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Chrome extension recommends local businesses while shopping on Amazon or eBay

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Re: Chrome extension recommends local businesses while shopping on Amazon or eBay

#181

Post by jbrahms33 »

londons_explore wrote: post #60

Small business near me never seem to have online catalogues or stock levels. Hunting for a specific product (for example a washing line) might involve walking into 3 different shops and guessing which shop might sell what you need. When you arrive in the shop, they always arrange aisles differently so unless you have 20 minutes to hunt you might not find it either. Whereas online it's a simple search and click "buy n…

Just thought of an awesome way to get inventory data by crowd-sourcing it. Sort of creating a game for consumers

Re: Chrome extension recommends local businesses while shopping on Amazon or eBay

#182

Post by bredren »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #127
nactivint wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually my wife does this all the time and it works, especially for small businesses. Larger companies have websites, and small businesses care enough to do things like check the stock for you. So I guess my anecdote cancels yours out?

The previous posters experience resonates much more with me than your experience. Even when you do go to a shop you are often redirected online. That item isn't in stock on the computer. No attempt to upsell you or suggest an alternative which they might have in stock. It's no wonder high street stores are dying out. To be fair, small specialist stores are usually much better. I even got a call back from a company th…

The underlying problem with these anecdotes is that All of these experiences depend on who is working that day.

It may even be influenced by who is working that week or that month or who runs the place this year.

Ecommerce is imperfect in many ways, but it is far more consistent in its imperfection than local retail.

W.C. Winks Hardware Inc. in Portland, Oregon has been around since 1909 and is amazing.

You can go in there with some odd piece of hardware and someone will personally wait on you, assess your request and find the exact item or closest likeness.

The staff is patient and friendly, in my experience it is ideal local retail. But Winks doesn’t do ecommerce at all, so I often must relegate it to unusual hard to figure HW needs, because not every project needs this level of service.

I’m in agreement that retail has some pretty serious work to do to stay in the running. It might not be fair or “right” but it has to happen nonetheless.

Re: Chrome extension recommends local businesses while shopping on Amazon or eBay

#183

Post by _qwfv »

notatoad wrote: post #171
_qwfv wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by being better at every aspect of the sale. > I’d like to keep money in my community, but ... It sounds to me like Amazon is not better at every aspect, you've identified one aspect right there. They are competing on, "Would you rather live in a cookie cutter franchise strip mall or a mom and pop commercial area?" I'm willing to accept some inefficiencies and some frustrations if it means I've got a nice neighborh…

if the only value provided by the "nice neighbourhood of mom and pop stores" is the warm fuzzy feelings, that's not enough value for me. i don't want to live in what's essentially a theme park full of fake stores that only exist because it makes the neighbourhood seem nicer, or where the shopkeepers are basically paid entertainers present for their aesthetic value. if that's the sort of city we're building, let's ski…

It's not just aesthetic value. Yes, there is aesthetic value but also there is the value of "People can afford to live and work here." A community that contains some shop owners, some office workers, some landscapers, etc. is a better community in my eyes.

Re: Chrome extension recommends local businesses while shopping on Amazon or eBay

#184

Post by spicybright »

notatoad wrote: post #176
robbrown451 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as you can find your size. I'm tall and thin, so if I want to buy something as basic as Levi's jeans, I have to go to a ton of stores and have limited choices. Now I just get them on Amazon, problem solved. This is a problem that should have been solved years ago. You should be able to measure yourself very accurately and thoroughly, keep it on some sort of file that you can share what you need, and then use…

yeah, this is a problem i've solved by learning what brands are internally consistent with their sizing. i know my size in Levi's, and as long as they don't suddenly start making 36/32 jeans fit differently than they used to, i'll keep ordering from them without having to worry about fit.

Guy jeans are real easy because those numbers are actual measurements. Woman's jeans just change that to a single number that changes through the years. Uhg, so annoying.

Re: Chrome extension recommends local businesses while shopping on Amazon or eBay

#185

Post by notsureaboutpg »

Yhippa wrote: post #45

Would be cool if there was something like Grubhub/Doordash/Uber Eats for local businesses where you could buy "stuff". Might work a little bit better since you could get it quicker than Amazon. I know I've discovered so many new restaurants in my area because of those services that I wouldn't have tried before.

If this site offered free in-store pickup it could be huge.

No one is going to want to pay delivery fees for a paperweight or a cool t shirt. Shipping is way less expensive.

Re: Chrome extension recommends local businesses while shopping on Amazon or eBay

#186

Post by fortran77 »

notatoad wrote: post #176
robbrown451 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as you can find your size. I'm tall and thin, so if I want to buy something as basic as Levi's jeans, I have to go to a ton of stores and have limited choices. Now I just get them on Amazon, problem solved. This is a problem that should have been solved years ago. You should be able to measure yourself very accurately and thoroughly, keep it on some sort of file that you can share what you need, and then use…

yeah, this is a problem i've solved by learning what brands are internally consistent with their sizing. i know my size in Levi's, and as long as they don't suddenly start making 36/32 jeans fit differently than they used to, i'll keep ordering from them without having to worry about fit.

A Levi's "36" today is probably more like 39 inches. In fact, most companies have been "vanity sizing" to make people feel better.

The worst offender is "Old Navy" where a 36" is actually a whopping 41 inches. It seems like men won't buy pants that are labeled over 39 inches, so as sizes go up from 30 inches, the "vanity" excess goes up exponentially.

See: https://www.esquire.com/style/mens-fashion/a8386/pants-size-...

Re: Chrome extension recommends local businesses while shopping on Amazon or eBay

#187

Post by wyre »

spicybright wrote: post #184
notatoad wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, this is a problem i've solved by learning what brands are internally consistent with their sizing. i know my size in Levi's, and as long as they don't suddenly start making 36/32 jeans fit differently than they used to, i'll keep ordering from them without having to worry about fit.

Guy jeans are real easy because those numbers are actual measurements. Woman's jeans just change that to a single number that changes through the years. Uhg, so annoying.

The inseam is but the waist usually isn’t. It’s just standardized between brands much more than women’s jeans.

Re: Chrome extension recommends local businesses while shopping on Amazon or eBay

#188

Post by usrusr »

mumblemumble wrote: post #50
usrusr wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and ghasp talk to real people, potentially a few, at different stores, to get what you need. That's really an issue: if you aren't the hard-boiled, super unemphatic negotiator type you'll likely buy the very first thing a salesperson has invested face-minutes in, if it just gets the easy 80% of requirements/desires right. "Thanks for your time, but I'll go see if there's another offer that is maybe 3% better or 2%…

> "Thanks for your time, but I'll go see if there's another offer that is maybe 3% better or 2% cheaper" isn't something that feels good to all people. Not necessarily because they're meek. For me, going to a brick and mortar store, interacting briefly with a human, and taking the first thing that meets my basic needs is a life hack. The paradox of choice is real. Seeing the bounty of options available on sites like…

Thanks for that perspective, I don't disagree at all. I think all depends on why you buy. If it's a necessity, particularly one that you'd rather not need at all, then it's a lifehack feature. But when you buy out of love/consumerism/geekery it's a bug. I find myself surprisingly often ordering tiny little things that, despite being industrially manufactured, exist only in one or two tiny shops/directories, on the entire searchable web. That's a long tail that simply does not exist in the analog world. But it's good to see value in the other end of that animal as well.

Re: Chrome extension recommends local businesses while shopping on Amazon or eBay

#189

Post by bullmeza »

amelius wrote: post #160
bullmeza wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am the creator of this app. There is no reason for this app to be secure. There are no server requests, no stored data and no external sever.

I am confused. How do you find local businesses and check their stock levels?

I do not check stock levels. I am using the google maps Places API to search for keywords. Google has tons of data.

Re: Chrome extension recommends local businesses while shopping on Amazon or eBay

#190

Post by reidjs »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #98
reidjs wrote: post #29

I think I’m the only person who considers online shopping less convenient than just going to a local store and buying it. In person you just walk or drive over to the store, select the item, pay, and go home with the correct product. Online I have to turn on my computer or open an app. Type in a bunch of stuff, Search around, click cookie consent buttons, avoid newsletters, log in, enter your address, put in your cre…

That paragraph you wrote describing the online shopping process is accurate but all of that stuff still takes less time than just the drive to the store, nevermind the drive back.

Factoring in the delivery time, local will almost always be faster. Since I live in a city I’ll usually just stop by the relevant store next time I’m near it to grab the thing. But if you’re in a suburb and/or spend most of your time in residential areas I understand the difference.
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