Amazon made online shopping feel safe and comfortable, at least mechanically, where once the risk of being scammed by bad actors felt huge
Maybe this was true once, but now Amazon has brought back that fear and confusion of getting scammed.
You used to be able to count on reviews for some idea of the quality of the product, but now you need to do research at someplace like www.fakespot.com to see if the reviews are fake.
And even if the product is legit and works well and it's fulfilled by Amazon, when you get the product you need to check it carefully to see if it's a counterfeit knockoff that some vendor sold through amazon's commingled inventory.
I've switched to https://www.bhphotovideo.com/ for most of my computer/electronics purchases now - they seem to price match Amazon automatically (or maybe amazon price matches them, many products have an identical price) and delivery is almost always within 2 - 3 days. I used to go to newegg, but have had a few issues with their third party sellers (product never shipped after ordering) so stopped going there.
Amazon's counterfeit problem seems like something they're not taking seriously enough. For a laser printer or a lamp, sure -- I'll buy from Amazon and deal with the return if I ever get screwed. But for climbing gear, of which I've bought quite a bit of, I simply won't touch Amazon. I haven't heard of counterfeit (versus obvious trash, which exists but is different) climbing goods on Amazon, but I simply can't risk it.
> I used to go to newegg, but have had a few issues with their third party sellers (product never shipped after ordering) so stopped going there.
I have zero interest in shopping a platform. I didn’t like ebay one bit. I’d be perfectly happy to buy from amazon or newegg but if they insist on making it difficult to do that I’ll go elsewhere.
I’m not even saying they can’t be a platform, just make it easy for me to turn that part off.
A lot of people like to disparage Best Buy but I’ve found the stores in my area to be excellent and the staff to always be friendly and helpful. They’ll also price match Amazon in most cases. Their PC components selection isn’t huge, but for things like consoles, games, peripherals, etc., I feel like they’re great. They also offer one-hour pickup and in some cases will even give you a discount if you choose that over shipping.
Also no sales tax at B&H for a lot of people. Of course, in some states, you're still supposed to pay the state sales tax directly when you do your income tax. I used to do this with amazon before they collected sales tax in my state. They allow you to download your purchase history (csv format) and see which items you didn't pay tax on so it's easy to calculate that line item on state taxes.
The startup I work for, Masse[0], is attempting to solve this issue. More or less a platform for product reviews with a social network component to see exactly who is recommending a product.
Yeah- and really, I think PayPal has done more to make online shopping feel safe and comfortable than Amazon. It means you can use those little-guy websites without fear of credit card fraud. They even offer purchase-protection.
With Newegg, I definitely filter on "Seller: Newegg". I don't like that they've become a generic broker, lowering their standards and promoting poor service and counterfeiting.
legally every Amazon warehouse should be seized by the Feds for knowingly helping to ship counterfeit goods across state lines. That's what happens to other retailers who do this[1].
Luckily, Bezos owns the Washington Post, has a 600 million dollar contract with the CIA, and is close to signing a 10 billion dollar contract with the Department of Defense. The new HQ in DC probably helps grease those hands as well
> On top of that, Amazon is more than willing to fix its errors.
In my experience, this is less true than it used to be. For example, my mom ordered a DVD in early December to be given as a Christmas gift. It was a Prime item, and she is a Prime subscriber. For some reason, it wasn't showing that it would be delivered until just before Christmas. Even though this was odd — and arguably a breach of the Prime agreement — she figured it was no big deal because it would be in time for Christmas. Then, just before it was supposed to be delivered, Amazon updated the delivery to after Christmas. This was actually OK by her, since the recipient (my daughter) would still be at her house for a few days after Christmas. Again, just before it was to be delivered, they updated the shipping again, and now said it would arrive Jan 15 to Jan 30. When she chatted the Amazon reps, they just said sorry for the inconvenience, and offered nothing for this shipping miss. Eventually they agreed to put a credit on her account for the inconvenience, but the credit never actually materialized.
We canceled the order and bought the DVD (plus digital copy!) from Walmart. This is just one of many negative customer service experiences we've had with Amazon in the last few months. The other big problem is that they now want each return put in its own box — even if it was shipped to us with multiple other items that are also being returned. We have been Prime customers for years, but perhaps not for much longer.
I can't comment on the other points, but I can reply to this:
>The other big problem is that they now want each return put in its own box — even if it was shipped to us with multiple other items that are also being returned. We have been Prime customers for years, but perhaps not for much longer
The reason for this is because each seller can set their own return address. I receive all returns to ensure that they are destroyed and that no customer accidentally buys something new and receives a customer return.
Beyond minimizing costs for Amazon/sellers, this also reduces waste and environmental impact because each good only has to be shipped once.
Recently, I was searching for a new office chair. Amazon offers the popular Steelcase Leap at full price, $978. You'd likely think you're paying full price to get a new chair. See if you can tell that you're getting ripped off:
Spoiler: buried in the fine print, and listed as a "feature," it says "open box refurb".
Customers are unwittingly paying full price for refurbished chairs, which typically sell for under $400. Many reviews claim that the chairs do not seem up to standard quality. You might think this is from some shady third-party seller, but it's in fact, "Ship from and sold by Amazon.com." And if you list all New/Used/Refurbished sellers, Amazon.com shows up in the New category, despite being described as a refurb in the product description. What a mess.
That's either a mistake in the product description or an error in marking it new. Amazon is selling it's standard "new" warranties along with it, which wouldn't be possible if it's a refurb. My guess is the product description is inaccurate.
Buy Used and Save: Buy a Used "Steelcase Leap Fabric Chair, Black,46216179FBL" and save 78% off the $1,699.00 list price. Buy with confidence as the condition of this item and its timely delivery are guaranteed under the "Amazon A-to-z Guarantee".
I recently went down the rabbit hole of trying to buy Yorkshire Gold tea on Amazon (I am in the US). I encountered so many bad reviews of users complaining about the quality, and the flavor being weakened, or not the authentic YG flavor, that I gave up. It was impossible to tell to which seller each bad review was attributable.
I went on Ebay, found decent UK sellers in less than 5 minutes, and ordered my tea. Downside of course, is that it will take 2-3 weeks to get here, but at least I know what I'm getting.
There are certain swaths of items that you literally can't buy anymore because they are completely overrun with counterfeiters. Perfume/cologne and board games are two big ones.
Amazon is, at this point, undoubtedly one of the largest enablers of open counterfeiting in the world. It needs to be met with a massive investigation and crippling fines. That probably won't happen until we have a federal government that is no longer slavish prostituted to business interests, unfortunately.
> But there’s a reason that we used to have shoe stores, hardware stores, grocery stores, bookstores, and all the rest: Those specialized retail spaces allow products, and the people with knowledge about them, to engage in specialized ways of finding, choosing, and purchasing them.
There's a reason why so much commerce has moved online in general and to Amazon in particular: We often value price and convenience and oodles of consumer reviews and easy access to competition and related info more than we value meat space salespeople with specialized knowledge laying on personalized sales pressure.
Not always. I drove for three hours to shop for an office chair in a brick and mortar store, because I had to actually try it before paying the big bucks. But often enough to remake the economy.
My parents generation, now in the 70's, has this implicit trust in salespeople. They know "in principle" that there are "bad apples", but if a salesperson shakes their hand, looks them in the eye, and says "Of course Mr. <Insert name>, we'll take care of you", they buy it wholesale. Which is how my dad bought $600 tires for $1800 at a dealership, a $1200 "DSLR camera" which was actually a superzoom point and shoot, a wired phone headset which was actually wireless headphones with no boom, etc.
I have basically zero trust in the "specialized retail stores with specialized sales people". Any time I geek out a little bit about any retail area, I learn the 101 ways they have and do scam you, and my trust erodes further. A specialized expensive shoe store swore my shoes I bought specifically for air travel don't have metal shims in them; of course they do. The electronic stores are never staffed with people who know more than I do, or frequently anything at all other than to push extended warranty. Small car maintenance store I've dealt with regularly for 15 years have turned out to be skimming and scamming once I learned more about their product and service, all the while greeting me warmly by name and "taking care of me". And yes, my dad and his friends still go to them.
So yes, bring on the faceless online warehouse. I feel safer there - or at least, am better equipped to determine fake/counterfeit/exploitative than I am in person. For all the decades that Amazon and the like had to develop methods to scam us, in-person salespeople had centuries, and I ain't winning that game.
> There's a reason why so much commerce has moved online in general and to Amazon in particular: We often value price and convenience and oodles of consumer reviews and easy access to competition and related info more than we value meat space salespeople with specialized knowledge laying on personalized sales pressure.
I've stopped shopping on amazon for years now and perhaps the best thing they've done is make the online shopping experience better on every other website, purely out of necessity. I think any convenience in amazon has an advantage with is mostly perceived at this point. Also, their review system had become so huge and untrustworthy even the stars next to an item are basically meaningless.
But people that flip companies, and large companies focused solely on profit, etc., realised they could do away with subject-knowledgable sales people and simply have good sellers who tell you the highest margin goods are the best.
It works too, you can put an established business down by robbing their sales for a couple of years pretending your product is better. By then there's no [affordable] quality option available. Plus, the morally corrupt owners make oodles more money; inspiring others to do likewise. Greed feeds its self.
It's not just price. My problem is that brick and mortar stores often simply don't have the selection nor the knowledge I'd expect.
Of course the alternative doesn't have to be Amazon - there are countless shops that serve specific categories and niches way better than Amazon or your local store, if you even have one, ever could.
As part of the customer category that spends tens of thousands on Amazon per year, having shifted the majority of my non niche spending for physical goods to the platform, I've found their error rate to be well under 1%. I also return <1% of my orders for other reasons. I've contacted customer service maybe 3 times in total over the span of 10 years and each time the issue was resolved incredibly quickly and effectively. Maybe I'm in the minority here? Or is it just the errors that get all the attention.
However, that confusion within categories has increased is undeniable. Try to buy a bath towel and be flooded with similar items with similar reviews. The ability to search and sort efficiently has definitely declined dramatically. It takes a lot more effort to make sure you're buying what you wanted for certain categories, particularly soft ones. I can no longer trust that the best selection is going to be on the first page of results.
I wonder if Amazon will draw the line somewhere on how wide, how encompassing of a platform it is for third party vendors. It seems to have pushed itself over a limit.
Amazon's solution to this is to create its own house brands and then promote those. I've had good luck with their brands. The quality and price are good.
Bath towel is a good example. I'll only buy softlines like that on Amazon if they have their own brand. When I go search on Amazon and get the piles of random stuff, I just don't buy anything. It's not worth the trouble to sort through it all.
Evidently, Amazon is ruining Whole Foods at breakneck speeds, too. The one near me was re-designed to a cold, commercial feel. Many items were removed. No more freshly roasted coffee on-site. etc. Cashier asked me if I was a prime member. No thanks, Amazon.
Amazon makes it basically impossible to compare prices by unit of measure (ie $0.94 per gallon or what not). I’ve wanted to make a browser extension to attempt to fix that.
I’ve always suspected this is intentional. But if I could compare prices this way and be confident I’m getting the best deal, I’d buy things on Amazon a lot more.
That's $0.98 / oz, but if you switch from fruit punch to blue raz it becomes $15.18 / lb, and if you switch from the 60-serving pack to the 30-serving pack it's $24.58 / lb, but if you want to subscribe and save that's $0.93 / oz.
I wrote some code that does something like that. Learned very quickly that it's essentially impossible without a lot of manual data capturing - specifically is this a pack of 6 or 10 etc.
Still for the bits where it worked I was surprised how big the variances per unit were
I've had a pretty terrible experience trying to buy non stick skillets over the years on Amazon with most of even the top rated items coming with huge issues like warping on the first use, not being very non stick, flaking etc. I almost wonder if its counterfeit or if manufacturers just cutting corners on what used to be a good product? Either way reviews become almost useless when you don't know which version you will be getting. I've found Amazon works much better for items without potential latent quality issues like DVDs, books, or products that are just binary work/don't work.
I bought this non-stick pan on Amazon and it was one of my best purchases of last year. The trick with non-sticks is to buy cheap enough cookware to affordably replace regularly as they wear out. My previous non-stick pan cost four times as much, wore out, and is now just hanging from a rack, looking fabulous. With the new one, I plan to toss it in another year and buy another.
I increasingly find myself using eBay as a storefront. You can easily filter by “Buy it Now” and “New”, and then it works basically like Amazon marketplace, except that I trust the feedback system a lot more. There’s a lot of small and independent sellers on eBay - plus you can get a lot of stuff shipped directly from China and cut out the middleman, if that’s what you prefer.
They may have ruined online shopping but they haven’t solved it either. The clothing retailers (an area hard for amazon to move in on) will remain competitive.
I think the one area amazon absolutely has done right is customer service. If any other company made their customer service as good, easy, and simple, I think they would be able to catch up quickly as well.
For example: I recently bought a jacket on sale from Columbia sportswear. It didn’t get delivered to my unit properly (despite their usps tracking saying that it did), and when I emailed them about it: absolutely no response. My issue went into a black hole. Of course I have now blacklisted Columbia sports: never again. If this was an amazon purchase, I would have been able to resolve it almost immediately.
I find it interesting that we think of Amazon as having gotten "customer service" right. I've had two classes of experience with Amazon:
Products they act as a seller for, and products they act as a producer for.
When I'm buying item X and it's not up to par, Amazon's response is invariably "just send it on back and we'll refund you." At one point I complained I'm not taking a half-day off work to get this $5 item in the mail and they said never mind, just keep it, and we'll refund you anyway.
Awesome.
OTOH, they have a $10/mo (or so) a la carte book service, labelled "Prime Books," with a "free" subtitle (or it was - I haven't checked back recently.) Clicking on it was auto-enrolling. I didn't find out for a few months that they'd apparently one-click-enrolled me in a recurring monthly bill. It took me 3 hours on the phone to get them to partially refund it, and it ended with me closing my account then and there. Despite having been a member since they more or less "opened their doors," and a good chunk of my household spending going through their portal, refunding money from their own service was a line in the sand for them.
I agree. For example in The Netherlands, Amazon is a small player. Almost all popular online retailers there have amazing customer service. Also, by law, they are all required to take back any order, for almost any reason, within 14 days of delivery.
We need a breakthrough in package delivery. Over half of people’s online shopping complaints are due to items not arriving on time, being delivered to the wrong address, being stolen...
I was recently backpacking in Colombia. In Colombia, no one shops online: the mountainous terrain makes shipping extremely expensive. It was an extremely refreshing experience. There are malls of course but also many small stores for things like school supplies and niche clothing brands (I bought a sweater from a store that sold basically nothing but sweaters: they also had a fully stocked bar with a pillow lounge, loft, and a TV in the back.) The public transportation is well utilized and people walk in the streets. Small grocery/convenience stores are only a stone's throw from anywhere in the city. This is what we have lost to online shopping.
> There’s no ambiguity about what you’re getting when you buy a particular book, CD, or DVD.
About a year ago I ordered a soundtrack CD from Amazon. It turned out to be a “fake”, it was a CD-R that had a printed label. If you didn’t know it was a CD-R, it looked reasonably convincing, the case was quite good quality. And it did contain the correct music - it was just a pirate copy.
I seem to return 1 out of 8 Amazon items, even eating the occasional cost of poor quality items, because I needed -something-. They seem more and more to make me print and mail stuff back, first making ups pickup no longer the default, and now removing the option altogether.
I get lots of seemingly purposely mislabled products in the automotive section now. I think i get maybe 50% success rate ordering car parts. Lots of fakes. NGK, DENSO, and HONDA products seem to be prolific with counterfits. Had good luck with GM and Toyota parts so far, but I expect that to change, or be a fluke. Their automotive idea may see profit, bit I think they underestimated the extra complexity and returns inherent. Brick and mortar stores do much better at soaking up cost of returned parts I suspect.
If a product is a counterfeit then the cost they are soaking up is not that of the return, but that of failing to police their supply chain. And they absolutely should be looking to minimise the hassle to the customers in that case.
>>"The problem with an Everything Store is that there’s no way to organize everything effectively. The result is basically a giant digital flea market."
I'd describe it instead as their search and filtering stinks, and it is not just Amazon.
The first issue is that Amazon and almost everyone else seem to think that either we want, or it is in their best interest, to include in search results anything vaguely resembling the search terms. Perhaps sometimes this is nice, but the one thing that would help is:
PROVIDE A STRICT BUTTON
This would allow users to specify that the search items MUST include the specified terms. If it returns an empty set, fine, remove the STRICT criteria, or enter new terms. Simple.
The author also touched on the issue that you can't find anything by a particular attribute (his example was a frame/matte of a particular size). This cannot be emphasized enough -- they really need a system in each class of products to extract and provide search/sort/filter on these particular characteristics. Ideally an AI-ish solution would identify attributes and list them. They could also simply require vendors to put up particular attributes, and accurately.
It'd be REALLY nice if they had a usable API so we could setup our own search & select UI, but...
I closed my account on Amazon a while back and barely ever shop there due to how they treat their employees and their general bloated business model. I now actively shop from other online sites when I'm looking for a product and will gladly pay a little extra.
The problem with Amazon is that every time I go there, I'm treated with a cluttered mess of ads and products all over the place. Whenever I search for what I want, I'm now treated with ads integrated into the product list that look exactly like a product listing, horizontal bar product listings of related/"recommended" products, and 300 (exaggeration) different spammy options for buying a product as a "subscription" or "bundled with amazon prime" at different price points when I only want to select a quantity.
Its mostly horrendous garbage now and I'm so glad I closed my account and never use it. Its helped me save a lot of money (by removing temptation) and shop in other places that don't try and up-sell me on other products.
Also, most products I can get immediately by just driving to a local store. I don't have to wait 2-4 days to get it.
Amazon's counterfeit problem has ruined it for me. Like eBay before it, it's mostly a place to window shop for me now. Despite the massive amount of work they put into their logistics, they seem to have no trusted supply chain.
With eBay, you can sort by 'used' items, and there is some focus on the seller history- and by combining them you can form a reasonable expectation of whats going on.
With Amazon, you're buying a lottery ticket, every time.
I did notice that the rate at which I have to return unsatisfactory products from Amazon seems to have shot upwards in the last year or so. Obviously a hassle.
I've now gone back to getting what I can locally in most cases.
It ruined workplace ethics. It ruined Seattle. It also ruined a lot of things.
I felt happy today going to a mom and pop franchise to purchase stuff. Happier knowing that I've just started on my quest of moving away from Amazon. I make money and some regular non-tech people make money and I'm happy they do.
AmazonBasics? Find a brand outlet - or go to AliExpress. Amazon is merely an expensive broker here. I'd rather Jack Ma make that money than Jeff does.
Groceries? Go to your local offline vendor, preferable Mom and Pop.
Computers? Set up a deal with the local distributor. Tell them that you respect reasonable prices and good support and they will give you a great experience.
Books / Movies / Videos? Rent from a library.
I've been a long time Amazon shopper and for the last two years I'm consciously moving offline. I'm doing my bit and I've never felt happier.
I noticed that the discussion about Amazon's decreasing quality comes up quite regularly on HN. It seems to be a huge issue and a lot of people have negative stories to tell.
The best solution would be to move away from the big bad A and buy from alternative stores. I know that this is not always possible but let's try...
Shameless plug: A few days ago I created the site amalternative.com [1] which lists alternative online stores. There is still a lot of work to do but I decided to launch as soon as I could.
And I guess it meets a lot of HN requirements:
- It's an MVP
- It's a side project
- There is no useless crap on the site
- It's simple
- It's fast (Static, on Netlify ;))
- It has an high information density (Okay, not yet. But I'm working on it)
[+] [-] Johnny555|7 years ago|reply
Maybe this was true once, but now Amazon has brought back that fear and confusion of getting scammed.
You used to be able to count on reviews for some idea of the quality of the product, but now you need to do research at someplace like www.fakespot.com to see if the reviews are fake.
And even if the product is legit and works well and it's fulfilled by Amazon, when you get the product you need to check it carefully to see if it's a counterfeit knockoff that some vendor sold through amazon's commingled inventory.
I've switched to https://www.bhphotovideo.com/ for most of my computer/electronics purchases now - they seem to price match Amazon automatically (or maybe amazon price matches them, many products have an identical price) and delivery is almost always within 2 - 3 days. I used to go to newegg, but have had a few issues with their third party sellers (product never shipped after ordering) so stopped going there.
[+] [-] NegativeK|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bradleyjg|7 years ago|reply
I have zero interest in shopping a platform. I didn’t like ebay one bit. I’d be perfectly happy to buy from amazon or newegg but if they insist on making it difficult to do that I’ll go elsewhere.
I’m not even saying they can’t be a platform, just make it easy for me to turn that part off.
[+] [-] finaliteration|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bonestamp2|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nelkins|7 years ago|reply
I've written a little about it here [1][2].
[0] https://masse.app/
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18441347
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/fsharp/comments/9wpw84/introducing_...
[+] [-] b3b0p|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _bxg1|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unethical_ban|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tossaccount123|7 years ago|reply
Luckily, Bezos owns the Washington Post, has a 600 million dollar contract with the CIA, and is close to signing a 10 billion dollar contract with the Department of Defense. The new HQ in DC probably helps grease those hands as well
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/nyregion/fake-luxury-good...
[+] [-] NullPrefix|7 years ago|reply
Now you're risking of getting your payment stolen. Bad product/no product delivered could be seen as equivalent to stole payment.
It's an improvement, isn't it?
[+] [-] gnicholas|7 years ago|reply
In my experience, this is less true than it used to be. For example, my mom ordered a DVD in early December to be given as a Christmas gift. It was a Prime item, and she is a Prime subscriber. For some reason, it wasn't showing that it would be delivered until just before Christmas. Even though this was odd — and arguably a breach of the Prime agreement — she figured it was no big deal because it would be in time for Christmas. Then, just before it was supposed to be delivered, Amazon updated the delivery to after Christmas. This was actually OK by her, since the recipient (my daughter) would still be at her house for a few days after Christmas. Again, just before it was to be delivered, they updated the shipping again, and now said it would arrive Jan 15 to Jan 30. When she chatted the Amazon reps, they just said sorry for the inconvenience, and offered nothing for this shipping miss. Eventually they agreed to put a credit on her account for the inconvenience, but the credit never actually materialized.
We canceled the order and bought the DVD (plus digital copy!) from Walmart. This is just one of many negative customer service experiences we've had with Amazon in the last few months. The other big problem is that they now want each return put in its own box — even if it was shipped to us with multiple other items that are also being returned. We have been Prime customers for years, but perhaps not for much longer.
[+] [-] CamelCaseName|7 years ago|reply
>The other big problem is that they now want each return put in its own box — even if it was shipped to us with multiple other items that are also being returned. We have been Prime customers for years, but perhaps not for much longer
The reason for this is because each seller can set their own return address. I receive all returns to ensure that they are destroyed and that no customer accidentally buys something new and receives a customer return.
Beyond minimizing costs for Amazon/sellers, this also reduces waste and environmental impact because each good only has to be shipped once.
[+] [-] freyir|7 years ago|reply
https://www.amazon.com/d/Office-Desk-Chairs/Steelcase-Fabric...
Spoiler: buried in the fine print, and listed as a "feature," it says "open box refurb".
Customers are unwittingly paying full price for refurbished chairs, which typically sell for under $400. Many reviews claim that the chairs do not seem up to standard quality. You might think this is from some shady third-party seller, but it's in fact, "Ship from and sold by Amazon.com." And if you list all New/Used/Refurbished sellers, Amazon.com shows up in the New category, despite being described as a refurb in the product description. What a mess.
[+] [-] jhall1468|7 years ago|reply
Disclosure: I work at Amazon.
[+] [-] rasz|7 years ago|reply
Color: Black
Buy Used and Save: Buy a Used "Steelcase Leap Fabric Chair, Black,46216179FBL" and save 78% off the $1,699.00 list price. Buy with confidence as the condition of this item and its timely delivery are guaranteed under the "Amazon A-to-z Guarantee".
[+] [-] 80mph|7 years ago|reply
I went on Ebay, found decent UK sellers in less than 5 minutes, and ordered my tea. Downside of course, is that it will take 2-3 weeks to get here, but at least I know what I'm getting.
[+] [-] koboll|7 years ago|reply
Amazon is, at this point, undoubtedly one of the largest enablers of open counterfeiting in the world. It needs to be met with a massive investigation and crippling fines. That probably won't happen until we have a federal government that is no longer slavish prostituted to business interests, unfortunately.
[+] [-] hirundo|7 years ago|reply
There's a reason why so much commerce has moved online in general and to Amazon in particular: We often value price and convenience and oodles of consumer reviews and easy access to competition and related info more than we value meat space salespeople with specialized knowledge laying on personalized sales pressure.
Not always. I drove for three hours to shop for an office chair in a brick and mortar store, because I had to actually try it before paying the big bucks. But often enough to remake the economy.
[+] [-] NikolaNovak|7 years ago|reply
My parents generation, now in the 70's, has this implicit trust in salespeople. They know "in principle" that there are "bad apples", but if a salesperson shakes their hand, looks them in the eye, and says "Of course Mr. <Insert name>, we'll take care of you", they buy it wholesale. Which is how my dad bought $600 tires for $1800 at a dealership, a $1200 "DSLR camera" which was actually a superzoom point and shoot, a wired phone headset which was actually wireless headphones with no boom, etc.
I have basically zero trust in the "specialized retail stores with specialized sales people". Any time I geek out a little bit about any retail area, I learn the 101 ways they have and do scam you, and my trust erodes further. A specialized expensive shoe store swore my shoes I bought specifically for air travel don't have metal shims in them; of course they do. The electronic stores are never staffed with people who know more than I do, or frequently anything at all other than to push extended warranty. Small car maintenance store I've dealt with regularly for 15 years have turned out to be skimming and scamming once I learned more about their product and service, all the while greeting me warmly by name and "taking care of me". And yes, my dad and his friends still go to them.
So yes, bring on the faceless online warehouse. I feel safer there - or at least, am better equipped to determine fake/counterfeit/exploitative than I am in person. For all the decades that Amazon and the like had to develop methods to scam us, in-person salespeople had centuries, and I ain't winning that game.
[+] [-] tjr225|7 years ago|reply
I've stopped shopping on amazon for years now and perhaps the best thing they've done is make the online shopping experience better on every other website, purely out of necessity. I think any convenience in amazon has an advantage with is mostly perceived at this point. Also, their review system had become so huge and untrustworthy even the stars next to an item are basically meaningless.
[+] [-] pbhjpbhj|7 years ago|reply
It works too, you can put an established business down by robbing their sales for a couple of years pretending your product is better. By then there's no [affordable] quality option available. Plus, the morally corrupt owners make oodles more money; inspiring others to do likewise. Greed feeds its self.
[+] [-] thirdsun|7 years ago|reply
Of course the alternative doesn't have to be Amazon - there are countless shops that serve specific categories and niches way better than Amazon or your local store, if you even have one, ever could.
[+] [-] lesdeuxmagots|7 years ago|reply
However, that confusion within categories has increased is undeniable. Try to buy a bath towel and be flooded with similar items with similar reviews. The ability to search and sort efficiently has definitely declined dramatically. It takes a lot more effort to make sure you're buying what you wanted for certain categories, particularly soft ones. I can no longer trust that the best selection is going to be on the first page of results.
I wonder if Amazon will draw the line somewhere on how wide, how encompassing of a platform it is for third party vendors. It seems to have pushed itself over a limit.
[+] [-] Bayart|7 years ago|reply
But I'm starting to think they might be making it bad on purpose to give more visibility to their ranking schemes.
[+] [-] massysett|7 years ago|reply
Bath towel is a good example. I'll only buy softlines like that on Amazon if they have their own brand. When I go search on Amazon and get the piles of random stuff, I just don't buy anything. It's not worth the trouble to sort through it all.
[+] [-] Dowwie|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] city41|7 years ago|reply
I’ve always suspected this is intentional. But if I could compare prices this way and be confident I’m getting the best deal, I’d buy things on Amazon a lot more.
[+] [-] chias|7 years ago|reply
https://i.imgur.com/aeaeuT2.png
That's $0.98 / oz, but if you switch from fruit punch to blue raz it becomes $15.18 / lb, and if you switch from the 60-serving pack to the 30-serving pack it's $24.58 / lb, but if you want to subscribe and save that's $0.93 / oz.
WHY
[+] [-] Havoc|7 years ago|reply
Still for the bits where it worked I was surprised how big the variances per unit were
[+] [-] porknubbins|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hirundo|7 years ago|reply
https://www.amazon.com/Tramontina-80114-535DS-Professional-R...
[+] [-] LeoPanthera|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nanoseltzer|7 years ago|reply
I think the one area amazon absolutely has done right is customer service. If any other company made their customer service as good, easy, and simple, I think they would be able to catch up quickly as well.
For example: I recently bought a jacket on sale from Columbia sportswear. It didn’t get delivered to my unit properly (despite their usps tracking saying that it did), and when I emailed them about it: absolutely no response. My issue went into a black hole. Of course I have now blacklisted Columbia sports: never again. If this was an amazon purchase, I would have been able to resolve it almost immediately.
[+] [-] arkades|7 years ago|reply
Products they act as a seller for, and products they act as a producer for.
When I'm buying item X and it's not up to par, Amazon's response is invariably "just send it on back and we'll refund you." At one point I complained I'm not taking a half-day off work to get this $5 item in the mail and they said never mind, just keep it, and we'll refund you anyway.
Awesome.
OTOH, they have a $10/mo (or so) a la carte book service, labelled "Prime Books," with a "free" subtitle (or it was - I haven't checked back recently.) Clicking on it was auto-enrolling. I didn't find out for a few months that they'd apparently one-click-enrolled me in a recurring monthly bill. It took me 3 hours on the phone to get them to partially refund it, and it ended with me closing my account then and there. Despite having been a member since they more or less "opened their doors," and a good chunk of my household spending going through their portal, refunding money from their own service was a line in the sand for them.
[+] [-] rb666|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluedino|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Invictus0|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LeoPanthera|7 years ago|reply
> There’s no ambiguity about what you’re getting when you buy a particular book, CD, or DVD.
About a year ago I ordered a soundtrack CD from Amazon. It turned out to be a “fake”, it was a CD-R that had a printed label. If you didn’t know it was a CD-R, it looked reasonably convincing, the case was quite good quality. And it did contain the correct music - it was just a pirate copy.
[+] [-] justtopost|7 years ago|reply
I get lots of seemingly purposely mislabled products in the automotive section now. I think i get maybe 50% success rate ordering car parts. Lots of fakes. NGK, DENSO, and HONDA products seem to be prolific with counterfits. Had good luck with GM and Toyota parts so far, but I expect that to change, or be a fluke. Their automotive idea may see profit, bit I think they underestimated the extra complexity and returns inherent. Brick and mortar stores do much better at soaking up cost of returned parts I suspect.
[+] [-] gaius|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toss1|7 years ago|reply
I'd describe it instead as their search and filtering stinks, and it is not just Amazon.
The first issue is that Amazon and almost everyone else seem to think that either we want, or it is in their best interest, to include in search results anything vaguely resembling the search terms. Perhaps sometimes this is nice, but the one thing that would help is: PROVIDE A STRICT BUTTON This would allow users to specify that the search items MUST include the specified terms. If it returns an empty set, fine, remove the STRICT criteria, or enter new terms. Simple.
The author also touched on the issue that you can't find anything by a particular attribute (his example was a frame/matte of a particular size). This cannot be emphasized enough -- they really need a system in each class of products to extract and provide search/sort/filter on these particular characteristics. Ideally an AI-ish solution would identify attributes and list them. They could also simply require vendors to put up particular attributes, and accurately.
It'd be REALLY nice if they had a usable API so we could setup our own search & select UI, but...
[+] [-] jshowa3|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spricket|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] awakeasleep|7 years ago|reply
With eBay, you can sort by 'used' items, and there is some focus on the seller history- and by combining them you can form a reasonable expectation of whats going on.
With Amazon, you're buying a lottery ticket, every time.
[+] [-] arbuge|7 years ago|reply
I've now gone back to getting what I can locally in most cases.
[+] [-] vkaku|7 years ago|reply
It ruined workplace ethics. It ruined Seattle. It also ruined a lot of things.
I felt happy today going to a mom and pop franchise to purchase stuff. Happier knowing that I've just started on my quest of moving away from Amazon. I make money and some regular non-tech people make money and I'm happy they do.
AmazonBasics? Find a brand outlet - or go to AliExpress. Amazon is merely an expensive broker here. I'd rather Jack Ma make that money than Jeff does. Groceries? Go to your local offline vendor, preferable Mom and Pop. Computers? Set up a deal with the local distributor. Tell them that you respect reasonable prices and good support and they will give you a great experience. Books / Movies / Videos? Rent from a library.
I've been a long time Amazon shopper and for the last two years I'm consciously moving offline. I'm doing my bit and I've never felt happier.
[+] [-] amalternative|7 years ago|reply
Shameless plug: A few days ago I created the site amalternative.com [1] which lists alternative online stores. There is still a lot of work to do but I decided to launch as soon as I could.
And I guess it meets a lot of HN requirements:
- It's an MVP - It's a side project - There is no useless crap on the site - It's simple - It's fast (Static, on Netlify ;)) - It has an high information density (Okay, not yet. But I'm working on it)
Let me hear what you think :)
[1] https://www.amalternative.com/