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The Anti-Amazon Alliance

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Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#381

Post by C1sc0cat »

pas wrote: post #267
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,…

> unless you know exactly what you're already looking for. I know what I'm looking for, but most of the products are impossible to evaluate, because there is just not enough info/data. Low res bad stock photos, terse description, no full technical specs, etc. And many Amazon sellers don't sell anywhere else, they don't even have a real website, so ... good luck deciding based on that. And since Amazon become so big,…

So don't buy from shit listings just on price and always check if you can buy it direct from the lister on their own web site.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#382

Post by ausbah »

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…

everything may be sunny on the outside, but it may pouring rain on the inside. most people's "life experience" with Amazon is most likely limited to shopping, but they likely don't see or consider other criticisms of Amazon such as monopoly power or anti-labor activities

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#383

Post by bluntfang »

macintux wrote: post #210
bluntfang wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so you literally bought something you didn't know existed, want, or need and might not ever get to reading? This just reads like people who buy humble bundle games or steam sale games.

For generations people have bought books they hope to read but never do.

I appreciate that statement. But that doesn't mean we need to accept being marketing to in such a way that encourages impulse purchases.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#384

Post by WhyNotHugo »

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.

One of my main reasons to go with Amazon, is how trustworthy their service is.

Package lost? They send another one free. Package delayed too long? Get a refund (and keep the package when it arrives). Don't like the product? Return it for free.

There's never any friction, even in the bad scenarios. Combined with the fact that they consistently have the lowest price, it's hard to argue in favour of other services.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#385

Post by foobarbecue »

Loughla wrote: post #252
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 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,…

I'm not saying this excuses amazon, but reviewmeta.com helps a lot to extract truth from reviews.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#386

Post by tootie »

DelightOne wrote: post #173
tootie wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My last retail employer had multiple billions in revenue and had a really nice niche where they could apply a negative margin service to sell more goods. And a lot of their product catalog is far enough from Amazon's wheelhouse that they had room to operate. That being said, their ecommerce org was still a complete mess. They were spending a ton of money operating a homemade ecommerce platform based on 2007 technolog…

> Teams were all aligned horizontally. What does this mean?

They are aligned by system instead of by feature set. Anyone running a lower level system was disconnected from anything customer facing.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#387

Post by stevespang »

"If you’re an existing user of Merchant Center and Shopping ads, you don’t have to do anything to take advantage of the free listings, and for new users of Merchant Center, we’ll continue working to streamline the onboarding process over the coming weeks and months"

So tell me that Google will not demand you provide your credit card upfront in the process . . .

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#388

Post by vinay427 »

joefourier wrote: post #316
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…

Your experience might be true in a big American city, but in Europe it's the complete opposite. Amazon is relatively fast (2 day shipping), but the grocery selection is limited and full of third parties charging extortionate prices. E.g. the same brand of nappies is 2x more expensive than getting it from Tesco. Anything specialty, such as musical instruments, PC parts, furniture, etc. is more expensive than getting i…

It's pretty great where I live in Europe in a country where they don't even operate. If I buy on Amazon.de, they ship products from Germany and items usually arrive within a week including going through customs, as they remove EU VAT and include local VAT at time of purchase (which probably clues you in to which country I live in). This avoids the massive customs processing fees, extra VAT, and wait times I would incur from most other international sellers.

Their prices are almost always the lowest I can find on books, similar to Book Depository which they also now apparently own. Other items like the small kitchen appliances I've bought on the DE site are also almost always cheaper than I can find in brick and mortar stores.

I'm not sure they have the same grocery service in most European markets that they have in the US, where as I understand it the grocery orders are handled rather separately with local selections.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#389

Post by pas »

cactus2093 wrote: post #304
pas wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unless you know exactly what you're already looking for. I know what I'm looking for, but most of the products are impossible to evaluate, because there is just not enough info/data. Low res bad stock photos, terse description, no full technical specs, etc. And many Amazon sellers don't sell anywhere else, they don't even have a real website, so ... good luck deciding based on that. And since Amazon become so big,…

I feel like you just entirely explained the situation. There is still a "high-end overpriced" segment for all kinds of industries. Sometimes luxury goods, but sometimes just mid-tier goods sold by companies that still follow the high-margin traditional retail model. With an MSRP price that leaves enough room for inefficient, high-touch stores to take a hefty margin as a middleman. But even someone who actively dislik…

I try to simply don't buy things. Eg I want a new laptop for some time, but none seem like a good fit. The whole USB3 ecosystem is crazy, there are bad, ugly, expensive or all of the above ones only.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#390

Post by alexhutcheson »

sturgill wrote: post #325
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’m pretty steeped in the Amazon ecosystem. I’m a fan of the Alexa. I watch their content. I use AWS. But I don’t trust it for anything that goes into my body any more. I’ll make a trip to a GNC to buy ON protein powder. I don’t trust Amazon to sell my something from the actual manufacturer. That’s new for me. Just in the last couple of years. The risk profile of getting a bad knockoff is overwhelming now. And for in…

> I’ll make a trip to a GNC to buy ON protein powder.

costco.com has this at a good price with fast free shipping: https://www.costco.com/optimum-nutrition-gold-standard-100%2...

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