151–160 of 293 posts
If you look at revenue and profit analysis from Amazon, it's clear that they are still customer focused. It's just that advertisers are now a bigger customer than the "real" customers. Amazon makes more money off of sponsored listings than selling the item sponsored. Kinda crazy.
Hmm. OK. click
"Please review your order. $8.99 for next day shipping or free two day shipping."
Uh, OK. 'Check two day shipping. Submit'
"Your order has been placed. Delivery date - 5 days from now"
I've become more and more disillusioned by Amazon over the years. Prices are now almost never the best; I only buy from them when I need something quickly (and can't get it locally). NewEgg (nearly) always has better tech prices. Walmart often has better prices on everyday items and I can have it immediately. I just bought a pair of tweezers at my local grocery store for two bucks that was $6 on Amazon for the same m…
Interesting. I also find myself picking up tech from NewEgg more often than Amazon. And I recently ordered most of the supplies for a cocktail party I was having at Walmart and Bed Bad and Beyond. Amazon prices might beat local retail, but they are only sometimes competitive with other (often more specizlized) online retailers at this point. Also, at least for me, shipping New Egg, Walmart and BBAB was faster than Am…
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This is another big one. Amazon is filled with garbage products. It can be very hard to tell what's quality, anymore, and the reviews aren't trustworthy the way they used to be. I used to read reviews on Amazon religiously even if I was buying somewhere else. That habit has kinda faded, though it's still one of the better sources of real world product knowledge.
> and the reviews aren't trustworthy the way they used to be You can say that again. I recently bought a kitchen knife with Amazon Prime that had ~100 reviews, an average of 5 stars. It cost £33, so wasn't particularly cheap. Just after I bought it the seller sent me one of those nagging emails asking for a review which I ignored. A week after they sent me another email, a copy of the first one. By the time I've alre…
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Don't know about the US but here in Germany Ikea has an online store, too. Shipping for non-giant non-superheavy things is 3.90€ so pretty okay. They're not as fast as Amazon, though.
..or you can order online then go to shop and collect your order for free. It's usually the fastest method (except going to the shop and look for things yourself). I hate shopping so this is my preferred way of getting things locally.
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Only the last 20 years? Only the US?
The particular issue described above (raising "base" prices to show a larger discount) is common in USA but illegal and thus very rare pretty much everywhere else. I'm quite sure that amazon.de and amazon.co.uk didn't apply this practice. There's a rather common set of "truth in advertising" laws (e.g. to show a "x % off", the base price can't be made up ("recommended price") but you must have sold this item for cert…
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Their prices are not the lowest, just experienced this recently. Here is a bike i wanted to buy https://www.amazon.com/GMC-Denali-Large-63-5cm-Frame/dp/B00F... ($220) Ended up buying on walmart ($170) https://www.walmart.com/ip/25-700c-GMC-Denali-Men-s-Bike-Whi... So much for paying $99 to get prime. I have noticed of late that lot of items are cheaper on Walmart and they offer free 2 day shipping.
Off-topic, but that's a truly terrible bike. I know a few people who've gotten it or similar GMC's as "the first result on Amazon for road bike" and they've all had problems with chains breaking or very poor fit of components. I'd recommend http://www.bikesdirect.com/ for cheap bikes online if you're comfortable with assembly and tuning.
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Their prices are not the lowest, just experienced this recently. Here is a bike i wanted to buy https://www.amazon.com/GMC-Denali-Large-63-5cm-Frame/dp/B00F... ($220) Ended up buying on walmart ($170) https://www.walmart.com/ip/25-700c-GMC-Denali-Men-s-Bike-Whi... So much for paying $99 to get prime. I have noticed of late that lot of items are cheaper on Walmart and they offer free 2 day shipping.
Off-topic, but that's a truly terrible bike. I know a few people who've gotten it or similar GMC's as "the first result on Amazon for road bike" and they've all had problems with chains breaking or very poor fit of components. I'd recommend http://www.bikesdirect.com/ for cheap bikes online if you're comfortable with assembly and tuning.
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> and the reviews aren't trustworthy the way they used to be You can say that again. I recently bought a kitchen knife with Amazon Prime that had ~100 reviews, an average of 5 stars. It cost £33, so wasn't particularly cheap. Just after I bought it the seller sent me one of those nagging emails asking for a review which I ignored. A week after they sent me another email, a copy of the first one. By the time I've alre…
It shouldn't be hard for Amazon to detect such behavior and improve it's reviews or scores. Why don't they do that?
Amazon doesn't benefit financially from negative or average reviews, but they do benefit from the positive reviews, regardless of their legitimacy, as the parent poster demonstrated.
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> and the reviews aren't trustworthy the way they used to be You can say that again. I recently bought a kitchen knife with Amazon Prime that had ~100 reviews, an average of 5 stars. It cost £33, so wasn't particularly cheap. Just after I bought it the seller sent me one of those nagging emails asking for a review which I ignored. A week after they sent me another email, a copy of the first one. By the time I've alre…
So you just helped continue the fraud? Things aren't gonna improve by complaining on HN.
The point of the fraud is to make money. He denied them that money.