods rarely does, but the local Fred Meyer has delivery windows open up regularly, often for same-day delivery. Also check Albertson's, Safeway, Target, Walmart, Shipt, and any other service. Talk to local non-chain or small-chain store…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#447

Post by cja » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 7:25 AM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #358

tmaly wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ordered a chest freezer from Home Depot. When I ordered it, I double checked that it was not listed as out of stock. I got a notice they were delivering on April 4. It was never delivered. The delivery company told me they were never shipped the freezer to deliver. When I called Home Depot, they said freezers are on back order to June. They told me I could call the manufacturer. This is a bit crazy. I have never ha…

> This is a bit crazy. I have never had a place tell me to call the manufacturer. I bought a stand mixer from John Lewis, a British department store with a (arguably fading) reputation for better service, its own 5y plus guarantees, etc. When I needed to call ok that guarantee for a replacement part, I had two months of email run around before getting a reference number and phone number for the manufacturer's UK dist…

I had a very similar issue with trying to get a replacement part for a JL nursing chair. The JL customer support staff seemed to see their job as being to find reasons to justify not helping me, presumably to save their company a few pounds.

I am happy even to pay extra to buy from Amazon because I know that if there is a problem they will delight me with their response.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#448

Post by twblalock » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 7:30 AM UTC

mathattack wrote: post #303

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…

This is the difference between delivery being your primary focus versus secondary focus.

I've ordered from other traditional retail places before, like Target and Walmart and Macy's, and I haven't had a problem. They care more about technology than most people think, even though their primary focus is in-store sales.

Home Depot just isn't as good at delivery as they are. Ikea is also pretty terrible. What they both seem to have in common is a coordination problem between their inventory systems and the third-party delivery services that actually get the stuff to the customer. Most of the time the stuff they sell is too big to send through the mail.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#449

Post by zo1 » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 7:49 AM UTC

x0x0 wrote: post #46

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…

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.

Personally, I think this is due to "Microservices". You have a separate "search" microservice whose data is out of date or misaligned with the "product listing" microservice. Same goes with Amazon and international delivery on some level. It's gotten better over the years, but there is still such a mismatch such that you can't "filter" only "international" delivery items.

Re: Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online

#450

Post by LatteLazy » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 8:08 AM UTC

thewebcount wrote: post #338

LatteLazy wrote: post #292

>Amazon Isn’t the Only Shop Online They sort of are at the moment, at least here in greater London... My normal groceries company have cancelled online orders silently and will not deliver anything. They can't even update their websites with new opening times. The local DIY (B&Q) store are taking order for essential items only (loft ladders and plants are essential, but not light bulbs or fuses wtf?) Amazon randomly…

Instacart in Los Angeles did this to me. I ordered groceries and the local store uses Instacart to deliver them. When they didn't show up, I had to call Instacart to find out they had canceled my order. They were just not going to tell me, apparently.

I can understand that places have problems with volume of orders or items not being in stock. But it should be really hard to cancel a client order and NOT tell them. How is it they don't have something that emails you when your order is killed already and automatically!?