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>>> it provides a good customer experience: good prices Amazon had not offered better prices than the main brick-and-mortar shops for a long long time. Try com

>>> it provides a good customer experience: good prices Amazon had not offered better prices than the main brick-and-mortar shops for a long long time. Try comparing the items you see in shops with the same on Amazon and be Amazed. The best are small household items. Sellers buy from Ikea and resell on Amazon. Sometimes customers find out and they post reviews you can imagine, "OMG this is the £4 cutlery pack from Ikea. Go to Ikea don't buy here."

jfk13 7y ago
They do the same on eBay, too. I've had to warn friends that finding the cheapest seller for a given item on eBay may still be substantially more expensive than buying the same item directly from Ikea. (Sometimes it does make sense to buy from the eBay or Amazon marketplace reseller, if it's a small item where their markup + shipping is less than Ikea's per-order delivery charge.)
- m-p-3 7y ago
  Agreed. Just because you can get it from Amazon doesn't mean it's the cheapest way to get it because even though the provide free shipping, the price is substantially higher to compensate that. Buying at a brick and mortar store reduce that need for individualized shipping, and the economies of scale of buying and delivering a large amount of product from the manufacturers by the retailer which is physically close to the customers help reducing costs.
  - Spivak 7y ago
    What are you guys buying on Amazon? Seriously I genuinely try to find stuff I want at a lower price than Amazon but it’s so rare. It’s almost always cheaper before you count the free shipping.
TulliusCicero 7y ago
That seems like kind of a cherry pick. Of course small cheap household goods like basic cutlery aren't gonna be much better on Amazon, if ever, but plenty of other categories are still better on Amazon than most B&M stores. Like, good luck finding decent USB batteries/chargers locally, they're usually 50-100% more expensive while being substantially worse than the Anker/Aukey/Ravpower brand items popular on Amazon.
vmception 7y ago
> Amazon had not offered better prices than the main brick-and-mortar shops for a long long time. mayyybe outside of urban environments? Where I live its a bunch of boutiques that have been hoping for altruistic charity from people that can relate to "the struggle". It only works on idealistic and impressional college kids and other small business owners in the 'cult of local'. They've also sent comical emails for conveniently non-dilutive financing to any customer that Square leaked their info to "in these trying times".
WalterBright 7y ago
Better prices are offered in the form that I don't have to spend 2 hours of my time to get it and don't have to pay for gas to get there. Heck, I'd pay more to get it from Amazon because of that. I'm not driving to the store to save $4 on a knife.
icelancer 7y ago
Huh? AmazonBasics cabling is significantly cheaper than Best Buy's white label brand Insignia 99% of the time.
- Spivak 7y ago
  And Amazon is aggressive at price matching so basically any deal that you find somewhere else on the internet will get beaten a few hours after it’s posted. That seems to be why so many retailers have switched to “discount in the cart” models.

jfk13 7y ago

They do the same on eBay, too. I've had to warn friends that finding the cheapest seller for a given item on eBay may still be substantially more expensive than buying the same item directly from Ikea. (Sometimes it does make sense to buy from the eBay or Amazon marketplace reseller, if it's a small item where their markup + shipping is less than Ikea's per-order delivery charge.)

m-p-3 7y ago
Agreed. Just because you can get it from Amazon doesn't mean it's the cheapest way to get it because even though the provide free shipping, the price is substantially higher to compensate that. Buying at a brick and mortar store reduce that need for individualized shipping, and the economies of scale of buying and delivering a large amount of product from the manufacturers by the retailer which is physically close to the customers help reducing costs.
- Spivak 7y ago
  What are you guys buying on Amazon? Seriously I genuinely try to find stuff I want at a lower price than Amazon but it’s so rare. It’s almost always cheaper before you count the free shipping.

TulliusCicero 7y ago

That seems like kind of a cherry pick. Of course small cheap household goods like basic cutlery aren't gonna be much better on Amazon, if ever, but plenty of other categories are still better on Amazon than most B&M stores. Like, good luck finding decent USB batteries/chargers locally, they're usually 50-100% more expensive while being substantially worse than the Anker/Aukey/Ravpower brand items popular on Amazon.

vmception 7y ago

> Amazon had not offered better prices than the main brick-and-mortar shops for a long long time. mayyybe outside of urban environments? Where I live its a bunch of boutiques that have been hoping for altruistic charity from people that can relate to "the struggle". It only works on idealistic and impressional college kids and other small business owners in the 'cult of local'. They've also sent comical emails for conveniently non-dilutive financing to any customer that Square leaked their info to "in these trying times".

WalterBright 7y ago

Better prices are offered in the form that I don't have to spend 2 hours of my time to get it and don't have to pay for gas to get there. Heck, I'd pay more to get it from Amazon because of that. I'm not driving to the store to save $4 on a knife.

icelancer 7y ago

Huh? AmazonBasics cabling is significantly cheaper than Best Buy's white label brand Insignia 99% of the time.

Spivak 7y ago
And Amazon is aggressive at price matching so basically any deal that you find somewhere else on the internet will get beaten a few hours after it’s posted. That seems to be why so many retailers have switched to “discount in the cart” models.