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The Anti-Amazon Alliance

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Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#351

Post by RonanTheGrey »

anyfoo wrote: post #251
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.

How far lagging behind is that assessment, or how likely is it that perceived trust is just lagging behind? Anecdotical, it's wasn't long ago that I was deeply impressed by Amazon's customer service and quality. This has changed drastically, and today I go as far as only using Amazon if I basically have to . Thanks to recent developments (I'd say over the past few years), I now prefer either the manufacturer's websit…

I agree with this. Reputation is a funny thing, we think it is quickly lost (and can be), but it can also be lost very very slowly as a slow erosion of time.

I tend to think this slow way is alot harder to bounce back from. It took what, 3 generations? For Japanese-made cars to be seen as equal to or better than, American made cars, because for a long, long time the perception was that Japanese-made was crap (and it was). It took generations to overcome that point of view (because it took generations to form it).

It looks to me like the same is happening to Amazon. Not many people fully trust Amazon anymore, but also don't distrust it enough to say "I don't trust it!" to a survey. More like "Well... kind of... ok sure... I trust them."

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#352

Post by halbritt »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #250
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…

> it's really more like shopping at a bazaar, since really their website is almost nothing more than Ebay in some sense So, yeah, eBay, Ali-express ... might as well go there.

I sometimes buy things from eBay when I know I'll get a counterfeit item from Amazon.

...strange world.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#353

Post by halbritt »

buddylw wrote: post #260
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…

I recently made this realization and that eBay is actually better. eBay doesn't want 30% of the sale. I can order one item at a time prices are generally lower and, imo quality and risk are the same.

For something, the risk of a counterfeit seems lower.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#354

Post by RonanTheGrey »

three_seagrass wrote: post #95
tantalor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this Simpon's paradox at work? Google is more trusted than Amazon in Gen-Z Adults, Millennials, and Gen-X, but overall Amazon beats Google. Google doesn't even make the top-25 of Boomers, but Amazon is #11. That's a little weird; does it explain the overall result?

People trust the brands they grow up with. For example, Boomers trust Betty Crocker, Heinze, and AAA, which do not even show up for younger generations.

I dunno, I'm a millennial and I grew up with all 3 of those featuring prominently in my childhood.

Although, really only in my childhood..

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#355

Post by RonanTheGrey »

ars wrote: post #189
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…

> Honestly, Amazon's own product search is pretty terrible too If they could just include shipping when doing a "sort by price", or a price limit search, that alone would help SO MUCH. I pick "prime only", "under $10", and I get results where some other non-prime seller is selling it for under $10, with $15 of shipping. Useless. Actually even ignoring shipping, if the under $10 price is for a non-prime option, why is…

They used to include a filter that said "including shipping". Honestly their search now is alot less functional than it used to be, which just makes it easier for them to push their ads-disguised-as-top-products crap.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#356

Post by RonanTheGrey »

eitally wrote: post #232
somethingwitty1 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a giant banner at the top of their site that explained there was global health crisis and shipments of non-essentials could be delayed. They'd been asked (told in some cases) by governments and others to prioritize eseential product shipments, so they did. They also told suppliers to stop sending non-essentials for FBA. If they had capacity (and items on hand) they've been delivering non-essentials (I've go…

And on this note, I was talking with my neighbor yesterday and he's having a related issue that only became an issue when Amazon enacted this covid-response policy. It used to be that it didn't particularly matter if your products were accurately mapped into Amazon's categories as long as they were searchable. Now, however, Amazon is refusing to ship (or receive FBA stock) for non-essential categories. My neighbor is…

Yep. And in the circles I'm in, some are already setting up stores outside Amazon... that's not going to bode well for Amazon when all these sellers suddenly realize they don't need Amazon anymore.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#357

Post by RonanTheGrey »

rootusrootus wrote: post #258
freeopinion wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using Amazon for reviews seems ironic to me. Product reviews highlight Amazon's single biggest weakness: trust. You can't trust any Amazon review. Many of Amazon's other failings also center around trust.

Yes and no. They have a fake review problem, for sure. But it's usually fairly obvious which reviews are fake and which are not. And Amazon reviews have something I don't really see anywhere else -- pictures. That's a feature I really like.

And when pictures are of a product not actually being sold in the listing... just yesterday I received a product that was NOT what was in any of the photos on the listing including the listing itself. Argh.

That's the primary way fake reviews happen. The seller gets thousands of sales of a high quality, good product, gets great reviews, pictures etc. and then they bait and switch to a cheaper, lower quality product at the same (or higher, because REVIEWS) price with a bigger margin.

Huge problem over there and Amazon has done nothing to stop it.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#358

Post by RonanTheGrey »

ansible wrote: post #204
chrischen wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The problem for me is that for any given product category, I don’t know who the online retailers are . For electronics there is microcenter.com, frys.com, tigerdirect.com, circuitcity.com, and many many more. 2. I think this is something that is burned into people’s heads but not actually true. Most retailers do offer pretty fast shipping. Even with prime you’re paying for fast shipping (in the membership fee).

> * For electronics there is microcenter.com, frys.com, tigerdirect.com, circuitcity.com, and many many more.* Definitely drop frys.com from the list, they are going out of business. Actually, except for microcenter.com, I wouldn't buy from the others either. newegg.com seems to have the best attribute filtering by far.

Wow... didn't know that. Haven't been back to the US in years. End of an era... I built several computers from trips to Frys.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#359

Post by Firehawke »

adamc wrote: post #308
Non24Throw wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Maybe you shop for different things? I've seen things lately that were clearly cheaper at the local grocery store. For things like PC components, I find them hit or miss. They might be the cheapest (or near it), but they might also be way more expensive than another legit retailer. These days, I always check, because they are so variable. A lot of that is probably that Amazon doesn't carry everything, and other selle…

This has been my experience-- I don't check Amazon and stop for almost anything at this point because I often find computer hardware might be cheaper elsewhere. Newegg is hit and miss but sometimes comes out way ahead-- I saved $100 on a monitor by going Newegg instead of Amazon, even after shipping.

Groceries? I find that Amazon almost never wins there compared to the local grocery chain. That most certainly is going to end up being a "where you are right now" kind of thing compared to computer parts.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#360

Post by Firehawke »

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…

SD cards. A very large percentage of what's on there is counterfeit.
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