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Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

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141–150 of 510 posts

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#141
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you live in a city?

There are times i still use amazon and i actually bought a few items on Tuesday. Amazon's delivery date is friday? Want to guess where amazon's distribution warehouse is? A few blocks away from me. The point you are attempting to make is unclear. If the distribution hub is within walking distance from me, why does it take days to ship?

You’re assuming that the product you ordered is at that warehouse. It probably isn’t. They can’t store all products at all locations. Even if that distribution center ends up being the shipment origination site, the product still probably had to move within the Amazon network. Some of those things will move within the Amazon network, some with external (trackable) carriers (UPS/FedEx). And some things has restrictions on the method of transport. If there is a lithium battery anywhere in the device, it travels by ground.

Also — if you’re in the US, today is a holiday and nothing will move. So today and yesterday had/has limited movement between distribution centers. And as we get closer to Christmas, the entire network will start to approach saturation.

There are many reasons why things don’t always ship as fast as you’d like them to.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#142
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Target Home Depot Best Buy Walmart (this is getting polluted with "vendors")

Best Buy uses Ontrac shipping in my area and they are awful.

Cannot say enough bad things about OnTrac. They routinely throw packages at the end of our driveway instead of leaving at the porch like everyone else does.

The end of the (long) driveway is treed so sometimes we are literally hunting in the woods for our package after an OnTrac delivery.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#143
post #53

I recently had to buy something mundane - a light bulb, with a specific lumen and color temperature spec. Weeding out all the junk listings, ads and clearly fake reviews, I ended up spending an hour trying to get to the one I wanted to buy. Had a very similar experience for another product as well. At this point, I hesitate to look up stuff on Amazon just considering the time it takes to find stuff. I much rather pre…

amazon choice and most popular tend to do a lot of the sifting you want.

Is most popular actually legit or does that get gamed as well?

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy. It's easier to buy there than elsewhere because it's habit. I stopped prime a couple years ago, I buy from other stores when I can, but sometimes you just need protein powder, spray bottles, stove gaskets, a 300 piece puzzle, and a cello stand. Amazon makes it possible to just buy one spot.

Anything I ingest would not come from Amazon, or rather one of its numerous anonymous, unvetted sellers.

Agreed. Anything health or pet related is a dangerous gamble with amazon.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#146
post #36
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can be relatively sure I'm not getting ripped off by more than +/- 25% I think this is the only thing keeping them afloat. How are you so sure you’re not getting ripped off? Did you know counterfeits can be sold under the “sold by anazon.com” branding because of co-mingling? I used to have the same view as you until I started getting shoddy products consistently from brands that were otherwise high quality if I p…

> How are you so sure you’re not getting ripped off? If you do not _feel_ you've been ripped off, does it matter?

Yes. I bought a ladle from Amazon. I noticed from some of the comments that a lot of people were getting a knock off ladle.

When I arrived, I checked to see if it was legitimate, and… it was not. It was a knock-off.

It was fine as a ladle. It ladled things. I never would’ve noticed or complained if I hadn’t seen the rules. No harm, no foul, right?

Absolutely not. That day I made a rule that I do not buy anything that goes on your skin, in your body, or health and safety kit from Amazon. If I can’t trust their ladles are authentic, I can’t trust their sunscreen or thermometers are authentic.

So, while the ladle didn’t harm me directly, it did pretty significant change my purchase habits.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#147

It runs deeper than just everything being an ad. It's also completely flooded with rebadged junk from dropshippers. A few weeks ago, I was looking for a new whetstone, and this is what I got when I searched Amazon https://i.imgur.com/1Utp2dF.png The results keep going like that. You see constant repetition of the exact same units with slightly different branding, often with the same stock photography, repeated for pa…

Highly recommend Shapton stones and buying them from Lee Valley https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/tools/shapton-sharpening-sto...

I have the shapton 12,000, and I'm actually pretty disappointed, but thise lee valley prices are better than what i paid at woodcraft.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#148
post #53

I recently had to buy something mundane - a light bulb, with a specific lumen and color temperature spec. Weeding out all the junk listings, ads and clearly fake reviews, I ended up spending an hour trying to get to the one I wanted to buy. Had a very similar experience for another product as well. At this point, I hesitate to look up stuff on Amazon just considering the time it takes to find stuff. I much rather pre…

For most products, at least in Europe you can get the same cheap junk of Amazon listings from eBay at 20-40% lower prices, and usually (slightly) higher quality one from brick and mortar stores at the Amazon price. I avoid Amazon in principle since many years (unless I _really_ need a product there), but that has never been hard, considering that most smaller stores always offered me more convenient prices, less hass…

This + the eBay sellers in the UK use Royal Mail so goods are delivered by my postman, who already walks past my house every morning anyway

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#149
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that a problem if the items work for their intended purpose?

They often don't, like the extension cord I bought that flips my breaker when I plug it in. I don't want garbage products that were sourced from the dumpster next to a Chinese factory after they make a defective batch.

"Six letter Chinese sellers" does not automatically mean cheap shitty defective rejects. If anything, that's just stereotyping and xenophobia.

For every one of you, I'm sure there's a dozen who have had no issues with the product. And I'm sure there's been plenty of people who have had the same issue with a name brand product that was made in the same factory by the same process and people.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You used to be able to filter for just things sold by Amazon, but that vanished some time ago. Not that a “fulfilled by amazon” filter would do much these days because of how much of other sellers stock there is commingled in their warehouses. Same for the “prime” filter that is present if you subscribe to that, it filters out a lot of junk but far from all of it.

Filter by seller is still available

I see options to filter by brand including a separate “out brands” option, but that isn't the same unless I'm looking for a specific brand rather than “just not cheap & grotty drop-shipped crap thankyouverymuch”.

The usefulness of the brand filter seems to vary greatly by product. For instance when searching for SATA SSDs it only offers “Seagate, Crucial, Western Digital, Samsung”.

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