I have been ordering random things on eBay and Amazon- it turns out that right at this moment, eBay shipping is faster than Amazon Prime.
Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon
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Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon
#102Amazon sucks now. I can't buy most of the specific items I use in my work, and when I do find something it's swimming in a sea of clone crap. The best thing it does still is books. Anything else is a mizxed bag. AMZ is just Ali Baba for people who can't wait for the ship.
I find this odd. I read these sorts of comments every time Amazon in mentioned on HN, how its literally only clones, fakes, and scams, and impossible to find legitimate products anymore.
I have literally never received a fake/clone/scam off amazon, and I can't explain that discrepancy. I personally only buy things that are sold or fulfilled by amazon, never shipped by third party sellers, but surely everyone else as savy as HN readers does the same? Why order things with brutal shipping costs and times, only things fulfilled by amazon are quick.
Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then Amazon shouldn’t mix being a first party marketplace with being a third party marketplace. They take care of distribution and refunds so at least some of the responsibility falls on them as long as they keep playing peekaboo with who the source of Amazon items is. Amazon should have a separate logo style for pages not sold by Amazon.
> Then Amazon shouldn’t mix being a first party marketplace with being a third party marketplace. If this bothers people, they should stop using Amazon. Problem solved.
How does that solve the problem? By showing 3rd party products next to their own, they make it seem like Amazon has given their approval of that product, when that is absolutely not the case. Walmart is responsible for every product sold in their store, the same is not case for Amazon. This is the problem with so many internet companies, they want all the upside without the responsibility.
Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon
#104Amazon sucks now. I can't buy most of the specific items I use in my work, and when I do find something it's swimming in a sea of clone crap. The best thing it does still is books. Anything else is a mizxed bag. AMZ is just Ali Baba for people who can't wait for the ship.
I find this odd. I read these sorts of comments every time Amazon in mentioned on HN, how its literally only clones, fakes, and scams, and impossible to find legitimate products anymore. I have literally never received a fake/clone/scam off amazon, and I can't explain that discrepancy. I personally only buy things that are sold or fulfilled by amazon, never shipped by third party sellers, but surely everyone else as…
Yep, this is a great example of an echo-chamber that's developed in the HN community. Some of it is deserved, but not all.
Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. I used to read this comments and think it only applied to the US. Also happening to Spain. Amazon has become useless. Rankings are weird, quality stuff is is very hard to find and I have to resort to forums that point to Amazon links that you cannot find using Amazon search. Also, I'm more and more attracted to specialized shops again. For example for the last two years I've been buying most electronic stuff fr…
Amazon ships in 1-2 days, while at least from Europe Alibaba/AliExpress seem to be in the 14-60 days timeframe, and I imagine returns would be more hassle.
Amazon ships many things 14-30 days now anyway.
Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon
#106Amazon sucks now. I can't buy most of the specific items I use in my work, and when I do find something it's swimming in a sea of clone crap. The best thing it does still is books. Anything else is a mizxed bag. AMZ is just Ali Baba for people who can't wait for the ship.
That has been my experience as well
Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon
#107Amazon sucks now. I can't buy most of the specific items I use in my work, and when I do find something it's swimming in a sea of clone crap. The best thing it does still is books. Anything else is a mizxed bag. AMZ is just Ali Baba for people who can't wait for the ship.
What is the competition though. We need someone with a clue on competition. I'd go with anyone with a broad / reliable selection - ebay has been working recently - is that the future?
Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find this odd. I read these sorts of comments every time Amazon in mentioned on HN, how its literally only clones, fakes, and scams, and impossible to find legitimate products anymore. I have literally never received a fake/clone/scam off amazon, and I can't explain that discrepancy. I personally only buy things that are sold or fulfilled by amazon, never shipped by third party sellers, but surely everyone else as…
Yep, this is a great example of an echo-chamber that's developed in the HN community. Some of it is deserved, but not all.
It's highly dependent on what you're looking for. If you search for "Belkin USB charger", you'll usually end up getting some good results at the top of the listings.
But if you search for "USB charger", you need to prepare yourself for pages upon pages of identical-looking chargers from "Amoner", "RAVpower", "iSmart", "Ailkin", "Anker", "Power7", "Nekmit", etc.
And most of them have hundreds or thousands of 4/5-star reviews, most of them compensated in some form or another, so good luck trying to separate the wheat from the chaff.
For about half the things I search for on Amazon, it's a similar situation.
Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon
#109My theory: Prime, and its 2-day shipping service, is a flat rate deal, priced according to 10.5 normal months and 1.5 batshit crazy delivery months. Since they can't charge on a demand basis for shipping like FedEx can, they've run into an internal train wreck where they can't afford to deliver all the orders the've received. So their bottleneck is actually a bottleneck of budgeted "delivery slots" for these Spring months, which they've excused as being "due to essential items only, can't keep up with demand."
I've noticed something that I found extremely curious: I've ordered several random things in the last month from Amazon, and all have been severely delayed. These are not surge items: drumsticks, a guitar wall hanger, and an APC ups. All were Prime items, and all have been severely delayed, waiting weeks now. I get it, they are 'focusing on essential items' and my guitars will be fine to wait a while longer. However...
I have not noticed many Prime delivery vans out in the neighborhood. During the holidays, Prime vans are everywhere. Today, they are not. Last mile shipping is one of those businesses that gets gloriously efficient with scale. Bezos announced that 100,000 person hire a few weeks back, which I assumed would be rehiring their holiday surge subcontractors. But few vans on the streets today.
Finally, what essential items does Amazon have in stock that is overtaking their delivery supply chain?
Re: Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon
#110Amazon sucks now. I can't buy most of the specific items I use in my work, and when I do find something it's swimming in a sea of clone crap. The best thing it does still is books. Anything else is a mizxed bag. AMZ is just Ali Baba for people who can't wait for the ship.
I find this odd. I read these sorts of comments every time Amazon in mentioned on HN, how its literally only clones, fakes, and scams, and impossible to find legitimate products anymore. I have literally never received a fake/clone/scam off amazon, and I can't explain that discrepancy. I personally only buy things that are sold or fulfilled by amazon, never shipped by third party sellers, but surely everyone else as…
Never had any issues either. Like you most things I buy are fulfilled by amazon. I believe people who experience this must be buying exclusively from 3rd parties. Ideally Amazon would try to stop this, but to do so they'd need to solve the fake review problem first.