5 ms·

The thing is, "call them and ask" can be a 10-minute chore if you're looking for some oddball item from a local supplier, or a 10-second search on Amazon.

Pfhreak 7y ago
My local bookstore has 'email them and ask', which is much lower friction.
- jcrben 7y ago
  lol I expect the successful ones will have decent ecommerce platform within the new few years.
  - Apocryphon 7y ago
    They already exist: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22773393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22773393 And Bookshop is just the newest one, as others like Alibris have been around for much longer.
- Tiktaalik 7y ago
  Yea the local bookstore and a lot of other retail I can think of will respond to tweets too.
reallydontask 7y ago
Idk, searching Amazon has always been such a frustrating experience for me that i find hard to believe 10 seconds of searching achieve anything
- randomdude402 7y ago
  Their search is so bad that it has to be intentional. This person isn't finding shit in ten seconds.
  - cycomanic 7y ago
    A thousand times this. Except for books amazon's search must be the crappiest thing there is.
  - alanbernstein 7y ago
    Look, there are a lot of different shopping scenarios. Maybe I know that I need a right-angle adapter from HDMI male to HDMI mini male. Think about the two options here: 1) Go to Amazon (or Monoprice, or whatever - it's online vs local that I'm talking about here), search for "right-angle adapter from HDMI male to HDMI mini male", and look through the result photos until you find something that looks correct, most likely somewhere on the first page. If it were a more expensive item, maybe you'd spend an extra minute checking the ratings, reviews, and questions. Either way, you find exactly what you need by searching for an exact descriptive phrase. 2) Call some local shop, and have this conversation: A) "Hi, I'm looking for an HDMI cable, but it needs to be a certain shape and size, do you have a selection of those?" B) "Sure, I think so, what do you need exactly?" A) "Well, it's HDMI male on one side, HDMI mini male on the other side, and the mini side needs to have a right angle connector. I need it to be at least a foot long, ideally not much longer than that." B) "Ok, let me go check on that..." A) [wait a little bit] B) "I have a few options here, was that a right angle on the mini side or the full-size side?" A) "Mini side" B) "Ok I don't think we have exactly that, but..." Then, repeat as many times as you can stand with other stores. This isn't some theoretical example. Something like this happened to me a few years ago, and I made a conscious decision to use online merchants more often because it's an easy trade to make to regain a bit of time in your life.

Pfhreak 7y ago

My local bookstore has 'email them and ask', which is much lower friction.

jcrben 7y ago
lol I expect the successful ones will have decent ecommerce platform within the new few years.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  They already exist: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22773393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22773393 And Bookshop is just the newest one, as others like Alibris have been around for much longer.
Tiktaalik 7y ago
Yea the local bookstore and a lot of other retail I can think of will respond to tweets too.

reallydontask 7y ago

Idk, searching Amazon has always been such a frustrating experience for me that i find hard to believe 10 seconds of searching achieve anything

randomdude402 7y ago
Their search is so bad that it has to be intentional. This person isn't finding shit in ten seconds.
- cycomanic 7y ago
  A thousand times this. Except for books amazon's search must be the crappiest thing there is.
- alanbernstein 7y ago
  Look, there are a lot of different shopping scenarios. Maybe I know that I need a right-angle adapter from HDMI male to HDMI mini male. Think about the two options here: 1) Go to Amazon (or Monoprice, or whatever - it's online vs local that I'm talking about here), search for "right-angle adapter from HDMI male to HDMI mini male", and look through the result photos until you find something that looks correct, most likely somewhere on the first page. If it were a more expensive item, maybe you'd spend an extra minute checking the ratings, reviews, and questions. Either way, you find exactly what you need by searching for an exact descriptive phrase. 2) Call some local shop, and have this conversation: A) "Hi, I'm looking for an HDMI cable, but it needs to be a certain shape and size, do you have a selection of those?" B) "Sure, I think so, what do you need exactly?" A) "Well, it's HDMI male on one side, HDMI mini male on the other side, and the mini side needs to have a right angle connector. I need it to be at least a foot long, ideally not much longer than that." B) "Ok, let me go check on that..." A) [wait a little bit] B) "I have a few options here, was that a right angle on the mini side or the full-size side?" A) "Mini side" B) "Ok I don't think we have exactly that, but..." Then, repeat as many times as you can stand with other stores. This isn't some theoretical example. Something like this happened to me a few years ago, and I made a conscious decision to use online merchants more often because it's an easy trade to make to regain a bit of time in your life.