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I haven't bought from Amazon in about three years. And I'm ordering online quite a lot. Only this month: a bike (boc24.de), bike equipment (nanobike.de), severa

by rv-de 6y ago

I haven't bought from Amazon in about three years. And I'm ordering online quite a lot. Only this month: a bike (boc24.de), bike equipment (nanobike.de), several books (booklooker.de, medimops.de, thalia.de, hugendubel.de), a Whisky (mcgin.de), a pizza stone (otto.de), USB microskope (digitalo.de) ... No problem or hassle whatsoever. I just find a shop (usually idealo), then I order - done. It's so simple, there's not much to write about - lest a guide. > You can often cut out the middleman if you are buying electronics. For computers, phones and TVs, Dell, Apple and Samsung are all offering free delivery on their products That's why the guide goes beyond its purported goal and tries to avoid other shops as well? > Environmentally friendly cleaning products, pet food and baby gear are available at Ethicalsupermarket.com. Standard delivery in the UK is free on orders over £50, or £3.95 on smaller orders. Then specific shops and information about shipping? Whatever - useless text. Just order somewhere else. It's that easy. (at least in Germany) (yes, I hate Amazon - yes, I make a living with AWS) --- Special love goes to: - booklooker.de - medimops.de - notebookgalerie.de - thalia.de - mcgin.de

augstein 6y ago
Ordering from Apple or Samsung directly, as suggested by the article, even is something to avoid, unless you like paying a premium (usually you can find their products about 10-30% cheaper somewhere else).
- wenc 6y ago
  Curious, where does one get products cheaper than Apple.com? (I believe Apple controls the prices third party resellers can set) I've seen the occasional markdown on Amazon and MacMall but Apple's prices are generally pretty standard.
  - abiogenesis 6y ago
    Here in Australia, for example, you can buy grey imports (i.e. not imported by Apple, Samsung etc) for much cheaper. With some brands you only get a store warranty, but sometimes you might even get full manufacturer international warranty.
  - Larrikin 6y ago
    When shopping for a new computer recently, prices were the same across the board for the most part. If you qualify for the educational discount, Apple was significantly cheaper. If you didn't there were some sites that tended to have credit card portals or gift card reseller sites that offered more of a discount. Even when a portal says certain products are excluded they tend to still come through with the automated discount. Also depending on your credit card you could get a better deal through buying your own gift cards. I currently have five percent off on grocery store purchases, so effectively any gift cards the grocery store sells are five percent discounts to the merchant. Best buy, target, Amazon are nearly always there. ITunes usually is but I don't ever recall seeing apple.
  - lostapathy 6y ago
    Microcenter on most items.
  - Spooky23 6y ago
    Target, B&H, and BestBuy routinely discount Apple stuff. If you have insight into Apple’s product cycle, they usually discount the price to resellers a few weeks before they release a product and they are motivated to clear stuff out. I used to pay for college by taking advantage of that in the 90s!
- thanhhaimai 6y ago
  Buying Apple products on Amazon significantly exposes you to counterfeit products. That's where the "discounts" happen.
  - thirdsun 6y ago
    That's not true anymore. Some time ago Amazon made changes to the way they sell Apple hardware. It is my understanding that Apple gave its blessing to let Amazon sell their products directly with the requirement that third party sellers aren't allowed to do so anymore. In my opinion that's a welcome change.
- Normal_gaussian 6y ago
  However, if you are ordering a premium product, ring them and do an assisted sale. This works particularly well if there is something you are unsure of. For example, when buying a TV I was asking about a dumb panel with the latest and greatest display technology in a particularly small bezelless format. They couldn't do it (which I already knew) but sold me the smart and slightly larger TV for nearly half its official price with a "free" 5y rtm warranty. Pretty much the same price as I'd pay elsewhere for an "inferior" panel. And slightly more recently I purchased a new laptop. The price was the same as everywhere else (£2k) but I got a fancy tilt/rotate stylus, 3y care, expediated delivery, and a windows home -> pro upgrade code (it was weird it didn't have it as default tbh) all for free. Notably I'm not asking for the discounts and extras, I'm asking normal sales questions as though I wasn't able to read the manuals online. On the other hand, there are plenty of things I rang up about and didn't purchase because it was better elsewhere. On the whole they seem to have been more mid to bottom range items, but I don't really know the internals of these companies.
- nobleach 6y ago
  I just ordered a brand new Apple Macbook Air with 16 gigs for my daughter... I can't even get Apple to charge my card and ship the thing. Their estimate is mid-May... but I haven't seen any traction on it at all. It's as if I didn't even order it.
ex3ndr 6y ago
Germany, right? I bet you have a lot of local competition. In bay area i cant' even order IPA (first aid antiseptic) anywhere at all.
- s0rce 6y ago
  You can get IPA from chemical suppliers. I bought from these guys https://www.stellarchemicalcorp.com/product-page/isopropyl-alcohol-99-1-gallon https://www.stellarchemicalcorp.com/product-page/isopropyl-a... They shipped to my place in the East bay. Price has unsurprisingly gone up a bit since I bought Mar 22.
- jfim 6y ago
  For those confused, parent is talking about isopropyl alcohol, not India pale ale.
  - koolba 6y ago
    Is that a common acronym for rubbing alcohol? I’ve only heard it in regards to beer.
    - bradlys 6y ago
      It's commonly referred to that in electronics and chemistry. It's where I've encountered the terminology.
- bradlys 6y ago
  The reason you can't buy IPA is because it's banned for sale in California due to VOC laws. Same with Ethanol/Denatured-Alcohol products. Amazon actually complies the law whereas other out of state distributors don't. Ebay is your friend there. It's how I got the stuff.
- dx034 6y ago
  Covid has brought some competition. Apart from that, there's no competitor to Amazon in Germany. There are larger shops for single categories (books or clothes) but no generalist seller like Amazon anywhere.
Diesel555 6y ago
I do think you are missing out on how well Amazon has handled the online purchasing. Not discussing their ethics, just the service of interacting with them. I make a purchase and it normally shows up the next day. That's unreal (I'm near a distribution center, so that's not the normal 2 days stateside). I need to make a return, I just click a button and bring the open box and item to any UPS store (there are 3 within 3 miles). They will package it for me and ship it. I just show them the UPC code on my phone with a ripped open box and an item. They have a good system. This may be US only, but it's easy to understand why they are so popular. I have separated myself from Google for privacy reasons (except a few things...) and try to avoid Amazon where I can and support local shops. So this isn't advocating Amazon, just pointing out that their competitors usually can't compete on returns and shipping time.
- wongarsu 6y ago
  In Germany Amazon usually delivers next day. So does just about everyone else, since all it takes is packaging and getting the order to any postal carrier on the same day. Returns are unproblematic almost everywhere since a 14 day on-questions-asked return policy for online purchases is EU law (and most online shops voluntarily extend it to 30 days). Sure, I have to package it myself, but that's no different than German Amazon. Sure, Amazon is great, but so is almost everyone else (at least in Germany). Amazon's main advantage is only learning one interface and one set of processes for everything.
  - Semaphor 6y ago
    > In Germany Amazon usually delivers next day. So does just about everyone else YMMV. I order Amazon/Others about 70/30. The vast majority of shops I order from have longer delivery times, 3-4 days from the time of ordering is what I’m used to. And then there is Amazon Logistics which recently started becoming a thing in Lübeck. They are on the level of DHL and sometimes surpass them, with other stores you sometimes have to live with the horror of Hermes or DPD. Hermes and DPD are high-risk carriers that only usually deliver and if they do, who knows when. DHL at least is good most of the time. Amazon Logistics is super fast, usually has live GPS tracking and when someone couldn’t find my entrance yesterday (it’s a bit complicated), I got a call, explained where exactly it is, and they set a marker on their internal app for my address.
a_bonobo 6y ago
thalia is running a lot of dodgy business practices focused on strong-arming smaller print-shops (see German Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalia_B%C3%BCcher#Kritik https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalia_B%C3%BCcher#Kritik), I'm really fond of zvab.com where you can order from many if not most antiquarian bookshops of Europe. Cheap used books abound for 2-5 euros per book, a lot of them with free shipping depending on the shop. EDIT: TIL: zvab is abebooks, which in turn is a subsidiary of... amazon. All roads lead to Rome.
- rv-de 6y ago
  didn't know that. I just like large book stores, so I habitually feel like supporting, and Thalia is the best we have here - nothing like Dussmann in Berlin, though :/ zvab looks amazing (no pun intended)! will order something right away.
cycomanic 6y ago
I completely agree. I don't understand why people use amazon so much. Generally I find them more expensive and for many things they only have inferior products and much less selection (not even speaking of finding the right things). Some other ones which are excellent: Bike24.de Alternate.de Bikester.se
nielsole 6y ago
Stores often sell cheaper on Amazon than on their own storefront. The 15€ ball I ordered on Amazon would have been 20€ if bought directly from the sellers website.
- distances 6y ago
  On the other hand, I can find almost any item cheaper in some other webshop than Amazon if I look for it. The Amazon tax does push prices up.
Plasmoid2000ad 6y ago
Germany is, I think, fairly exceptional in this case. Living in Ireland, Irish stores can be very hit and miss. Amazon UK is often faster, very often cheaper, has cheaper shipping (even though it's coming from UK), has cheaper returns (returns through the post in Ireland are extortionate) I'd honestly say in some ways its gotten worst over the years, probably from competition from UK retailers. If you are buying in big quantities, it's best to go with a big company, and they aren't in Ireland. If you are ordering small quantities, that's not enough to keep a company afloat. It's so bad, when it comes to Electronics, Pet supplies or similar, it's often best to do exactly what you do, and order from Germany and deal with the language barrier and lack of credit card support. Brexit will be interesting, but I see Amazon had announced in the last few days it's opening distribution centers in Ireland, so i guess it's inevitable that things are going that way.
- rv-de 6y ago
  > and lack of credit card support. German (physical) shops and restaurants hold a very special disregard for card payment but online it's rarely an issue. Either CC or PayPal (which I also try to avoid) will be provided.
- literallycancer 6y ago
  In my experience there is a very observable correlation between online stores per capita and quality of service. More stores -> more competition -> better service. Here's a map with numbers of online stores in some EU countries: https://www.expandeco.com/en https://www.expandeco.com/en No idea where they got the numbers from, but seems reasonable at glance.
wvh 6y ago
I assume you're German? I'm in Northern Europe and most products I order online come through German retailers: music equipment, clothes, outdoor stuff, bike parts, ... I guess Germany has a large enough economy to support larger retailers, and those retailers put in some effort to attract customers beyond their borders. I think the problems with e-retail in Europe have been traditionally of a practical nature, such as dealing with multiple languages and handling delivery/returns across borders. I very sporadically order from Amazon if I can't find what I'm looking for elsewhere, but their website has been so infested with spam and sponsored results that it's hard to find a genuine product these days.
joyj2nd 6y ago
I know the German market is not relevant for most HN readers. But please don't recommend thalia.de, there are enough other options. thalia not only has unorthodox business practices: https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/a-709746.html https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/a-709746.html but they also boycott books they don't like: https://philosophia-perennis.com/2017/09/12/buchhandel-boykottiert/ https://philosophia-perennis.com/2017/09/12/buchhandel-boyko... In my opinion a book shop should not do this.
literallycancer 6y ago
I'm using Amazon.de as an interface for VAT excluded purchases. Many smaller shops have better prices but don't want to deal with the extra paperwork to sell without VAT to businesses outside the country. However it doesn't work for items sold by Amazon itself as they will ship it from the nearest distribution center (it needs to cross the border to be VAT free in my case).
BeniBoy 6y ago
For bike equipement, both bike24.com and bike-component.de both are great! Good selection, great customer service and fast shipping, even now.. Amazon can't compete with that. In general German eshop are the best (shopping from France).
econcon 6y ago
I used to live in Germany and now I moved back to India (where I am came from) Amazon atleast in India is better than anything else. It's very difficult to source things which are not common place goods. For example, if I want to buy 3 phase, 1 horsepower motor, 4 pole motor AC induction motor. There would be no websites who directly sell, and if exists then it will charge rediculous price. Most B2B purchase in India requires going through IndiaMart, where you post requirement (that too can't upload photo, has very small description limit) Then vendors will hammer your phone with useless calls, asking the details you already offered and no one really replies to text. They don't understand not everyone wants to be on call. There are rediculous number of vendors who import from China and live around a port city and have goods stocked in their wharehouse, shipping all over India. And they lie about being manufacturer, I am pretty sure they aren't even inserting a bolt in the final product. And either companies are too big where they don't care about a guy who wants 1 motor, or they are too small that they don't even know how to sell online. Amazon expanded the available products which can be bought without BS at competitive rates but it too missed niche category stuff. For example, I can't buy lithium iron phosphate battery online at the moment, few websites appear in Google but they ask you to contact them.

by rv-de 6y ago

augstein 6y ago

Ordering from Apple or Samsung directly, as suggested by the article, even is something to avoid, unless you like paying a premium (usually you can find their products about 10-30% cheaper somewhere else).

wenc 6y ago
Curious, where does one get products cheaper than Apple.com? (I believe Apple controls the prices third party resellers can set) I've seen the occasional markdown on Amazon and MacMall but Apple's prices are generally pretty standard.
- abiogenesis 6y ago
  Here in Australia, for example, you can buy grey imports (i.e. not imported by Apple, Samsung etc) for much cheaper. With some brands you only get a store warranty, but sometimes you might even get full manufacturer international warranty.
- Larrikin 6y ago
  When shopping for a new computer recently, prices were the same across the board for the most part. If you qualify for the educational discount, Apple was significantly cheaper. If you didn't there were some sites that tended to have credit card portals or gift card reseller sites that offered more of a discount. Even when a portal says certain products are excluded they tend to still come through with the automated discount. Also depending on your credit card you could get a better deal through buying your own gift cards. I currently have five percent off on grocery store purchases, so effectively any gift cards the grocery store sells are five percent discounts to the merchant. Best buy, target, Amazon are nearly always there. ITunes usually is but I don't ever recall seeing apple.
- lostapathy 6y ago
  Microcenter on most items.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  Target, B&H, and BestBuy routinely discount Apple stuff. If you have insight into Apple’s product cycle, they usually discount the price to resellers a few weeks before they release a product and they are motivated to clear stuff out. I used to pay for college by taking advantage of that in the 90s!
thanhhaimai 6y ago
Buying Apple products on Amazon significantly exposes you to counterfeit products. That's where the "discounts" happen.
- thirdsun 6y ago
  That's not true anymore. Some time ago Amazon made changes to the way they sell Apple hardware. It is my understanding that Apple gave its blessing to let Amazon sell their products directly with the requirement that third party sellers aren't allowed to do so anymore. In my opinion that's a welcome change.
Normal_gaussian 6y ago
However, if you are ordering a premium product, ring them and do an assisted sale. This works particularly well if there is something you are unsure of. For example, when buying a TV I was asking about a dumb panel with the latest and greatest display technology in a particularly small bezelless format. They couldn't do it (which I already knew) but sold me the smart and slightly larger TV for nearly half its official price with a "free" 5y rtm warranty. Pretty much the same price as I'd pay elsewhere for an "inferior" panel. And slightly more recently I purchased a new laptop. The price was the same as everywhere else (£2k) but I got a fancy tilt/rotate stylus, 3y care, expediated delivery, and a windows home -> pro upgrade code (it was weird it didn't have it as default tbh) all for free. Notably I'm not asking for the discounts and extras, I'm asking normal sales questions as though I wasn't able to read the manuals online. On the other hand, there are plenty of things I rang up about and didn't purchase because it was better elsewhere. On the whole they seem to have been more mid to bottom range items, but I don't really know the internals of these companies.
nobleach 6y ago
I just ordered a brand new Apple Macbook Air with 16 gigs for my daughter... I can't even get Apple to charge my card and ship the thing. Their estimate is mid-May... but I haven't seen any traction on it at all. It's as if I didn't even order it.

ex3ndr 6y ago

Germany, right? I bet you have a lot of local competition. In bay area i cant' even order IPA (first aid antiseptic) anywhere at all.

s0rce 6y ago
You can get IPA from chemical suppliers. I bought from these guys https://www.stellarchemicalcorp.com/product-page/isopropyl-alcohol-99-1-gallon https://www.stellarchemicalcorp.com/product-page/isopropyl-a... They shipped to my place in the East bay. Price has unsurprisingly gone up a bit since I bought Mar 22.
jfim 6y ago
For those confused, parent is talking about isopropyl alcohol, not India pale ale.
- koolba 6y ago
  Is that a common acronym for rubbing alcohol? I’ve only heard it in regards to beer.
  - bradlys 6y ago
    It's commonly referred to that in electronics and chemistry. It's where I've encountered the terminology.
bradlys 6y ago
The reason you can't buy IPA is because it's banned for sale in California due to VOC laws. Same with Ethanol/Denatured-Alcohol products. Amazon actually complies the law whereas other out of state distributors don't. Ebay is your friend there. It's how I got the stuff.
dx034 6y ago
Covid has brought some competition. Apart from that, there's no competitor to Amazon in Germany. There are larger shops for single categories (books or clothes) but no generalist seller like Amazon anywhere.

Diesel555 6y ago

I do think you are missing out on how well Amazon has handled the online purchasing. Not discussing their ethics, just the service of interacting with them. I make a purchase and it normally shows up the next day. That's unreal (I'm near a distribution center, so that's not the normal 2 days stateside). I need to make a return, I just click a button and bring the open box and item to any UPS store (there are 3 within 3 miles). They will package it for me and ship it. I just show them the UPC code on my phone with a ripped open box and an item. They have a good system. This may be US only, but it's easy to understand why they are so popular. I have separated myself from Google for privacy reasons (except a few things...) and try to avoid Amazon where I can and support local shops. So this isn't advocating Amazon, just pointing out that their competitors usually can't compete on returns and shipping time.

wongarsu 6y ago
In Germany Amazon usually delivers next day. So does just about everyone else, since all it takes is packaging and getting the order to any postal carrier on the same day. Returns are unproblematic almost everywhere since a 14 day on-questions-asked return policy for online purchases is EU law (and most online shops voluntarily extend it to 30 days). Sure, I have to package it myself, but that's no different than German Amazon. Sure, Amazon is great, but so is almost everyone else (at least in Germany). Amazon's main advantage is only learning one interface and one set of processes for everything.
- Semaphor 6y ago
  > In Germany Amazon usually delivers next day. So does just about everyone else YMMV. I order Amazon/Others about 70/30. The vast majority of shops I order from have longer delivery times, 3-4 days from the time of ordering is what I’m used to. And then there is Amazon Logistics which recently started becoming a thing in Lübeck. They are on the level of DHL and sometimes surpass them, with other stores you sometimes have to live with the horror of Hermes or DPD. Hermes and DPD are high-risk carriers that only usually deliver and if they do, who knows when. DHL at least is good most of the time. Amazon Logistics is super fast, usually has live GPS tracking and when someone couldn’t find my entrance yesterday (it’s a bit complicated), I got a call, explained where exactly it is, and they set a marker on their internal app for my address.

a_bonobo 6y ago

thalia is running a lot of dodgy business practices focused on strong-arming smaller print-shops (see German Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalia_B%C3%BCcher#Kritik https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalia_B%C3%BCcher#Kritik), I'm really fond of zvab.com where you can order from many if not most antiquarian bookshops of Europe. Cheap used books abound for 2-5 euros per book, a lot of them with free shipping depending on the shop. EDIT: TIL: zvab is abebooks, which in turn is a subsidiary of... amazon. All roads lead to Rome.

rv-de 6y ago
didn't know that. I just like large book stores, so I habitually feel like supporting, and Thalia is the best we have here - nothing like Dussmann in Berlin, though :/ zvab looks amazing (no pun intended)! will order something right away.

cycomanic 6y ago

I completely agree. I don't understand why people use amazon so much. Generally I find them more expensive and for many things they only have inferior products and much less selection (not even speaking of finding the right things). Some other ones which are excellent: Bike24.de Alternate.de Bikester.se

nielsole 6y ago

Stores often sell cheaper on Amazon than on their own storefront. The 15€ ball I ordered on Amazon would have been 20€ if bought directly from the sellers website.

distances 6y ago
On the other hand, I can find almost any item cheaper in some other webshop than Amazon if I look for it. The Amazon tax does push prices up.

Plasmoid2000ad 6y ago

Germany is, I think, fairly exceptional in this case. Living in Ireland, Irish stores can be very hit and miss. Amazon UK is often faster, very often cheaper, has cheaper shipping (even though it's coming from UK), has cheaper returns (returns through the post in Ireland are extortionate) I'd honestly say in some ways its gotten worst over the years, probably from competition from UK retailers. If you are buying in big quantities, it's best to go with a big company, and they aren't in Ireland. If you are ordering small quantities, that's not enough to keep a company afloat. It's so bad, when it comes to Electronics, Pet supplies or similar, it's often best to do exactly what you do, and order from Germany and deal with the language barrier and lack of credit card support. Brexit will be interesting, but I see Amazon had announced in the last few days it's opening distribution centers in Ireland, so i guess it's inevitable that things are going that way.

rv-de 6y ago
> and lack of credit card support. German (physical) shops and restaurants hold a very special disregard for card payment but online it's rarely an issue. Either CC or PayPal (which I also try to avoid) will be provided.
literallycancer 6y ago
In my experience there is a very observable correlation between online stores per capita and quality of service. More stores -> more competition -> better service. Here's a map with numbers of online stores in some EU countries: https://www.expandeco.com/en https://www.expandeco.com/en No idea where they got the numbers from, but seems reasonable at glance.

wvh 6y ago

I assume you're German? I'm in Northern Europe and most products I order online come through German retailers: music equipment, clothes, outdoor stuff, bike parts, ... I guess Germany has a large enough economy to support larger retailers, and those retailers put in some effort to attract customers beyond their borders. I think the problems with e-retail in Europe have been traditionally of a practical nature, such as dealing with multiple languages and handling delivery/returns across borders. I very sporadically order from Amazon if I can't find what I'm looking for elsewhere, but their website has been so infested with spam and sponsored results that it's hard to find a genuine product these days.

joyj2nd 6y ago

I know the German market is not relevant for most HN readers. But please don't recommend thalia.de, there are enough other options. thalia not only has unorthodox business practices: https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/a-709746.html https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/a-709746.html but they also boycott books they don't like: https://philosophia-perennis.com/2017/09/12/buchhandel-boykottiert/ https://philosophia-perennis.com/2017/09/12/buchhandel-boyko... In my opinion a book shop should not do this.

literallycancer 6y ago

I'm using Amazon.de as an interface for VAT excluded purchases. Many smaller shops have better prices but don't want to deal with the extra paperwork to sell without VAT to businesses outside the country. However it doesn't work for items sold by Amazon itself as they will ship it from the nearest distribution center (it needs to cross the border to be VAT free in my case).

BeniBoy 6y ago

For bike equipement, both bike24.com and bike-component.de both are great! Good selection, great customer service and fast shipping, even now.. Amazon can't compete with that. In general German eshop are the best (shopping from France).

econcon 6y ago

I used to live in Germany and now I moved back to India (where I am came from) Amazon atleast in India is better than anything else. It's very difficult to source things which are not common place goods. For example, if I want to buy 3 phase, 1 horsepower motor, 4 pole motor AC induction motor. There would be no websites who directly sell, and if exists then it will charge rediculous price. Most B2B purchase in India requires going through IndiaMart, where you post requirement (that too can't upload photo, has very small description limit) Then vendors will hammer your phone with useless calls, asking the details you already offered and no one really replies to text. They don't understand not everyone wants to be on call. There are rediculous number of vendors who import from China and live around a port city and have goods stocked in their wharehouse, shipping all over India. And they lie about being manufacturer, I am pretty sure they aren't even inserting a bolt in the final product. And either companies are too big where they don't care about a guy who wants 1 motor, or they are too small that they don't even know how to sell online. Amazon expanded the available products which can be bought without BS at competitive rates but it too missed niche category stuff. For example, I can't buy lithium iron phosphate battery online at the moment, few websites appear in Google but they ask you to contact them.