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No, the issue they should care about is that I'm losing trust in them, for a number of reasons, and (anecdatally) I'm not the only one. - Are they taking me fo

by __jal 8y ago

No, the issue they should care about is that I'm losing trust in them, for a number of reasons, and (anecdatally) I'm not the only one. - Are they taking me for a ride on price? I don't optimize this enough and do overpay because I'm lazy, but there have been multiple times lately that they gave me a price that was just stupidly high. - Is this the kind of product that will cause their screwed-up warehousing system to stiff me with counterfeit goods/seconds? No way in hell am I going to put up with that kind of shitty bait-and-switch, and this cuts out a huge swath of categories I'll consider from them. - Did I find all the places on the page where they hide alternate (cheaper) sellers in their own store? And this is also after I mostly stopped using their incredibly loosely-matching search and just use DDG, which works much better. At a certain point, I find the friction of keeping them honest is not worth it. Last renewal time, Prime was still worth it. When it is up for renewal I'm cancelling to see if I miss it.

adameast9000 8y ago
Somewhat related, there's a chrome extension called honey that will compare the final price (incl. tax) of all sellers for a product listing and add the best one to your cart. I've saved tons of money in some situations where an alternate seller had no taxes, was cheaper but longer shipping, etc... It's still frustrating the lengths I have to go to to get a fair deal on Amazon. there's so much anticompetitive behavior (showing their own products first on searches, defaulting to products sold by amazon, hiding competitor listings [search for chromecast]) and they show little interest at changing behavior to make the customer experience better (even on glaring issues like fake reviews / counterfeit products) because there is no competition. I have contributed, been suckered in to the 'Prime' bandwagon, rarely shopping around on price, and often buying 'Amazon's Choice' products, which are almost certainly a sham. Refreshing to see people on here bucking that trend. I'm trying to commit to the same, hopefully Amazon one day feels pressure to change.
- DesiLurker 8y ago
  while I applaud comparison shopping, My regular PSA is any extension you put in browser has a clear-text view of your content on ALL websites. Be careful with these extensions, especially the closed source ones!
- dceddia 8y ago
  Recently I saw an item where the warranty would only be valid for the Sold by Amazon version. The first bullet in the product description was "Amazon as the seller is the ONLY authorized Fulfilled By Amazon Dealer". I ended up buying the item in a brick-and-mortar store -- same price, instant pick-up, and easier to return in case it didn't meet my needs (plus no fear of blacklisting or whatever, which I'm not sure is a thing Amazon does, but I don't really want to find out, either).

by __jal 8y ago

adameast9000 8y ago

Somewhat related, there's a chrome extension called honey that will compare the final price (incl. tax) of all sellers for a product listing and add the best one to your cart. I've saved tons of money in some situations where an alternate seller had no taxes, was cheaper but longer shipping, etc... It's still frustrating the lengths I have to go to to get a fair deal on Amazon. there's so much anticompetitive behavior (showing their own products first on searches, defaulting to products sold by amazon, hiding competitor listings [search for chromecast]) and they show little interest at changing behavior to make the customer experience better (even on glaring issues like fake reviews / counterfeit products) because there is no competition. I have contributed, been suckered in to the 'Prime' bandwagon, rarely shopping around on price, and often buying 'Amazon's Choice' products, which are almost certainly a sham. Refreshing to see people on here bucking that trend. I'm trying to commit to the same, hopefully Amazon one day feels pressure to change.

DesiLurker 8y ago
while I applaud comparison shopping, My regular PSA is any extension you put in browser has a clear-text view of your content on ALL websites. Be careful with these extensions, especially the closed source ones!
dceddia 8y ago
Recently I saw an item where the warranty would only be valid for the Sold by Amazon version. The first bullet in the product description was "Amazon as the seller is the ONLY authorized Fulfilled By Amazon Dealer". I ended up buying the item in a brick-and-mortar store -- same price, instant pick-up, and easier to return in case it didn't meet my needs (plus no fear of blacklisting or whatever, which I'm not sure is a thing Amazon does, but I don't really want to find out, either).