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A fight against Amazon becomes a state matter in Quebec

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Re: A fight against Amazon becomes a state matter in Quebec

#61

Post by vmception »

user5994461 wrote: post #28
TulliusCicero wrote: post #16

This seems kind of doomed to fail. Amazon is appealing because it provides a good customer experience: good prices, fast shipping, wide variety of products, responsive customer service, etc. More local businesses fail to compete because they mostly offer the same things with worse prices and experience. It's one thing to appeal to people's sense of civic responsibility for the environment, another thing entirely for…

>>> it provides a good customer experience: good prices Amazon had not offered better prices than the main brick-and-mortar shops for a long long time. Try comparing the items you see in shops with the same on Amazon and be Amazed. The best are small household items. Sellers buy from Ikea and resell on Amazon. Sometimes customers find out and they post reviews you can imagine, "OMG this is the £4 cutlery pack from Ik…

> Amazon had not offered better prices than the main brick-and-mortar shops for a long long time.

mayyybe outside of urban environments?

Where I live its a bunch of boutiques that have been hoping for altruistic charity from people that can relate to "the struggle". It only works on idealistic and impressional college kids and other small business owners in the 'cult of local'.

They've also sent comical emails for conveniently non-dilutive financing to any customer that Square leaked their info to "in these trying times".

Re: A fight against Amazon becomes a state matter in Quebec

#62

Post by WalterBright »

user5994461 wrote: post #28
TulliusCicero wrote: post #16

This seems kind of doomed to fail. Amazon is appealing because it provides a good customer experience: good prices, fast shipping, wide variety of products, responsive customer service, etc. More local businesses fail to compete because they mostly offer the same things with worse prices and experience. It's one thing to appeal to people's sense of civic responsibility for the environment, another thing entirely for…

>>> it provides a good customer experience: good prices Amazon had not offered better prices than the main brick-and-mortar shops for a long long time. Try comparing the items you see in shops with the same on Amazon and be Amazed. The best are small household items. Sellers buy from Ikea and resell on Amazon. Sometimes customers find out and they post reviews you can imagine, "OMG this is the £4 cutlery pack from Ik…

Better prices are offered in the form that I don't have to spend 2 hours of my time to get it and don't have to pay for gas to get there.

Heck, I'd pay more to get it from Amazon because of that. I'm not driving to the store to save $4 on a knife.

Re: A fight against Amazon becomes a state matter in Quebec

#63

Post by icelancer »

user5994461 wrote: post #28
TulliusCicero wrote: post #16

This seems kind of doomed to fail. Amazon is appealing because it provides a good customer experience: good prices, fast shipping, wide variety of products, responsive customer service, etc. More local businesses fail to compete because they mostly offer the same things with worse prices and experience. It's one thing to appeal to people's sense of civic responsibility for the environment, another thing entirely for…

>>> it provides a good customer experience: good prices Amazon had not offered better prices than the main brick-and-mortar shops for a long long time. Try comparing the items you see in shops with the same on Amazon and be Amazed. The best are small household items. Sellers buy from Ikea and resell on Amazon. Sometimes customers find out and they post reviews you can imagine, "OMG this is the £4 cutlery pack from Ik…

Huh? AmazonBasics cabling is significantly cheaper than Best Buy's white label brand Insignia 99% of the time.

Re: A fight against Amazon becomes a state matter in Quebec

#64

Post by icelancer »

belval wrote: post #21

The main issue with this approach is that it fails to address my biggest grip with local online shopping: delivery speed. Amazon offers 48h delivery for most products even with COVID. On the other hand, I ordered stuff from a shop based in Montreal and it took 5 days to arrive. Even though it was physically much closer to me. We can argue on the "necessity" of 2-day shipping, but it is still a massive differentiator.

>> We can argue on the "necessity" of 2-day shipping, but it is still a massive differentiator.

I don't understand how commenters on this site constantly miss this point and argue over a few dollars in savings. If you live in Seattle, you get same-day shipping for free w/ Prime on a lot of items, one-day shipping for most, and two-day shipping on everything else.

Small businesses don't even ship products out 6 days a week with a 1 day handling time, much less provide reasonable rates.

Speed is king.

Re: A fight against Amazon becomes a state matter in Quebec

#65

Post by paxys »

brushfoot wrote: post #41

I'd love to see an Amazon lookalike with solely local results. I.e., local stores list their inventories, accept payment, and do delivery. Does anything like that exist? Marketing and integration would be hurdles: You'd have to convince businesses to integrate, and you'd have to become a household name to consumers. You'd have to write integrations for the menagerie of systems small businesses use, or else become key…

You are talking about two very different retail models. Few local stores actually manufacture goods. They are getting their stuff from a wholesale supplier, same as Amazon and other online stores. Your online package coming from a physical store in a premium retail location is just going to add extra cost and inefficiency to the process.

Re: A fight against Amazon becomes a state matter in Quebec

#66

Post by amiga_500 »

betaby wrote: post #60
amiga_500 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Montreal homeless issue is nothing like the USA situation. The orange line is a dream compared to the London tube.

That's a very Canadian reply - to compare with the worst examples, especially US ones. Not too many 3rd world countries can 'beat' US in homeless situation.

I've cited the USA and UK, two western, English speaking countries.

Re: A fight against Amazon becomes a state matter in Quebec

#67

Post by Marsymars »

didibus wrote: post #43

One thing I did wish Amazon did was to have more localized options. Be able to restrict search to products or sellers from a particular area would be nice. Same for comments and reviews.

Amazon comments and reviews are country-specific, so living in a small country would probably have much of the effect you're looking for.

Tangentially, app store reviews are also country specific. Annoying when I'm looking for a relatively niche app that may have 50 reviews with a handful containing good information in the US app store, but the Canadian app store has 3 reviews, none of which are useful.

Re: A fight against Amazon becomes a state matter in Quebec

#68

Post by thbr99 »

ckdarby wrote: post #2

Damn it! I live in Quebec, this province makes everything extremely complicated and then wonders why most companies don't want to deal with them and most people leave. Went to buy insurance, couldn't because ToS lists countries couldn't do business with includes, Sadi, Iran, Iraq and Quebec. Most Canadian's know to live in this province only if you can maximize the gains from it. Buying a first time house, starting a…

Skilled immigration to Canada via Québec takes 3 years in the fastest category. In other categories it takes 4 to 6 years. Immigration to the rest of Canada takes only 6 months via Express Entry.

Québec's immigration system is the slowest, red taped and infamous for its bureaucracy and mismanagement.

They can't even get a grip on senior home issues with Covid-19 let alone have an online local shopping site. The province's bureaucracy has no limits.

Re: A fight against Amazon becomes a state matter in Quebec

#69

Post by andreilys »

mgbmtl wrote: post #24
TulliusCicero wrote: post #16

This seems kind of doomed to fail. Amazon is appealing because it provides a good customer experience: good prices, fast shipping, wide variety of products, responsive customer service, etc. More local businesses fail to compete because they mostly offer the same things with worse prices and experience. It's one thing to appeal to people's sense of civic responsibility for the environment, another thing entirely for…

As you mention, shopping on Amazon has become pretty horrible. I often shop local (faster, more convenient), but discoverability is a big problem, and I hate having to phone to enquire about their open hours, because their Google listing is never up to date.

I’m confused as to how local is faster/more convenient, yet it requires you to pick up a phone due to an outdated listing?

With Amazon, if I see I’m running low on rice, I can say “Alexa order rice” and I get rice on my doorstep in 3 days based on my previous rice order history. Doesn’t get more convenient than that.

Re: A fight against Amazon becomes a state matter in Quebec

#70

Post by thbr99 »

amiga_500 wrote: post #32
ckdarby wrote: post #2

Damn it! I live in Quebec, this province makes everything extremely complicated and then wonders why most companies don't want to deal with them and most people leave. Went to buy insurance, couldn't because ToS lists countries couldn't do business with includes, Sadi, Iran, Iraq and Quebec. Most Canadian's know to live in this province only if you can maximize the gains from it. Buying a first time house, starting a…

I live in quebec. My kids go to a nice school. I live in a nice neighborhood. I get the nice metro to work. Or I cycle on the nice cycle network. I got my covid test, and result. I saw a really good doctor the same day. The same doctor rang me back 2 days later to check up on me at home. My kids would normally be in and out of a fantastic, modern library, or at the pool, or playing soccer in the great parks. Sadly th…

I totally have the opposite experience in Québec. Everywhere and anything in Québec feels red taped and low of customer service. Maybe I have to speak French. Speaking in English and being non white gets a degraded service in Québec.
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