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The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

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Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#171

Post by al_borland »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #58

> Amazon needs to be stopped, and legislation will not do so. Only its loyal consumers – who keep the beast alive – can do that by taking their money elsewhere. We've (my wife and I) tried to stop using Amazon. But recently, I've run into issues where I need particular specialized bits and pieces (e.g. just today, a low profile 4" HVAC 90 degree elbow) that are only available via Amazon. A variation is where the item…

Cancelling Prime seems to have a big natural impact. I heard stories about how much order volume goes up after someone joins Prime, and it seems the opposite is true as well. I cancelled my membership when they started charging extra for ad-free video. It just felt so cheap and petty, since I was already paying for Prime. This was just the straw the broke the camel's back. I was already pretty fed up with Amazon due to being sent counterfeit products, used or open box items being sold as new, the push to leave retail packaging on my porch, all the fake reviews, the inability to find quality items via their search, the site being overrun with low quality garbage being resold from AliExpress for 10x the price, the concern for the future of my local stores, wishlists no longer supporting external links or simply ideas, etc, etc, etc.

I still do make the occasional order out of laziness or a lack of other options. However, I looked up all my orders from the lifetime of my account and charted them a couple weeks ago. After 6 years of year-over-year order increase, and a 17+ year overall uptrend in orders... they fell off a cliff once I cancelled. My orders fell by 60% the year after I cancelled Prime, and it's on pace to drop even further this year. I even did all my Christmas shopping last year without any Amazon orders, while previous years were 100% Amazon.

Going down to 0 can be hard, but even big drops in orders will have an impact. And if that money goes to other retailers, and demand grows, they can invest in more inventory and a wider array of goods that people need. Any percentage shift away from Amazon is progress, especially in done my the masses.

I'd encourage everyone to dump their Prime membership. If you order more than $35 you can still get free shipping (you just have to be explicit in selecting it and be vigilant during checkout to avoid the multiple traps to try and get you to sign back up... lots of dark patterns). Shipping times are a little more unpredictable. Sometimes it still only takes 1-2 days, while other times it seems to take a week or two. Most things aren't urgent. If they are, I try to find them locally.

I've also tried to stop obsessing about finding the "best" whatever it is I'm looking for. When online, there are a lot of traps, but one of the things I expect retail stores to do is make sure they are carrying quality products they'd stand behind. They don't want returns or to get a reputation for selling junk. I was getting a toaster a while back and instead of spending hours researching online, I just went to a store I frequent, looked at the 5 options they had, and picked the one I liked the best. Hours of time saved, and the toaster works fine. I expect I'll have it for many years to come.

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#172

Post by jjulius »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #168
jjulius wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>... a suction cup thingy that mounts my smartphone to a car dashboard. Try your local phone store. Most carriers have brick and mortar locations.

So for another example, I wanted to get a stainless steel pasta strainer. I checked four different kitchen/cooking stores and the ones that had them them only had ones that were too deep, and they were all priced as ridiculously luxurious items, over $90. Then I checked a local hardware store and they had exactly what I wanted and it was only $12. I only thought of that place because I passed it on the way home and w…

Sure, sometimes things take a bit of work and might not be instantaneous or easy. It all boils down to whether or not one values immense convenience over not supporting Amazon.

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#173

Post by zmgsabst »

dosinga wrote: post #43

Am I missing something, the article randomly says: "For context, the US federal government spent $53 million on public education in 2022." and links to: https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statisti... which says K-12 schools spend $857.2 billion.

US Dept of Ed has a $238B budget in 2024. I think much of that is at the collegiate level, but $53M is almost certainly wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Ed...

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#174

Post by al_borland »

lisper wrote: post #62

I would love to avoid Amazon, and indeed I would love to support local retailers, but more often than not it is simply impossible. The only way I can find out if a local vendor carries an item I'm interested in, and if they have it in stock, is to physically go there. The amount of time that requires is orders of magnitude more than what it takes to order the item on Amazon, where I am all but guaranteed that it will…

Some stores do have their stock available online. I know Home Depot does. The website tells you what aisle the item is in, which rack in that aisle, and how many they have.

I've also seen where stores won't have it at the store I have selected, but it will also check the stock of nearby stores to tell me of one of those other stores have it.

It's not ubiquitous yet, but I'm seeing it more and more. I've also found with things like Apple Pay that checkout on random online stores is just as fast and easy as Amazon, which is quite nice.

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#175

Post by phil21 »

khuey wrote: post #161
phil21 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has this co-mingling of sold by Amazon ever actually been documented at any scale beyond “extremely rare stock/pick” mistake? I am of course aware of the option for manufacturers to enable this for their registered products on FBA - and it may not have been optional at one point in time. When I researched this a while ago I was unable to come up with much compelling evidence that it was an actual thing. It certainly…

I don't think Amazon has ever outright admitted that they do, but Amazon's own terms give them the right to commingle their inventory with those of third party sellers. F-4 Storage We will provide storage services as described in these FBA Service Terms once we confirm receipt of delivery. We will keep electronic records that track inventory of Units by identifying the number of Units stored in any fulfillment center…

Right, that’s FBA. I’m talking about sold by Amazon. I’m specifically talking about a case where a sold by Amazon item came from co-mingled inventory from a FBA seller.

I also know from direct second party experience (I also personally saw the terms) that at least at a certain level of “brand” you can decline this option with Amazon for your registered product skus/ASIN even for FBA. I don’t know if this is offered to everyone though - I know it went through some sort of “deal reg” process in the one case I saw. I imagine this came through some sort of lawsuit or threats of one for a major brand at some point - but that is speculation on my part.

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#177

Post by djoldman »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #117
Dylan16807 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those principles don't make a difference on the world around you then it's not bad but it is quite limited . It's fine to do things that don't make a difference, but it's important to keep perspective. In particular, if you have an urge to make a difference on a regular basis, that's a great urge, but you need to make sure you don't fall into the trap of doing something that feels good but has negligible effect an…

Do you give this same lecture to everyone who's in line to vote on election day?

https://archive.ph/ThMlo

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#178

Post by aussieguy1234 »

Mostly social reasons here but there are also practical reasons even for those who don't care about any of this stuff.

Amazon is becoming more and more like AliExpress and Temu. They can always do it cheaper, but it's very touch and go when it comes to the quality of the merchandise you'll receive.

If that quality isn't a concern for you, Temu and AliExpress can give you similar quality for much less. Take a screenshot of the item on Amazon with Google Lens and use the image search on either of these platforms to get the item even cheaper.

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#179

Post by briHass »

vector_spaces wrote: post #108
lisper wrote: post #62

I would love to avoid Amazon, and indeed I would love to support local retailers, but more often than not it is simply impossible. The only way I can find out if a local vendor carries an item I'm interested in, and if they have it in stock, is to physically go there. The amount of time that requires is orders of magnitude more than what it takes to order the item on Amazon, where I am all but guaranteed that it will…

> via a partner like doordash I do technical consulting for small food companies This is an immediate non-starter for most local retail businesses because of the steep (25+%) transaction fees Doordash and other consumer last-mile providers charge, and the razor-thin margins of many retail stores To be clear I agree with your proposal overall and suspect this particular challenge is surmountable, but it's very difficu…

It must be cheaper than UPS/FedEx for some items, because Home Depot and Lowes have started using DoorDash and other similar services for 'shipping'. I'm sure they batch up the orders and get discounted rates, but that seems to be their preferred method for items that exist in a store within 20 miles and can't be shipped directly from the manufacturer.

It

Re: The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon

#180

Post by dolebirchwood »

sokoloff wrote: post #116
PenguinCoder wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My rule is anything that goes on or in my body, I don't buy form Amazon for that reason.

Is clothing really that big of a risk?

I ordered replacement earpads from Amazon for one of my headphones. Ended up developing a rash around my ears. So it's not just about clothing, and, yes, you should be concerned.
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