Idk in my experience Amazon has still been pretty good? The main things that Amazon does well is shipping time and ease of return, and those are still excellent. I’m generally willing to pay more...
Idk in my experience Amazon has still been pretty good? The main things that Amazon does well is shipping time and ease of return, and those are still excellent. I’m generally willing to pay more for products to buy on Amazon if I’m going to buy it online for just how good their returns are.
I haven’t had much issue with counterfeits, and the search results seem fine? I generally have an intended product or brand I want to buy anyway.
To counter: I stopped paying for prime two price increases ago. Their music, movies, books, etc aren't worth it, the shipping time for things that are very local is good, but if it isn't in your...
To counter: I stopped paying for prime two price increases ago. Their music, movies, books, etc aren't worth it, the shipping time for things that are very local is good, but if it isn't in your local warehouse it's more-often-than-not isn't going to meet their two day promise and if I had something already scheduled to be delivered 5 days later, they'll delay my two day order to ship with it.
Prices have increased to the point that they're close enough to brick-and-mortar to just buy it locally.
Yes, their returns are their strong suit, but because of that they are also easy to manipulate. I've received items that I bought "new" that were clearly returns (box open and/or item used) and have received counterfeit items on multiple occasions.
I've started to largely use Amazon as a search engine and buying things elsewhere.
A few months ago I saw "You've saved $X with Prime!" on some page on amazon.com and I realized that $X was less than the cost of Prime since I started paying, so I immediately cancelled. Now I...
A few months ago I saw "You've saved $X with Prime!" on some page on amazon.com and I realized that $X was less than the cost of Prime since I started paying, so I immediately cancelled. Now I just wait until my cart has more than $35 in it to get free shipping before ordering and occasionally wait an extra day.
This is how I've been using Amazon for the past 5 years. I try to buy local first, then from specialty stores, then Amazon last; the few items that get through the first two steps end up waiting...
Now I just wait until my cart has more than $35 in it to get free shipping
This is how I've been using Amazon for the past 5 years. I try to buy local first, then from specialty stores, then Amazon last; the few items that get through the first two steps end up waiting for a large enough purchase to be worth it. I have slowly pushed my family away from Amazon wishlists, and I think my parents are cancelling Prime soon as well.
I've seen the opposite as a non-member. "You've paid $40 in shipping over the past year. Subscribe to Prime for [way more than $40 per year] to get free shipping!"
I've seen the opposite as a non-member. "You've paid $40 in shipping over the past year. Subscribe to Prime for [way more than $40 per year] to get free shipping!"
For a lot of smaller specialized things you'd get at the hardware store, Amazon is much more expensive. To wit: stair stringer hangers at Home Depot, $2.98 local pickup:...
Prices have increased to the point that they're close enough to brick-and-mortar to just buy it locally.
For a lot of smaller specialized things you'd get at the hardware store, Amazon is much more expensive.
To wit: stair stringer hangers at Home Depot, $2.98 local pickup:
This is just the most recent example off the top of my head. I pay for prime, but most of the time if it's available at Home Depot for <$20 I don't even check Amazon any more.
You also can't tell the quality of something like that when you buy it online. If you pick it up in person, you get to check the heft and make sure it doesn't bend where it shouldn't.
You also can't tell the quality of something like that when you buy it online. If you pick it up in person, you get to check the heft and make sure it doesn't bend where it shouldn't.
I used to feel this way, but now I think that the expectation of easy returns by consumers is one of the worst things Amazon has done to us. Most of the stuff returned to Amazon (and other...
I used to feel this way, but now I think that the expectation of easy returns by consumers is one of the worst things Amazon has done to us. Most of the stuff returned to Amazon (and other retailers who were forced to start accepting free returns for everything to compete) end up in a landfill. The price of everything gets inflated to compensate, and all the extra waste generated is terrible for the environment. There was a Climate Town video (or two maybe) covering the topic that changed my online shopping habits quite a bit.
I've never had trouble with packaging, but the price increases and my decreased spending from my work situation made me quit. Prime doesn't give you points for Twitch anymore (which you can use to...
I've never had trouble with packaging, but the price increases and my decreased spending from my work situation made me quit. Prime doesn't give you points for Twitch anymore (which you can use to donate and support your favorite streamer) so that definitely didn't help.
I remember the breaking point for me being Amazon Prime, where a Prime subscription would still show you ads on Prime videos. I barely even watch shows on Amazon, but I absolutely hate the concept of a premium subscription still deciding to double dip with ads (and ofc I wasn't paying another $9 for a dedicated prime video subscription on top of the increased $15 price).
As someone who does not pay for prime, almost everything I have ordered from Amazon after cancelling has been over their already-longer promised delivery dates. The ones that are not late always...
As someone who does not pay for prime, almost everything I have ordered from Amazon after cancelling has been over their already-longer promised delivery dates. The ones that are not late always seem to just wait at their logistics centers for a while until it gets close to the projected date, which implies that they are artificially inflating those days to encourage you to pay for prime.
And for the record I am about 5 miles from one of their distribution centers.
I did have one thing I had to return because they lost track of the item so they sent a replacement. The original came literally the same day and they didn’t let me return it by taking it to kohls or one of their two grocery store chains, I had to print a label - with the printer I don’t have, by the way. I printed it off at the library but I had to pay for packing tape to affix it. They made sure to let me know that if I didn’t return it they would double-charge me.
Yeah we cancelled our subscription a while back. While we would like to go other routes to support company products that we like, sometimes Amazon's prices/return policies are just the best option...
Yeah we cancelled our subscription a while back. While we would like to go other routes to support company products that we like, sometimes Amazon's prices/return policies are just the best option around, or in some cases, they just don't sell them anywhere else.
I will say if you don't know what you're looking for, a lot of cheaply made garbage can absolutely flood the store in a hurry, but if you have a specific product/brand in mind that you want, it's still a perfectly fine place to shop.
To each their own. I like to drive my own car, so I have a hard time using the service. I value meaningful and useful search filters and theirs are abysmal. Plus, I can't unlearn that they're...
To each their own. I like to drive my own car, so I have a hard time using the service. I value meaningful and useful search filters and theirs are abysmal. Plus, I can't unlearn that they're heavily manipulating my results and that doesn't sit right with me, though that might be my Tylenol history talking.
In the end, I only every really use them for items I can't find anywhere else. No prime. It can ship in a week, idgaf.
We will be letting our Prime subscription lapse. We've just been buying from them less and less over the years. Then they added ads to Prime streaming (making the one show or so we bothered with...
We will be letting our Prime subscription lapse. We've just been buying from them less and less over the years. Then they added ads to Prime streaming (making the one show or so we bothered with awful to watch) unless you give them even more money. Shipping was either overnight or 3 weeks out. The few times we will need to order from them, we'll either wait and bundle larger orders or just pay for shipping; we'll likely still come out ahead compared to paying for Prime. And that's with their credit card.
Maybe if they rework the service to something more a la carte, but I don't know what would get us to re-up at this point.
From my experience the two day shipping now seems to apply strictly to the shipping part. The problem is that it may take several days to actually get into the logistics system. Up till a couple...
From my experience the two day shipping now seems to apply strictly to the shipping part. The problem is that it may take several days to actually get into the logistics system. Up till a couple years ago it was 2 day delivery.
When I first started shopping on Amazon I was more careful to compare prices with other places. Then for a good many years Amazon was the cheapest place, and I got lazy. Now I'm back to price checking because it is no longer true. Also interestingly, the tax calculation seems to be a bit off: I recently started an order for a pair of exhaust fans. The unit prices were the same on Amazon and HomeDepot, but on Amazon the total came to about $305 and HD just under $300.
They’ve started to offer overnight shipping on some of the things I order. Maybe half of those end up taking 2 or more days to arrive. The slower shipping options tend to be more accurate.
They’ve started to offer overnight shipping on some of the things I order. Maybe half of those end up taking 2 or more days to arrive. The slower shipping options tend to be more accurate.
Really well written article about the enpoopening1 of Amazon. I think these are really solid solutions, and it would be nice if there were laws passed to enforce them. However, it also prevents...
Really well written article about the enpoopening1 of Amazon.
Take Amazon: to fix Amazon, we need policy solutions. We need to ban predatory pricing – selling goods below cost to keep competitors out of the market (and then jacking them up again). We need to impose structural separation on the company so it can either be a platform, or compete with the sellers that rely on it as a platform.
I think these are really solid solutions, and it would be nice if there were laws passed to enforce them. However, it also prevents meaningful disrupters who run at a deficit temporarily to gain a customer base. However, is it a good idea for companies to run at a loss to begin, as that leads to stage two and three where the customers are squeezed to make back the money that was lost initially?
Martin Luther King Jr once said, “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important, also.”
I just quite like this quote that was used in this article, so want to highlight it.
1 The term "enpoopening" I picked up from the dankpods YouTube channel, and I prefer it over enshitification since it is more fun
The return policy is insane and the only reason I'll pay a little more from Amazon over others. Frankly, It's too easy for me. I have time for one hobby but the way I spend, it'd look like I'm...
The return policy is insane and the only reason I'll pay a little more from Amazon over others.
Frankly, It's too easy for me. I have time for one hobby but the way I spend, it'd look like I'm deep into three.
I very much wish it'd all just go away - it's too addictive.
A lot of people are saying they still love Prime and Amazon because of the easy returns. But those easy returns are built into the price. So you’re still paying for it. Amazon used to be the go to...
A lot of people are saying they still love Prime and Amazon because of the easy returns. But those easy returns are built into the price. So you’re still paying for it. Amazon used to be the go to place for the lowest price, so it was still the best deal (the lowest price AND easy returns, yay!) but now it’s often not the cheapest.
It depends a lot on various circumstances with Amazon. We've been noticing that more products are wrong size, or damaged, but it's easy to get refunds and do returns. I don't think I've ever...
It depends a lot on various circumstances with Amazon. We've been noticing that more products are wrong size, or damaged, but it's easy to get refunds and do returns. I don't think I've ever gotten a counterfeit object, but I've gotten something that was delivered to the wrong place and it took a while to get them to correct it. I mean, I had to contact support for several months because the charge kept reappearing because the first support person incorrectly logged it as a returned item.
One thing we've tried Amazon a few times is for groceries. This is useful when you don't want to go to the market for whatever reason. They have Amazon Fresh which is some separate program that costs extra, but then sometimes you can buy food without the Amazon Fresh thing. I'm not sure why this is happening or how temporary it is. I think there is usually a free trial either way.
The quality of the groceries is pretty good, even the produce. We've tried Walmart too and the produce quality is usually worse. This is probably related to the fact that my local Walmart has a bad produce department where they don't rotate the stock properly. Both places are reasonable and will refund something if you don't like the quality. The prices are very similar so they either watch each other or are colluding.
Anyway I assume that getting fresh food from Amazon is in a bit of a honeymoon period and it will probably get a lot worse soon so you may want to try it before they extract all quality from it to increase profit.
This might just be a local thing but I think Walmart is starting to step up on fresh food quality lately. I never shopped there because lettuce on their shelves would already be wilting, but about...
This might just be a local thing but I think Walmart is starting to step up on fresh food quality lately. I never shopped there because lettuce on their shelves would already be wilting, but about two weeks ago I was shopping for hard goods and checked out the produce because I didn’t want to make another stop and was surprised that it was more fresh than the stuff I normally bought.
I think fresh food quality is extremely variable at large stores like that. Often, the produce will come from tons of different providers that only service one region. So the corn in a Texas...
I think fresh food quality is extremely variable at large stores like that. Often, the produce will come from tons of different providers that only service one region. So the corn in a Texas Walmart might be from a completely different company than one in California.
I’d guess that the management of the department also has a lot to do with it (removing old stock on time and replenishing, etc). Though I would imagine that 99% of that is all automated now with centralized inventory management.
Idk in my experience Amazon has still been pretty good? The main things that Amazon does well is shipping time and ease of return, and those are still excellent. I’m generally willing to pay more for products to buy on Amazon if I’m going to buy it online for just how good their returns are.
I haven’t had much issue with counterfeits, and the search results seem fine? I generally have an intended product or brand I want to buy anyway.
Still quite happy paying for prime.
To counter: I stopped paying for prime two price increases ago. Their music, movies, books, etc aren't worth it, the shipping time for things that are very local is good, but if it isn't in your local warehouse it's more-often-than-not isn't going to meet their two day promise and if I had something already scheduled to be delivered 5 days later, they'll delay my two day order to ship with it.
Prices have increased to the point that they're close enough to brick-and-mortar to just buy it locally.
Yes, their returns are their strong suit, but because of that they are also easy to manipulate. I've received items that I bought "new" that were clearly returns (box open and/or item used) and have received counterfeit items on multiple occasions.
I've started to largely use Amazon as a search engine and buying things elsewhere.
A few months ago I saw "You've saved $X with Prime!" on some page on amazon.com and I realized that $X was less than the cost of Prime since I started paying, so I immediately cancelled. Now I just wait until my cart has more than $35 in it to get free shipping before ordering and occasionally wait an extra day.
This is how I've been using Amazon for the past 5 years. I try to buy local first, then from specialty stores, then Amazon last; the few items that get through the first two steps end up waiting for a large enough purchase to be worth it. I have slowly pushed my family away from Amazon wishlists, and I think my parents are cancelling Prime soon as well.
I've seen the opposite as a non-member. "You've paid $40 in shipping over the past year. Subscribe to Prime for [way more than $40 per year] to get free shipping!"
You’d think they’d check the difference and use a different CTA.
For a lot of smaller specialized things you'd get at the hardware store, Amazon is much more expensive.
To wit: stair stringer hangers at Home Depot, $2.98 local pickup:
https://www.homedepot.com/s/stair+stringer+hanger?adobe_mc=TS%3D1759792357%7CMCMID%3D77145503472479945725810389762956946930%7CMCORGID%3DF6421253512D2C100A490D45%40AdobeOrg&mboxSession=1d6bd5e9-f771-4031-bca0-de3cb27b4242&appsFlyerId=1753637139249-1653129325131099199
Vs on Amazon, this is the cheapest I could find a single stair stringer hanger, $11.40:
https://a.co/d/dFwCyBW
This is just the most recent example off the top of my head. I pay for prime, but most of the time if it's available at Home Depot for <$20 I don't even check Amazon any more.
You also can't tell the quality of something like that when you buy it online. If you pick it up in person, you get to check the heft and make sure it doesn't bend where it shouldn't.
I used to feel this way, but now I think that the expectation of easy returns by consumers is one of the worst things Amazon has done to us. Most of the stuff returned to Amazon (and other retailers who were forced to start accepting free returns for everything to compete) end up in a landfill. The price of everything gets inflated to compensate, and all the extra waste generated is terrible for the environment. There was a Climate Town video (or two maybe) covering the topic that changed my online shopping habits quite a bit.
I've never had trouble with packaging, but the price increases and my decreased spending from my work situation made me quit. Prime doesn't give you points for Twitch anymore (which you can use to donate and support your favorite streamer) so that definitely didn't help.
I remember the breaking point for me being Amazon Prime, where a Prime subscription would still show you ads on Prime videos. I barely even watch shows on Amazon, but I absolutely hate the concept of a premium subscription still deciding to double dip with ads (and ofc I wasn't paying another $9 for a dedicated prime video subscription on top of the increased $15 price).
As someone who does not pay for prime, almost everything I have ordered from Amazon after cancelling has been over their already-longer promised delivery dates. The ones that are not late always seem to just wait at their logistics centers for a while until it gets close to the projected date, which implies that they are artificially inflating those days to encourage you to pay for prime.
And for the record I am about 5 miles from one of their distribution centers.
I did have one thing I had to return because they lost track of the item so they sent a replacement. The original came literally the same day and they didn’t let me return it by taking it to kohls or one of their two grocery store chains, I had to print a label - with the printer I don’t have, by the way. I printed it off at the library but I had to pay for packing tape to affix it. They made sure to let me know that if I didn’t return it they would double-charge me.
Yeah we cancelled our subscription a while back. While we would like to go other routes to support company products that we like, sometimes Amazon's prices/return policies are just the best option around, or in some cases, they just don't sell them anywhere else.
I will say if you don't know what you're looking for, a lot of cheaply made garbage can absolutely flood the store in a hurry, but if you have a specific product/brand in mind that you want, it's still a perfectly fine place to shop.
To each their own. I like to drive my own car, so I have a hard time using the service. I value meaningful and useful search filters and theirs are abysmal. Plus, I can't unlearn that they're heavily manipulating my results and that doesn't sit right with me, though that might be my Tylenol history talking.
In the end, I only every really use them for items I can't find anywhere else. No prime. It can ship in a week, idgaf.
We will be letting our Prime subscription lapse. We've just been buying from them less and less over the years. Then they added ads to Prime streaming (making the one show or so we bothered with awful to watch) unless you give them even more money. Shipping was either overnight or 3 weeks out. The few times we will need to order from them, we'll either wait and bundle larger orders or just pay for shipping; we'll likely still come out ahead compared to paying for Prime. And that's with their credit card.
Maybe if they rework the service to something more a la carte, but I don't know what would get us to re-up at this point.
From my experience the two day shipping now seems to apply strictly to the shipping part. The problem is that it may take several days to actually get into the logistics system. Up till a couple years ago it was 2 day delivery.
When I first started shopping on Amazon I was more careful to compare prices with other places. Then for a good many years Amazon was the cheapest place, and I got lazy. Now I'm back to price checking because it is no longer true. Also interestingly, the tax calculation seems to be a bit off: I recently started an order for a pair of exhaust fans. The unit prices were the same on Amazon and HomeDepot, but on Amazon the total came to about $305 and HD just under $300.
They’ve started to offer overnight shipping on some of the things I order. Maybe half of those end up taking 2 or more days to arrive. The slower shipping options tend to be more accurate.
Really well written article about the enpoopening1 of Amazon.
I think these are really solid solutions, and it would be nice if there were laws passed to enforce them. However, it also prevents meaningful disrupters who run at a deficit temporarily to gain a customer base. However, is it a good idea for companies to run at a loss to begin, as that leads to stage two and three where the customers are squeezed to make back the money that was lost initially?
I just quite like this quote that was used in this article, so want to highlight it.
1 The term "enpoopening" I picked up from the dankpods YouTube channel, and I prefer it over enshitification since it is more fun
The return policy is insane and the only reason I'll pay a little more from Amazon over others.
Frankly, It's too easy for me. I have time for one hobby but the way I spend, it'd look like I'm deep into three.
I very much wish it'd all just go away - it's too addictive.
A lot of people are saying they still love Prime and Amazon because of the easy returns. But those easy returns are built into the price. So you’re still paying for it. Amazon used to be the go to place for the lowest price, so it was still the best deal (the lowest price AND easy returns, yay!) but now it’s often not the cheapest.
It depends a lot on various circumstances with Amazon. We've been noticing that more products are wrong size, or damaged, but it's easy to get refunds and do returns. I don't think I've ever gotten a counterfeit object, but I've gotten something that was delivered to the wrong place and it took a while to get them to correct it. I mean, I had to contact support for several months because the charge kept reappearing because the first support person incorrectly logged it as a returned item.
One thing we've tried Amazon a few times is for groceries. This is useful when you don't want to go to the market for whatever reason. They have Amazon Fresh which is some separate program that costs extra, but then sometimes you can buy food without the Amazon Fresh thing. I'm not sure why this is happening or how temporary it is. I think there is usually a free trial either way.
The quality of the groceries is pretty good, even the produce. We've tried Walmart too and the produce quality is usually worse. This is probably related to the fact that my local Walmart has a bad produce department where they don't rotate the stock properly. Both places are reasonable and will refund something if you don't like the quality. The prices are very similar so they either watch each other or are colluding.
Anyway I assume that getting fresh food from Amazon is in a bit of a honeymoon period and it will probably get a lot worse soon so you may want to try it before they extract all quality from it to increase profit.
This might just be a local thing but I think Walmart is starting to step up on fresh food quality lately. I never shopped there because lettuce on their shelves would already be wilting, but about two weeks ago I was shopping for hard goods and checked out the produce because I didn’t want to make another stop and was surprised that it was more fresh than the stuff I normally bought.
I think fresh food quality is extremely variable at large stores like that. Often, the produce will come from tons of different providers that only service one region. So the corn in a Texas Walmart might be from a completely different company than one in California.
I’d guess that the management of the department also has a lot to do with it (removing old stock on time and replenishing, etc). Though I would imagine that 99% of that is all automated now with centralized inventory management.