Like most people, I've ordered a lot of packages (hundreds?) on Amazon and almost never had a problem. In the rare case of a problem, Amazon would instantly refund me. But almost all those orders are under $1000. Everything changes when you have a problem with an expensive order. Amazon has a price threshold where the support system is different and the normal CS people are powerless. During lockdown, I ordered a Son…
For expensive stuff I almost never go with Amazon now: too many counterfeit / fly by night sellers.
For "prosumer" items a store that serves professionals is likely to watch their suppliers very carefully and have customer-friendly policies when things hit a snag. For cameras and optics (and flash sticks) B&H is my go-to place. My 2c.
Anything over a few hundred bucks is playing with fire. I bought an iphone through them (Amazon sold, not 3rd party) last year and had to do the same thing the couple did: chargeback on credit card. They refused to investigate and flat out accused me of fraud. Gee, maybe it's the low paid disgruntled employees from warehouse worker to contracted out Prime delivery guy stealing shit? Nah, it's the guy who spent tens o…
I went with eBay over Amazon for an international edition of a major android flagship for this very reason.
In Europe at least the dedicated electronics retailers are clearly cheaper than Amazon, and of course do not commingle. Returns may be a bit more cumbersome, but honestly who returns electronics anyway? Usually you know pretty well what you're getting.
I don't understand that. The 'than I really have to' bit, is Amazon now so entrenched that you can't get around them anymore?
If I were to decide that I wasn't going to use Amazon starting tomorrow, I'd be spending a whole lot more time checking a bunch of online stores, paying for shipping, driving around, etc. So, yes, they are for a lot of things. While I certainly ordered from them pre-pandemic, the pandemic has brought home to me how many things I can just order rather than put on a shopping list and drive around to stores to find and…
If you don't care too much about the price, the time difference is low: you spend some time looking at an online retailer (maybe typing in your address), but you save the time you would waste searching Amazon for the correct listing amongst all the knockoffs, sent-from-Hong-Kong etc.
If you care a lot about the price, you already need to consider other shops, since Amazon isn't necessarily the cheapest anyway.
I have ordered one thing from Amazon in the past five years, where the manufacturer only sold to consumers through Amazon.
Hell would be full before you got very far. Intentionally or unintentionally, this is how most such systems work... even ostensibly noncommercial ones... at least to some extent. Business systems are a chain of events. Every event has x% chance of happening and leading to the next one. If the next event makes money, it's optimized up. If it costs money, it's optimised down. Efforts to pay unclaimed rebates are never…
> Thus is life. No, such is full-blown neoliberal capitalism, where the only thing that is considered worth optimizing for is profit. Once you accept that there are other variables that deserve consideration and cannot just be abstracted by price and profit alone (most prominently customer and workforce satisfaction), other optimizations will come into play, which will reduce the amount of crap people have to deal wi…
The main thing to watch out for is monopolies. If customers always have enough choice then the customer and workforce satisfaction will get sorted out eventually, as those organizations will be selected for and companies won’t be able to exist without doing that right. It works really well, and is actually a strength of our free markets. Governments and committees stepping in and trying to fix the system tends to make it worse because the people who fall through the cracks have no recourse, and they also inadvertently create monopolies by making the system more complicated and expensive for new entrants. For all the complaining, “neoliberal capitalism” has made it the best time to be alive there has ever been, and the remaining problems tend to be around choke points where there is some kind of monopoly power and proper competition is missing. Amazon is getting there. But even so, reading through these comments, there’s plenty of discussion of how Amazon is so much better than the previous experience of many people. Amazon got to where it is today because overall the customer experience is so much better. It has raised the standard to a new level, which we will happily now complain about until someone else figures out how to do it better.
Like most people, I've ordered a lot of packages (hundreds?) on Amazon and almost never had a problem. In the rare case of a problem, Amazon would instantly refund me. But almost all those orders are under $1000. Everything changes when you have a problem with an expensive order. Amazon has a price threshold where the support system is different and the normal CS people are powerless. During lockdown, I ordered a Son…
I’ve found my credit card company, American Express to be great for getting refunds in cases like this and always use my credit card for larger purchases.
Like others have said - be careful with this option - there are a LOT Of examples in the Google Fi forums about people doing a chargeback with Google because of charges they felt were fair or fraudulent via Google Fi, and next thing they know their Google Account (Photos, Docs, Email, etc.) is disabled.
I would watch the same thing with Amazon (Music, Alexa, Photos, AWS, etc.)
People don't "want a monopoly." But they do want to order things in a way that is by no means a "minor convenience." Just going back to when Amazon was getting started, finding a book that wasn't in stock at your local store was a massive hassle and could take months. Today, not spending an hour running errands is not really a minor convenience. Again, I'm good with there being more competition--and, in fact, I order…
> finding a book that wasn't in stock at your local store was a massive hassle and could take months. Or you could just ask your local store to order it for you and you would have it in a week. It's not like this was an unusual situation.
There was a time when that was definitely not the norm. You looked a book up in a big Books in Print volume and an order could take quite a long time to come in. Yes, the situation improved over time with certain big city bookstores and then Barnes and Noble prior to Amazon. But I can certainly remember a time when getting things generally that weren't in local stock took considerable effort and time.
This is scary as people working at the shipping companies figure out that stealing packages is actually a DMZ of inter-mediation and for the most part they can get away with it.
I'm sure this refund kicked off a serious investigation inside of Amazon/FedEx/UPS as this has been getting pretty bad - so for us to notice theft with SOMEWHAT regularity, I imagine it has to be an insanely pervasive problem.
The Google Fi forums seem to mention the phone-then issue regularly... "I ordered Pixel 6 and never received it", etc. etc.
I've placed approx. 15k orders with Amazon Germany in 20 years and have probably had less than 100 issues, mostly with FBA sellers. I get an answer from CS within 10 minutes and 1-day shipments are on time ~98%. Refunds are issued as soon as I drop the package in the return box. Call me a fan. The best experience is still Amazon JP but returns are a little more complicated (Even within Japan) — Obviously b/c you more…
Bought a 55” tv from Amazon. The UPS driver came a knocked on my door saying, “it’s very large, please help me bring it in.” I went out with them to the truck where the tv was sitting on the pavement. Helped carry it to my house. Driver left. I opened it up, took it out of the packaging, pealed the plastic off the front, plug it in and turned it on. LCD panel was cracked internally. Went to the website and requested a replacement. It arrived the next morning. Was fine. I packed up the broken unit, stuck the UPS label on it, scheduled a pick up. UPS came by and grabbed it. Took a month but eventually the website acknowledge receipt of the return. Zero issues with the return.
Once preordered a Blu-ray from Amazon JP. It arrived on release day. My only complaint is they won’t ship Blu-ray’s from adult video producers even if the title isn’t hardcore porn.
I bought a new 32" monitor about 2 years ago that when I unpacked it, it was clearly an open box item. The way it had been packed was extremely unprofessional, tape was haphazardly wrapped and twisted around the stand and cords and things that normally come in plastic bags weren't bagged. They've been shipping the wrong items lately too, twice in the last year when I order something that has multiple selections like…
The open box thing is a huge issue. I bought probably 5 things last year >$100 sold as “new” that just weren’t. Returns have always been easy, I live near an Amazon Go and they even have an attendant that helps. But not being able to trust that a new item is actually new is…shitty. I would never buy electronics from Amazon, just get it for the same price at Best Buy and wait a couple more days (plus they often have s…
Is open box always a return for you then? I got a coffee scale with obvious usage stains on it from Amazon, but honestly it works fine and a quick cleanup was much easier than a return.
I bought two bath faucets. Amazon shipped the wrong color, I returned them but Amazon refused to refund me. They just kept them, wouldn't refund or return. Talked to several people including managers. Still owe me $700. Amazon works great when it does, when it doesn't the whole system collapses.