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I wonder if Amazon won't somehow kill itself with poor quality. I needed a bunch of LED bulbs recently and I knew exactly what I was looking for - about a dozen

I wonder if Amazon won't somehow kill itself with poor quality. I needed a bunch of LED bulbs recently and I knew exactly what I was looking for - about a dozen 40W eq, two 60w eq and two 100w eq, all in 2700K and two 100w in 3000K. Amazon was a mess - prices were all over the place, exact products were hard to find, etc. Dollarama had them all for $2.50, $3.50 and $4.00 a piece, usually in all three flavours (2700, 3000 and 5000K). Made me want to start a Shopify store called "Bullshit Free Bulbs". bullshitfreebulbs.com is available btw.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Digikey has reasonable pricing and shipping costs. Might consider them for future purchases.
ianai 7y ago
They’re increasingly like that regardless of whatever I’m looking to purchase. I waste enough time looking for an actual, legitimate item that going out to the stores may be quicker and is definitely more assured. Maybe they want this to happen and focus on the rest of their business?
black6 7y ago
Waveform Lighting and Hyperikon are my go-to for quality, high-CRI LED bulbs in just about whatever color temperature and base you desire.
cal5k 7y ago
I thought I was alone on this! I ended up going to a local hardware store instead because I couldn't figure out what was trustworthy. These days I typically do product research off-Amazon, not on Amazon itself.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
leemcalilly 7y ago
I’ve long thought this sort of thing would be a really good business model. You could launch a bunch of vertical sites and use the same shipping / fulfillment system. Huge irony would be if you did this with Fulfillment by Amazon, but it would probably work. I guess the core problem is that when you’re looking for something new, browsing Amazon is a total mess. It would be much easier to do a web search and find bullshitfreebulbs.com to make your purchase. But if it’s something you buy often, Prime + order history is easily the fastest, most convenient way to buy something.
- burlesona 7y ago
  As I understand it, if you fulfill with Amazon they keep your inventory mixed with the Chinese knockoffs, so you actually don’t know for sure if customers got the inventory you sent to Amazon or a counterfeit instead.
  - fmajid 7y ago
    Yep, it’s called stickerless commingled inventory and even buying from Amazon itself doesn’t protect you from counterfeits or worse. I’ve pretty much stopped buying electronics from Amazon and only get them from B&H.
- dwyerm 7y ago
  For me, personally, the way Amazon has captured me is more in the cart than in the fulfillment. Yes, it is nice to get things to my door practically overnight, but the fact that I can make that happen without typing my personal and financial information into a skeevy website that could be anywhere is the real value to me. PayPal (...and Apple Pay and Google Wallet and Samsung Something and Venmo an Beanz and and and...) is the technology that should be making this friction go away, but it appears to be difficult to provide this without turning evil. So, to your idea, I also appreciate the idea of one, trustworthy, site that would do all of that for me. The thing is, Amazon is that site, for the most part.
ethagknight 7y ago
For lightbulbs, try 1000bulbs.com. Simple searches will reveal better sites, just scroll past the usual catch-alls like amazon and Walmart, Home Depot or Best Buy. pencils? Pencils.com. Gaffer tape? Gafferpower.com. Literally anything. It’s a bummer google SEO pushes the bigs for everything when there is better value further down.
myvoiceismypass 7y ago
Yep. My amazon purchases are getting tougher and tougher to complete. And they are getting less transparent about who is delivering and who is responsible for defective shit from a return perspective.
the8472 7y ago
> and I knew exactly what I was looking for - about a dozen 40W eq, two 60w eq and two 100w eq, all in 2700K and two 100w in 3000K. If you browse the "LED Bulbs" section you can filter by lumen, color temperature, socket size etc. That's more accurate than the marketing labels ( "W equivalent", "warm") in the product titles.
HillaryBriss 7y ago
i recently searched for a rubber replacement washer for a very common water faucet. nothing exotic. the only washer collection i could find that was certain to have the desired washer size would have cost $32. again, this is a very common type of water valve. taking a trip to a big box retailer looks pretty attractive in that context.
kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
I go to superbrightleds.com for things like this. They have a well curated selection with accurate specs on color temp and luminosity.

toomuchtodo 7y ago

Digikey has reasonable pricing and shipping costs. Might consider them for future purchases.

ianai 7y ago

They’re increasingly like that regardless of whatever I’m looking to purchase. I waste enough time looking for an actual, legitimate item that going out to the stores may be quicker and is definitely more assured. Maybe they want this to happen and focus on the rest of their business?

black6 7y ago

Waveform Lighting and Hyperikon are my go-to for quality, high-CRI LED bulbs in just about whatever color temperature and base you desire.

cal5k 7y ago

I thought I was alone on this! I ended up going to a local hardware store instead because I couldn't figure out what was trustworthy. These days I typically do product research off-Amazon, not on Amazon itself.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

leemcalilly 7y ago

I’ve long thought this sort of thing would be a really good business model. You could launch a bunch of vertical sites and use the same shipping / fulfillment system. Huge irony would be if you did this with Fulfillment by Amazon, but it would probably work. I guess the core problem is that when you’re looking for something new, browsing Amazon is a total mess. It would be much easier to do a web search and find bullshitfreebulbs.com to make your purchase. But if it’s something you buy often, Prime + order history is easily the fastest, most convenient way to buy something.

burlesona 7y ago
As I understand it, if you fulfill with Amazon they keep your inventory mixed with the Chinese knockoffs, so you actually don’t know for sure if customers got the inventory you sent to Amazon or a counterfeit instead.
- fmajid 7y ago
  Yep, it’s called stickerless commingled inventory and even buying from Amazon itself doesn’t protect you from counterfeits or worse. I’ve pretty much stopped buying electronics from Amazon and only get them from B&H.
dwyerm 7y ago
For me, personally, the way Amazon has captured me is more in the cart than in the fulfillment. Yes, it is nice to get things to my door practically overnight, but the fact that I can make that happen without typing my personal and financial information into a skeevy website that could be anywhere is the real value to me. PayPal (...and Apple Pay and Google Wallet and Samsung Something and Venmo an Beanz and and and...) is the technology that should be making this friction go away, but it appears to be difficult to provide this without turning evil. So, to your idea, I also appreciate the idea of one, trustworthy, site that would do all of that for me. The thing is, Amazon is that site, for the most part.

ethagknight 7y ago

For lightbulbs, try 1000bulbs.com. Simple searches will reveal better sites, just scroll past the usual catch-alls like amazon and Walmart, Home Depot or Best Buy. pencils? Pencils.com. Gaffer tape? Gafferpower.com. Literally anything. It’s a bummer google SEO pushes the bigs for everything when there is better value further down.

myvoiceismypass 7y ago

Yep. My amazon purchases are getting tougher and tougher to complete. And they are getting less transparent about who is delivering and who is responsible for defective shit from a return perspective.

the8472 7y ago

> and I knew exactly what I was looking for - about a dozen 40W eq, two 60w eq and two 100w eq, all in 2700K and two 100w in 3000K. If you browse the "LED Bulbs" section you can filter by lumen, color temperature, socket size etc. That's more accurate than the marketing labels ( "W equivalent", "warm") in the product titles.

HillaryBriss 7y ago

i recently searched for a rubber replacement washer for a very common water faucet. nothing exotic. the only washer collection i could find that was certain to have the desired washer size would have cost $32. again, this is a very common type of water valve. taking a trip to a big box retailer looks pretty attractive in that context.

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago

I go to superbrightleds.com for things like this. They have a well curated selection with accurate specs on color temp and luminosity.