3 ms·

I tried this recently. Bought something from the manufacturer, paid extra for shipping & handling, waited longer, the whole bit. I felt good about myself, bec

I tried this recently. Bought something from the manufacturer, paid extra for shipping & handling, waited longer, the whole bit. I felt good about myself, because I don't want to be taken advantage of anymore, and hey ... I'm buying directly from the manufacturer, so they get a higher cut. Right? No. I bought directly from the manufacturer's website, paid them, got email from them, the whole bit ... and it was fulfilled and delivered by Amazon. I got an amazon box, and an amazon invoice, and an amazon product. You can't win anymore. Online commerce is subverted. What you see, no matter how savvy of a consumer or how much experience you have with online shopping, is not guaranteed to be what you get, anymore.

Loughla 7y ago
It's like there was real value in a physical store where you could go, look at the product, and speak to experts about said product. Weird. All snark aside, though, I see a resurgence in small, boutique mom-and-pop shops for goods in the next 5-10 years as Millennials and Gen-Z get sick of being scammed online. The biggest new thing is that unlike gen-x and boomers, Millennials and Gen-Z are savvy enough to have tried to remedy the situation for themselves and understand it's a whack-a-mole game with no winners.