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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

#131

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…

Nearby (unrelated to this extension, AFAICT) is a company that creates a unified online storefront for local shops and they handle the separate ordering, pickup, and delivery to shoppers:

“On Nearby, they shop across multiple local stores, in one basket, with one checkout, and no fuss. After a customer checks out, we place orders with you and the other stores, and do the work of putting the order together.”

https://nearbyhq.com/

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

#134
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to test clothes before you buy them to so if they fit is so much more convenient than ordering the wrong size online.

You can try them on in the local store and then buy the same size online. Works wonders for some products like brand sneakers or jeans.

Works worse when the store closes because you don’t buy stuff there.

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

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to test clothes before you buy them to so if they fit is so much more convenient than ordering the wrong size online.

Kohls solves this by giving you 120 day returns so I disagree. Plus you don't have to sort through everything and check the prices in store. Just wait for it to show up, try it out. Keep it if it's good, ditch it if it's not.

You have to wait for shipping, package the return, etc. That doesn't seem as convenient as trying on in the store, even with the added burden of travel to the store and sifting through sizes.

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

#136

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…

Do we really need such shops though? It's like being concerned about horses, when more and more people drive cars. Only thing I buy in a corner store is probably bin bags and something like water if I forget to put it in my bag before leaving house. Everything else I buy online because I can compare, read about the product, watch reviews etc. when in store being on the phone looking up products is not comfortable. We…

How true is that really? Maybe there will come a point where this is true, but there are still lots of things on Amazon that don't have next-day delivery. Many specialty items on Amazon have slow shipping, and I would gladly have bought them at a local store if I had the choice; I used to until they all closed.

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

#137
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%…

Haggling is tiring and mostly useless considering the time and energy expended. There's a reason most shopping has gone towards standardized list prices without negotiation, and this happened way before Amazon existed. Even the large purchases like cars and real estate are trending towards upfront pricing now. Now recommendations by a store expert are a different thing, but local businesses are again limited by recom…

Is this really true for real estate? In the U.S., I regularly hear how people must offer tens of thousands of dollars over a house’s listed price to get any consideration (Seattle).

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

#138

This is a really good idea! I love my small businesses but being coddled by the internet is so real, you get used to immediately finding exactly what you want. With local stores, you have to put in some work sometimes, and ghasp talk to real people, potentially a few, at different stores, to get what you need. It sounds like a lot written out like that, but the important bits are that the people you talk to, you lear…

I think cars are largely to blame for the sorry state of small businesses. Before moving from America to Tokyo, I had never lived in a place with anything even remotely resembling a walkable city center where you can easily browse and pick up what you need from local businesses. Everything is separated by a 15min+ drive, and I likely need to get on the highway to get there. Atlanta was the worst for this. In Tokyo I…

I agree, haven't lived in tokyo but I've had similar thoughts and experience going from Chicago/NYC to cities like Austin

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

#139
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kohls solves this by giving you 120 day returns so I disagree. Plus you don't have to sort through everything and check the prices in store. Just wait for it to show up, try it out. Keep it if it's good, ditch it if it's not.

You have to wait for shipping, package the return, etc. That doesn't seem as convenient as trying on in the store, even with the added burden of travel to the store and sifting through sizes.

[deleted]

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

#140
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So my choice is to harass/insult a minimum wage employee and distract them from their already-overloaded and already-minmaxed job so that I can spend more, get in my vehicle and spew carbon into the atmosphere to......give money to a family of ultra-billionaires instead of one ultrabillionaire? And that's helping my local economy?

Why are you harassing and insulting them in the first place? Nobody taught you how to speak politely?

The GP said to tell the employee to get off his butt, which is usually interpreted as rude.
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