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I know they're huge and I'm just pissing in the ocean, but I do just about everything I can these days to buy elsewhere. Several months ago I started ordering f

I know they're huge and I'm just pissing in the ocean, but I do just about everything I can these days to buy elsewhere. Several months ago I started ordering from a local bookstore with a lackluster interface and slightly higher prices. Books sometimes take a week or more to arrive (gasp!) and I drive two miles to the shop to pick them up. I've been patronizing Amazon since roughly 1999. No longer. Amazon is a cancer. EDIT: changed "them" to "Amazon" for clarity.

nojito 6y ago
You can check out Bookshop https://bookshop.org/ https://bookshop.org/ They support local and independent bookstores https://bookshop.org/pages/about https://bookshop.org/pages/about
reaperducer 6y ago
I tried to do this, too. My wife is suddenly into a particular series of books, so at the beginning of the quarantine, I ordered the first four books from Barnes and Noble. Two arrived, but took three weeks. A third arrived in the fourth week. A fourth is nowhere to be found. bn.com won't talk to me without an order number, and I don't have an order number because I recently learned that an iPhone X will not stand up to sitting in a puddle of Lysol on the kitchen counter overnight. Ten days after ordering from Barnes and Noble, I ordered the next nine books in the series from Abe Books. The sellers have been really quick. Most arrived in under a week. A few took ten days. But for $1-$5 apiece, I'm OK with that. More importantly, none got lost.
- decebalus1 6y ago
  Your problem is that you replaced Amazon with a smaller and shittier version of Amazon. For the past 3 years, I've been buying all my books from a local shop. They're ~$5 more expensive and they arrive in about a week. The clerk (Stacy) calls me personally to tell me I can drop by to pick it up. There was only one instance in which the book was ordered but the distributor dropped the order and the book came 2 weeks later.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    I'm with you. I patronize independent bookshops as often as I can. But where I live now there are no independent bookshops. Zero. When I travel, I load up on books when I see booksellers. But in this case, I can't travel because of the aforementioned quarantine, so BN and Abe were all I could do. I even tried contacting the last bookstore I shopped in, Tome on the Range in Las Vegas, New Mexico. I knew it would have the books because I saw the the last time I was there. But it doesn't have a web site, hasn't updated its Facebook page since 2017, and doesn't answer its phone. So it was back to the web.
GuB-42 6y ago
So, more expensive, slower, and less convenient. You are basically buying from your local bookstore for charitable reasons only. It makes me really uncomfortable. Bookstores are businesses, subject to the market, they should be able to make money by their own merit. I can only see these solutions: - They will disappear, not a pleasant outcome, but it is not the first time such a thing happen. Movie rental stores suffered this fate for instance. - They become public or subsidized in some way. I don't expect this to happen in the USA. - They find some way of staying competitive. The way it is usually done is by creating local communities and events. Maybe host a variety of nerdy activities, like tabletop roleplaying. But they can also focus on the used market, or partner with schools to offer convenient "school year" packages, which could possibly also include used books. While I think suffering in order to support local businesses is a noble thing to do, it is not sustainable, "pissing in the ocean" as you say. I am curious to know if there are local bookstores that managed to be successful against Amazon, and how they did it.
- chiefgeek 6y ago
  Yes. I was born and bred a capitalist. The last twenty years have nearly wrung it all out of me. That said, it's not all suffering. Sometimes it is nice to get out of one's place for some air after staring at a screen all day. Like you said, though - it is not sustainable.
  - GuB-42 6y ago
    About getting out of one's place, I remember seeing a lot of kids sitting on the floor reading comics in bookstores. I was one of them. It was well tolerated as long as you weren't in the way (if you were, they just politely asked you to sit somewhere else). I don't know if it still happens, it certainly doesn't look as common but maybe that's just me not paying attention. Of course, by spending way too long in bookstores, I often ended up actually buying books. I used it essentially like a library, except I bought books to bring them back home instead of borrowing them.
- jlarocco 6y ago
  I think you're forgetting that monetary cost is only one way of assessing value. To me, it doesn't sound like the OP is suffering much at all, and they see the increased monetary cost and inconvenience as a worthwhile trade off to avoid dealing with a company that they don't like.
numakerg 6y ago
The intolerable frequency of dark pattern on Amazon's site has made me very bitter. If I can find another store to fulfill the order online, I'll go there, even if it costs a little more. Retailers like Costco and Bestbuy have comparable shipping speeds anyways.
- paulcole 6y ago
  What’s 2 examples of dark patterns on Amazon’s site?
  - 98codes 6y ago
    They don't care about counterfeiting and they don't care about product swapping, to give you two.
    - jayrot 6y ago
      Claiming "they don't care about..." is specious. It would be more accurate to say "they haven't been able to stop..."
      - choward 6y ago
        So you haven't heard of them commingling inventory? There is no way to stop counterfeiting with that so no, they aren't trying at all.
  - numakerg 6y ago
    I'm glad you asked. Just two examples off the top of my head: 1. No timestamps on chat. Returning a product can require multiple chat sessions over the course of a week, where each representative swears on their mother's grave that in the next 48 hours we'll get an email and everything will be sorted out. They leave out timestamps so you can't clearly see that they've left you hanging for 15-20 minutes between each message. 2. Switching back to the recurring (vs. one-time) purchase option for some products each time you make a change to the order. Numerous other issues, many of which are features that sellers exploit (mostly around reviews) and that Amazon isn't interested in fixing because they profit from those sales.
all_blue_chucks 6y ago
Do you realize it's third party sellers, not Amazon, that are doing the price gauging? And Amazon is trying to stop them? It doesn't appear you are responding to anything at all related to the article.
- rhizome 6y ago
  Who allows the third-party sellers to set up shop there? Relatedly: Amazon doesn't provide a way for you and I to report price gouging.
  - Alex3917 6y ago
    > Amazon doesn't provide a way for you and I to report price gouging. It does, but they don't actually do anything about it. Hundreds of people have been reporting people selling Ring Fit Adventure for hundreds of dollars, but Amazon is still letting them do it. But FWIW, you click 'Report incorrect product information', then 'Other product details' and 'price issue'.
    - rhizome 6y ago
      I just noticed that link the other day and wondered if it could be put to good use. They certainly don't make it obvious, but maybe that's part and parcel to ignoring it anyway. :)

nojito 6y ago

You can check out Bookshop https://bookshop.org/ https://bookshop.org/ They support local and independent bookstores https://bookshop.org/pages/about https://bookshop.org/pages/about

reaperducer 6y ago

I tried to do this, too. My wife is suddenly into a particular series of books, so at the beginning of the quarantine, I ordered the first four books from Barnes and Noble. Two arrived, but took three weeks. A third arrived in the fourth week. A fourth is nowhere to be found. bn.com won't talk to me without an order number, and I don't have an order number because I recently learned that an iPhone X will not stand up to sitting in a puddle of Lysol on the kitchen counter overnight. Ten days after ordering from Barnes and Noble, I ordered the next nine books in the series from Abe Books. The sellers have been really quick. Most arrived in under a week. A few took ten days. But for $1-$5 apiece, I'm OK with that. More importantly, none got lost.

decebalus1 6y ago
Your problem is that you replaced Amazon with a smaller and shittier version of Amazon. For the past 3 years, I've been buying all my books from a local shop. They're ~$5 more expensive and they arrive in about a week. The clerk (Stacy) calls me personally to tell me I can drop by to pick it up. There was only one instance in which the book was ordered but the distributor dropped the order and the book came 2 weeks later.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  I'm with you. I patronize independent bookshops as often as I can. But where I live now there are no independent bookshops. Zero. When I travel, I load up on books when I see booksellers. But in this case, I can't travel because of the aforementioned quarantine, so BN and Abe were all I could do. I even tried contacting the last bookstore I shopped in, Tome on the Range in Las Vegas, New Mexico. I knew it would have the books because I saw the the last time I was there. But it doesn't have a web site, hasn't updated its Facebook page since 2017, and doesn't answer its phone. So it was back to the web.

GuB-42 6y ago

So, more expensive, slower, and less convenient. You are basically buying from your local bookstore for charitable reasons only. It makes me really uncomfortable. Bookstores are businesses, subject to the market, they should be able to make money by their own merit. I can only see these solutions: - They will disappear, not a pleasant outcome, but it is not the first time such a thing happen. Movie rental stores suffered this fate for instance. - They become public or subsidized in some way. I don't expect this to happen in the USA. - They find some way of staying competitive. The way it is usually done is by creating local communities and events. Maybe host a variety of nerdy activities, like tabletop roleplaying. But they can also focus on the used market, or partner with schools to offer convenient "school year" packages, which could possibly also include used books. While I think suffering in order to support local businesses is a noble thing to do, it is not sustainable, "pissing in the ocean" as you say. I am curious to know if there are local bookstores that managed to be successful against Amazon, and how they did it.

chiefgeek 6y ago
Yes. I was born and bred a capitalist. The last twenty years have nearly wrung it all out of me. That said, it's not all suffering. Sometimes it is nice to get out of one's place for some air after staring at a screen all day. Like you said, though - it is not sustainable.
- GuB-42 6y ago
  About getting out of one's place, I remember seeing a lot of kids sitting on the floor reading comics in bookstores. I was one of them. It was well tolerated as long as you weren't in the way (if you were, they just politely asked you to sit somewhere else). I don't know if it still happens, it certainly doesn't look as common but maybe that's just me not paying attention. Of course, by spending way too long in bookstores, I often ended up actually buying books. I used it essentially like a library, except I bought books to bring them back home instead of borrowing them.
jlarocco 6y ago
I think you're forgetting that monetary cost is only one way of assessing value. To me, it doesn't sound like the OP is suffering much at all, and they see the increased monetary cost and inconvenience as a worthwhile trade off to avoid dealing with a company that they don't like.

numakerg 6y ago

The intolerable frequency of dark pattern on Amazon's site has made me very bitter. If I can find another store to fulfill the order online, I'll go there, even if it costs a little more. Retailers like Costco and Bestbuy have comparable shipping speeds anyways.

paulcole 6y ago
What’s 2 examples of dark patterns on Amazon’s site?
- 98codes 6y ago
  They don't care about counterfeiting and they don't care about product swapping, to give you two.
  - jayrot 6y ago
    Claiming "they don't care about..." is specious. It would be more accurate to say "they haven't been able to stop..."
    - choward 6y ago
      So you haven't heard of them commingling inventory? There is no way to stop counterfeiting with that so no, they aren't trying at all.
- numakerg 6y ago
  I'm glad you asked. Just two examples off the top of my head: 1. No timestamps on chat. Returning a product can require multiple chat sessions over the course of a week, where each representative swears on their mother's grave that in the next 48 hours we'll get an email and everything will be sorted out. They leave out timestamps so you can't clearly see that they've left you hanging for 15-20 minutes between each message. 2. Switching back to the recurring (vs. one-time) purchase option for some products each time you make a change to the order. Numerous other issues, many of which are features that sellers exploit (mostly around reviews) and that Amazon isn't interested in fixing because they profit from those sales.

all_blue_chucks 6y ago

Do you realize it's third party sellers, not Amazon, that are doing the price gauging? And Amazon is trying to stop them? It doesn't appear you are responding to anything at all related to the article.

rhizome 6y ago
Who allows the third-party sellers to set up shop there? Relatedly: Amazon doesn't provide a way for you and I to report price gouging.
- Alex3917 6y ago
  > Amazon doesn't provide a way for you and I to report price gouging. It does, but they don't actually do anything about it. Hundreds of people have been reporting people selling Ring Fit Adventure for hundreds of dollars, but Amazon is still letting them do it. But FWIW, you click 'Report incorrect product information', then 'Other product details' and 'price issue'.
  - rhizome 6y ago
    I just noticed that link the other day and wondered if it could be put to good use. They certainly don't make it obvious, but maybe that's part and parcel to ignoring it anyway. :)