People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart • Hacker News Board

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#51

Post by silisili » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #48

spaetzleesser wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And most importantly they have only one listing for the same item. In Amazon and Walmart you have multiple listings of the same product by different sellers at different prices. In Amazon it's really annoying to see several pages of basically the same product.

Amazon tries to coalesce these pages together in a single product-detail page with multiple offers. Sellers frequently try to avoid this coalescing (because otherwise, they're only competing on price). This could be as simple as pad printing a meaningless 5-6 character brand onto the product [making it technically different] or by making the description slightly different.

Yeah, it's a tough problem to solve. But I understand their complaint, it's often an identical product with a different name painted on it, pages and pages.

My favorite was a handheld coffee grinder. The item was unbranded, and the manual had some brand name manually scratched out with an inkpen everywhere it was mentioned. It's actually a nice coffee grinder, believe it or not.

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#52

Post by dawnerd » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 7:17 PM UTC

handrous wrote: post #30

tyingq wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WalMart does also have 3rd party sellers where you have to watch what you buy. I suppose Walmart has a broader variety of in-house sold than Amazon though.

So does Target, I think. Becoming a shady online flea-market must be incredibly lucrative, since everyone who can seems to choose that over just being, like, a normal store, but online.

Target at least isn’t quite as bad and they do seem to vet their partner sellers a lot better than the other marketplaces. They also make it very clear it’s a partner instead of hiding it like Amazon does.

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#53

Post by gurchik » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 7:34 PM UTC

tangoed wrote: post #35

silisili wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart is getting better, but still way behind on the web front. They'll show you things in stock, then tell you it's out of stock upon checkout. Go back to product page, shows in stock again. They also use way, way too many captchas. Lastly, they divide walmart.com from walmart pickup and delivery for no reason. Some things you order on the .com side are only 'shippable' if your local store has it. So, it's pickup…

The Walmart.com and pickup/delivery division on their website is not a thing anymore. They seem to be testing a new beta version of the website, and I got to try it yesterday. I have Walmart plus and this is how it went: One seamless search option, no pickup/delivery and Walmart.com options. I added everything, including groceries and other non groceries to my cart. I selected delivery. Some items were not available…

> I once ordered shampoo sold my Amazon that was obviously fake, and then I searched around and realized Amazon has a program where they gather the products from different sellers and put it in one huge bin and call all of them sold by Amazon.com

This is a common scam. Third party sellers will send a fake product to Amazon to be FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon). When someone buys this product from the seller on the product's webpage, the seller is hoping the buyer will actually receive a genuine Amazon product instead that happens to already be in the warehouse. The buyer will be happy and will not complain, so the seller receives their money. However that fake product is still sitting in the warehouse, and when some unlucky buyer receives the fake product, they'll demand a refund. Some unlucky third party seller will have to foot the bill for that refund.

Youtuber "chaseontwowheels" ordered a $6000 camera Sold and Shipped by Amazon.com. He instead received a box of rocks. He got a refund from a suspicious Amazon and shipped him another camera. While filming a video about the incident, he opened the box and it was rocks again. He ended up buying the camera from B&H and finally got the legitimate product.

https://www.diyphotography.net/buyer-orders-6000-camera-amaz...

I've run into a similar problem. I ordered an electric beard trimmer and the box looked new but there was hair inside so it was obviously used. There were a lot of recent reviews about this from different sellers. I'm assuming some third party seller sent a bunch of returned stuff to Amazon and they threw it all into the same bin.

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#54

Post by bluGill » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 7:54 PM UTC

_huayra_ wrote: post #37

Is there a better way than google shopping to find deals across sites for products? I try to avoid using Amazon out of practical (e.g. products often being cheaper elsewhere, often have less worry about getting some SKU-identical knockoff that amazon absorbed from some FBA hack) and sometimes ideological (a CEO who rides a particularly phallic rocket into space and then gloats about it while his employees are treated…

Find small companies with a web presence and buy from them. They type that ship their own product. You will pay a tiny bit more, but because they know their product, and so the description on the website will reflect that. We have 4 different devices that will work, here is why you would choose each. In depth reviews. If you still have questions someone will answer the phone when you call who knows something about the product in question and so can direct you to the right one for you.

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#55

Post by zzt123 » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 7:56 PM UTC

oliveshell wrote: post #33

lotsofpulp wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They definitely removed it years ago, at least for me. The option to check mark “Amazon.com” as the seller was there and then it wasn’t over and over, and then eventually just disappeared. Edit: I just searched shelf and hot sauce on Amazon.Com on iOS Safari, and the filter options do not show any way to restrict to items sold by Amazon.com.

The option to filter by seller is still there— barely. It only shows up if you restrict your search to a specific department, e.g. “Sports and Outdoors”.

That’s just makeup over the underlying commingling, no?

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#56

Post by OJFord » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

silisili wrote: post #31

OJFord wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really like that for returns, they'll come pick it up. AMZ charges extra for that. Oof, not in the UK. (At least not with Prime.) Perhaps not quite as easy (for small enough items) as when I mostly commuted, and could print a label and leave it in an outgoing mail pile, but certainly from home I way prefer that than going to a post office (even in the absence of coronavirus restrictions). I actually bought a prin…

It actually depends on who their partner is. In my last city, it was USPS, so I could in fact put it with the mail. Where I live now, Amazon delivers but uses UPS for returns. I can either drop it off at a Kohl's location, a UPS store, or pay for them to come pick it up. Normally it's not a huge hassle, but it's a really nice gesture to me, especially for heavy items. I almost kept a TV stand, new in box, that I didn…

Oh interesting. We tend not to really have variations like that across the UK (not having different states in the same way), so beyond remote islands etc. (by post code) and things like Uber/Deliveroo rolling out city by city/town by town, it's all just the same.

Amazon uses various couriers to deliver and return here (even me being in one location, in London, but also the same in the country) but when you select a return only Hermes offer pick-up. (Otherwise there's Amazon locker, Royal Mail print label, Royal Mail drop-off, various other drop-off places of the kind that are a sort of 'side gig' for a grocer or newsagent, etc.)

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#57

Post by monksy » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #11

ethbr0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they divide walmart.com from walmart pickup and delivery for no reason I can hazard an informed guess as to why that is -- they built .com as an independent company, in order to get it off the ground faster and with less interference from the brick and mortar side. End result: quick iteration, but now two completely separate supply chains. You'd be amazing how complicated warehousing, inventory, shipping, etc. get…

HomeDepot and Bestbuy are what I would hold up as the best websites. Target is decent too, except they started allowed resellers and I was not as easily able to find how to restrict to items sold only by Target.

Menards is great for this. The stores tend to fullfill orders and ship. Also, you have flexibility in how you get it shipped. Also, they tend to show live POS stock counts. (Expect 1 item to be 0 left)

They're not the best in shipping.. but I haven't see the garbage resellers on their platform.

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#58

Post by ndesaulniers » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 8:05 PM UTC

I use both sites for shopping. Walmart has free (roughly) two day shipping if you spend $35+. For bulkier items and (frequently IME) better prices, I prefer Walmart to Amazon Prime.

I have major concerns over fraudulent or quid pro quo reviews on Amazon, and the prices generally aren't the best around. Free (or rather included) next day shipping is great though.

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#59

Post by slownews45 » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 8:20 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #11

ethbr0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they divide walmart.com from walmart pickup and delivery for no reason I can hazard an informed guess as to why that is -- they built .com as an independent company, in order to get it off the ground faster and with less interference from the brick and mortar side. End result: quick iteration, but now two completely separate supply chains. You'd be amazing how complicated warehousing, inventory, shipping, etc. get…

HomeDepot and Bestbuy are what I would hold up as the best websites. Target is decent too, except they started allowed resellers and I was not as easily able to find how to restrict to items sold only by Target.

I was bummed about the target third party stuff - how hard is it to add a target only toggle?

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#60

Post by slownews45 » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

wisemanwillhear wrote: post #46

silisili wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart is getting better, but still way behind on the web front. They'll show you things in stock, then tell you it's out of stock upon checkout. Go back to product page, shows in stock again. They also use way, way too many captchas. Lastly, they divide walmart.com from walmart pickup and delivery for no reason. Some things you order on the .com side are only 'shippable' if your local store has it. So, it's pickup…

> Walmart is getting better, but still way behind on the web front. They'll show you things in stock, then tell you it's out of stock upon checkout. Go back to product page, shows in stock again. 2 weeks ago I added a Logitech mouse to my cart which Amazon claimed would arrive in 2 days per the product page. Upon checkout I was informed that it was unavailable to ship and I would get an e-mail when they knew it would…

This can be depending on a delivery address - sometimes Amazon will have local delivery delays (some oregon areas had delivery partner issues a while back). Not sure if that might be part of it.