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The Anti-Amazon Alliance

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Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#331

Post by BostonEnginerd »

sam_goody wrote: post #284
bb2018 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd still like to know what category of product you and others are talking about. I'm not in denial - just legitimately curious.

A fake watch (Armstrong IIRC. Wasn't waterproof as it should have been, and - too late - realized the word "water resistant" was misspelled.) A fake wire sodder, which was pretty expensive and cost me in damage to the item I wanted to build. I turned to the manufacturer and complained, and they asked me to send images... it was a fake. We got Desitin with a very weird consistency and smell. I am convinced it is not r…

We don't buy anything from Amazon which will go in or on our bodies anymore due to the prevalence of fake items. As one of the other commenters said - we'd rather go to Target or Costco to pick up brand name items.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#332

Post by lotsofpulp »

hyperdimension wrote: post #275
caseysoftware wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I know vaguely what a product should do, I use Amazon to find the specific brand, product, and models. Then I try to buy it directly from the manufacturer whenever possible. What's the search engine equivalent of "showrooming"?

Funny, I heard of Best Buy (a major US electronics chain of stores) being called the "Amazon showroom" more than a few years ago. I never would've thought the situation would've flipped like that.

Over a decade ago, I thought why would I ever need Best Buy and its overpriced HDMI cables. How can a business with all the liabilities of brick and mortar compete with new lean, online only business offering the best prices?

Turns out, all Best Buy had to do was not turn their inventory into a lottery of real/counterfeit/broken/returned stuff.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#333

Post by dwighttk »

rib3ye wrote: post #311
thr0w__4w4y wrote: post #225

Way way back, when Amazon got bigger than just books, my motivation for using them was a) very good selection (in one order, I can order bagel chips, wiper blades and a router?) and b) price. Implicit in this was authenticity and good customer service -- for me, if the product isn't the real thing, or the company is a nightmare to deal with, it's a non-starter. Well now here we are. Fake reviews, counterfeit products…

The trick is to look in the buy box on the right. If it doesn't have "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com", there's a high risk it's garbage.

yeah, the problem for me is that more and more that isn't even reliable

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#334

Post by tempestn »

TylerE wrote: post #285
Loughla wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>their website is almost nothing more than Ebay in some sense I would argue that it's even worse. At least, IME, the ratings at E-bay for both sellers and products mean something. With Amazon, neither mean a damned thing anymore. It's just a crap shoot, unless you know exactly what you're already looking for. Amazon used to be nice, because you could actually do product research. The worst thing, again in my opinion,…

"A++++++++++++++++++ AMAZING SELLR" means something?

The content of the positive reviews is usually noise, but the percentage of negatives is generally meaningful, as are the contents of some of the negative ones.

On Amazon, you can still get some value from the 1-3 star review contents, but the average star count (which is similar to eBay's % positive ratings) is almost meaningless since any number of negatives can be outweighed by near infinite fake 5-stars. That doesn't seem to happen as much on eBay (although I'm sure it does still happen).

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#335

Post by klyrs »

vict00ms wrote: post #256
noizejoy wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or guitars they hope to play regularly :-)

The best guitar-purchasing advise I ever got was: Never buy your dream guitar because you'll never feel like you're good enough to play it.

I have two bikes, and moved recently. Only had room for one, so the other went to a storage locker. I kept my beater at home because of exactly this phenomenon... since I've moved I've gone on more rides and felt little or no guilt about the unused bike in storage

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#336

Post by MattGaiser »

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #317

The thing about anti-Amazon rhetoric is that it's easily debunked because so many people transact business through them. There's no need to take any "expert" or activist opinion on the matter. The proof is in your own life experience. If it's sunny outside but someone on the internet is telling you that it's raining, you probably should discount the opinion of that person, or ignore entirely. I have no doubt that peo…

Those activists should focus their attention on all the businesses losing to Amazon who can’t be bothered to change their ways.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#337

Post by kabacha »

koboll wrote: post #14

>as John Gruber put it on Daring Fireball, “Amazon isn’t hurting for revenue (especially now), but they are hurting for trust.” This is empirically false. Amazon is the second most-trusted brand in America . https://morningconsult.com/most-trusted-brands/ It's wild how easily SV types will tweet things like "No one trusts Amazon!" when the reality outside the Bay Area is so radically and demonstrably opposite.

Here's my anecdote: I moved to SEA lately and we have no amazon here. Instead we have Lazada and Shopee - two huge store fronts with great technology and huge marketing. I don't trust neither of them, I feel like returning 30% of my orders, sometimes my returns get denied for no reason.

My last purchase was a lawn chair that was advertised with attachments, there was only one tiny 8point font note at the bottom that said translation something like "attachments are just attachments" which could vaguely be interpreted as attachments not included while all of the pictures and descriptions featured them. My return got denied.

All of the reviews are fake on thse two storefronts too. There are often promotions of "leave 5 star review with at least 3 pictures to win an iPad!" which would be illegal in many countries.

As much as I dislike Amazon, they are by far the most trustworthy general store front I've used.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#338

Post by starik36 »

Non24Throw wrote: post #302
thr0w__4w4y wrote: post #225

Way way back, when Amazon got bigger than just books, my motivation for using them was a) very good selection (in one order, I can order bagel chips, wiper blades and a router?) and b) price. Implicit in this was authenticity and good customer service -- for me, if the product isn't the real thing, or the company is a nightmare to deal with, it's a non-starter. Well now here we are. Fake reviews, counterfeit products…

> their prices aren't competitive anymore... What do you mean by this? Amazon has had the lowest price for basically everything I’ve shopped for in the last 4 years. When it is higher on Amazon, it’s by pennies (because algorithms) and not for very long. At home there’s a grocery store at the bottom of my elevator. It costs less money for me to buy groceries on Amazon Fresh with same-day delivery, than it does for me…

I was curious about the lower prices you mentioned. And it isn't the case for items I usually buy.

For instance, my local grocery store has 2 liter Diet Coke Caffeine Free for $0.99 (on sale, sure, but it occurs like clockwork every 2 weeks), while Amazon Fresh has it for $1.74. Plain bagels are $1.99 at the grocery store, while AF charges $3.24.

Could it be the case that your local grocery store is simply overpriced?

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#339

Post by jdhn »

thaeli wrote: post #75
ardy42 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is Google really all in on product search? Their product search is pretty bad at the moment and it's a very challenging search space, esp when you work with tens of thousands of retailers. Honestly, Amazon's own product search is pretty terrible too, unless you're searching for a specific name-brand product. Google might not even have to be very good to be competitive. The best product search I've actually found is…

There are other specific sectors with great product search - RockAuto for car parts, for example. It's a striking example because the big auto parts stores (AutoZone, Advance Auto, Pep Boys, etc) all try to have an "Amazon style" search and it doesn't work. Heck, it doesn't work well on Amazon either. In the specific sector of car parts, search is based on the year, manufacturer, model, and trim line/options of the v…

>RockAuto's site is ugly, but it's extremely functional.

I went to their site to see how ugly it was, and was absolutely blown away by how visually terrible it is. Truly function before form.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#340

Post by bsder »

Talanes wrote: post #313
bsder wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If frys hasn't gone out of business yet, they're not going to - last one I was in only sold gift bags and batteries in a massive retail space and yet somehow they were still there. I really don't understand why Fry's isn't out of business. Do they own the real estate they're sitting on or something? Are their online operations that profitable? Sure, a private company can carry losses for as long as they have money.…

>Do they own the real estate they're sitting on or something? A quick search gives some mixed results. They own their San Jose property¹ through an affiliate company. This affiliate doesn't appear to own any other Fry's property though². Conversely, the Palo Alto location was closed when the lease ran out³. ¹ https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/01/10/industrial-mega-devel... ² https://www.corporationwiki.com/California/…

> They own their San Jose property¹ through an affiliate company.

Ah! That probably explains it.

Any residual money can be drained into the affiliate companies before filing bankruptcy so that there is nothing left in "Fry's".

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