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The Anti-Amazon Alliance

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Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#241

Post by searchableguy »

jimmaswell wrote: post #178
astrea wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breaking news: people are generally selfish.

You're assuming most people can afford to martyr themselves to pay extra on every purchase out of a moral stance. Even if someone can afford that, I think it's been demonstrated futile to try to affect market behavior on the basis of employee treatment that's so normalized to everyone. Boycotts have worked on other specific issues on certain brands but it seems like people just don't care enough about Amazon's worker…

so everyone pays more in the long run.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#242

Post by arkitaip »

alkonaut wrote: post #187

These days when Sweden is often touted as “the experiment”, you can actually go there to see what e-commerce looks like in 2020 without Amazon. It might sound crazy but there is... no Amazon. If I go to amazon.se I end up at amazon.de There is no same day delivery of household products (like toilet paper). If I want a book I need to go to an online bookstore. Why this is I’m not sure. But it’s interesting.

An increasing number of sites are offering next delivery in major cities like Stockholm by partnering with Budbee or Airmee, usually at no extra charge. Same day delivery? It's rare and probably a more expensive delivery option only available in Stockholm.

Ultimately, I think that the small market size, taxes and staffing costs are why lots of international brands - Amazon included - skip Sweden as a market or fail to make an impact after many years.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#243

Post by superimposition »

freeopinion wrote: post #51
tinyhouse wrote: post #3

Good article. There are a few unknowns still. 1. Is Google really all in on product search? Their product search is pretty bad at the moment and it's a very challenging search space, esp when you work with tens of thousands of retailers. Going directly to retailer/niche-platform sites usually works better for me. For example, for music related I go to reverb.com, for outdoor to rei.com, etc. I then to Google and Amaz…

Using Amazon for reviews seems ironic to me. Product reviews highlight Amazon's single biggest weakness: trust. You can't trust any Amazon review. Many of Amazon's other failings also center around trust.

Agree. If folks have come across better sources for product reviews, would love to get your recommendation.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#244

Post by prismatk »

ansible wrote: post #204
chrischen wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The problem for me is that for any given product category, I don’t know who the online retailers are . For electronics there is microcenter.com, frys.com, tigerdirect.com, circuitcity.com, and many many more. 2. I think this is something that is burned into people’s heads but not actually true. Most retailers do offer pretty fast shipping. Even with prime you’re paying for fast shipping (in the membership fee).

> * For electronics there is microcenter.com, frys.com, tigerdirect.com, circuitcity.com, and many many more.* Definitely drop frys.com from the list, they are going out of business. Actually, except for microcenter.com, I wouldn't buy from the others either. newegg.com seems to have the best attribute filtering by far.

If frys hasn't gone out of business yet, they're not going to - last one I was in only sold gift bags and batteries in a massive retail space and yet somehow they were still there. The retail gods must love Mr. Fry.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#245

Post by localhost »

If you’re trying to buy anything on Amazon right now, you’ll likely be frustrated by shipping times. It’s super inconsistent. For example, I got a keyboard delivered to me next day, but if I wanted to have cloth delivered it would take a month. So I’ve started sourcing things that I want to buy directly from the manufacturers.

I really like the Shopify model, as they (currently) don’t compete with their customers unlike Amazon. I was rather surprised that I didn’t see more Shopify stores at some of the sites that I bought things from recently. My one recent example (a ski movement analysis sensor called Carv) was incredible - one click checkout using Apple Pay without having to enter anything to order. I’m hopeful that we can get a credible competitor to Amazon for independent manufacturers in the near future.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#246

Post by searchableguy »

ozkan wrote: post #114

Most companies are not customer obsessed , that's why they fail. Let me give you an example; I've bought a sofa set from Coleman, and supposedly I needed to measure the door, if the sofa can fix or not. Because of the shape of the hallway and entrance, the sleeper did not fix from door. And carrier guys did not want to push further. Luckily, my patio's door was large enough to fit. I've called Coleman and explained t…

They are so customer obsessed that they sent me 5 defective different products one after another last time I purchased electronics from them (feb). In the end, I simply gave up and decided I would never buy anything remotely expensive there. The customer rep didn't do anything. I needed a laptop urgent but the laptop came wrong twice and after emailing jeff (because their customer rep didn't do anything for days mentioning warehouse investigation). I got some indian guy who forgot about me again after telling me to wait a few days. Then another indian guy taking his place told me to wait, that repeated until march of 10-15th. Copy paste responses looking like spam. (gmail even put one of their email in my spambox)

I got nothing in the end and wasted damn time with customer support + money stuck twice... since refunds take time to appear.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#247

Post by colonwqbang »

elamje wrote: post #194
alkonaut wrote: post #187

These days when Sweden is often touted as “the experiment”, you can actually go there to see what e-commerce looks like in 2020 without Amazon. It might sound crazy but there is... no Amazon. If I go to amazon.se I end up at amazon.de There is no same day delivery of household products (like toilet paper). If I want a book I need to go to an online bookstore. Why this is I’m not sure. But it’s interesting.

It’s significantly harder to shop there, especially as an American. I found the same products I would get on Amazon to be 2 or 3x the price when I would shop in stores or online there excluding VAT and exchange rates. Maybe it allows more competition? But it surely isn’t an easier, cheaper experience in general. And as far as not being a Swedish speaker(which many people in Sweden are not), online shopping is even ha…

Amazon.de does free delivery to Sweden, but it is not next-day of course.

To me the idea for ordering toilet paper online is a bit foreign. In order to collect the package, I would have to go to my local store, where they already sell toilet paper.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#248

Post by searchableguy »

MattGaiser wrote: post #214
AlexandrB wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon lost me as a customer completely. They're not at all customer focused. Their shipping care/quality is horrendous (stuff is damaged all the time). Any non-trivial issues (anything that can't be resolved by refunding money, re-sending the item) have no path to resolution. Amazon.com itself is like a flea market: tons of untrustworthy/counterfeit merchandise, fake reviews everywhere. Apple is customer obsessed. A…

>Any non-trivial issues What product issue is not solved by a refund or replacement?

Refund and replacement aren't always easy depending on where you live or which amazon firm it is (different countries, different contractor company). But that's not even the point, wasted time and headache is not something many want to deal with.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#249

Post by Miraste »

nano81 wrote: post #218
koboll wrote: post #14

>as John Gruber put it on Daring Fireball, “Amazon isn’t hurting for revenue (especially now), but they are hurting for trust.” This is empirically false. Amazon is the second most-trusted brand in America . https://morningconsult.com/most-trusted-brands/ It's wild how easily SV types will tweet things like "No one trusts Amazon!" when the reality outside the Bay Area is so radically and demonstrably opposite.

The context of that quote is talking about the trust of merchants which sell products on Amazon, not the trust of consumers (which is what your link is). Consumers of course don't care if Amazon rips off merchants.

As long as consumers trust Amazon and don't trust the merchants, it doesn't matter. They have to use Amazon anyway. This is presented as a strategic problem for Amazon, but it isn't.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#250

Post by JKCalhoun »

thr0w__4w4y wrote: post #225

Way way back, when Amazon got bigger than just books, my motivation for using them was a) very good selection (in one order, I can order bagel chips, wiper blades and a router?) and b) price. Implicit in this was authenticity and good customer service -- for me, if the product isn't the real thing, or the company is a nightmare to deal with, it's a non-starter. Well now here we are. Fake reviews, counterfeit products…

> it's really more like shopping at a bazaar, since really their website is almost nothing more than Ebay in some sense

So, yeah, eBay, Ali-express ... might as well go there.

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