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A lot of people in The Netherlands [1] use Bol.com (part of Ahold; Albert Heijn's parent company). However, Amazon.de (Germany) is also popular, and you can avo

by Fnoord 6y ago

A lot of people in The Netherlands [1] use Bol.com (part of Ahold; Albert Heijn's parent company). However, Amazon.de (Germany) is also popular, and you can avoid S&H with Amazon Prime. The reason there is no huge Amazon.nl is the same reason there's no huge eBay.nl; there's already a large local competitor: Bol.com (and Marktplaats.nl). Because of Amazon Prime Germany being popular in NL, Amazon introduced an Amazon Prime Netherlands. They even offer a discount deal but they offer a lot less than Amazon Germany, so it does not make sense to switch the Prime subscription (apart from the discount). If you want to order something in The Netherlands from Germany, and they only ship to Germany, then you can use a service like Huifkar. They have a drop place in Germany to ship to, drive over border, and post it from there in The Netherlands to your address in The Netherlands. I had positive and negative experiences with all of these. On Bol.com I received some kind of fashion (?) book by Kim Kardashian instead of a 200 EUR budget smartphone (I didn't even know who she was before that). They fixed it though. If you look at the working circumstances in distribution centre of Amazon and Coolblue you understand why sometimes things go wrong. [1] It is called "The Netherlands"; not "Netherland". You can also use the ccTLD, "NL".

mcv 6y ago
> It is called "The Netherlands"; not "Netherland". That's an archaic Anglicism in my opinion. Nobody in Netherland calls the country "de Nederlanden", and probably hasn't in two centuries. I think it's about time that English finally followed suit.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  I’d think it’s more important to get people to stop calling the whole country “Holland” first.
  - dmoy 6y ago
    We can just wait a few decades and change it to "waterworld". :(
- ByteJockey 6y ago
  > I think it's about time that English finally followed suit. Why? Do you think that languages should all follow the same rules about everything?
  - Leherenn 6y ago
    When it's about a proper noun with a clear authoritative source, I would say yes.
  - mcv 6y ago
    Not everything, but names, yes. When China informed the world that their capital was called Beijing rather than Peking, the world fixed their spelling and pronunciation. Why would this case be any different? And of course there will remain spelling and pronunciation differences. I don't expect English to use "Nederland", but "Netherland" should be fine. Maybe also drop the "Dutch" and replace it with something like Netherlandish or Netherlandic. Because "Dutch" is another weird archaic holdover. Nobody in Netherland even knows why we're called that in English. (I suspect it stems from the medieval name "Diets" for a group of predecessors of our language, which stems from well before the country existed.)
    - ByteJockey 6y ago
      That's actually a really interesting example. Because you're entirely right about the city, and yet China doesn't call itself China. Actually, the big three SE asian countries (Japan, China, Korea) all have different names for themselves than most languages of european origin use. Presumably others do as well, but those are the ones I looked up. I wonder why that is. Edit: Further thought. Most of the major cities I'm aware of (especially capital cities) in those countries are pronounced fairly accurately (with room for accents, of course). That's actually a really interesting set up.
Scoundreller 6y ago
> The reason there is no huge Amazon.nl is the same reason there's no huge eBay.nl; there's already a large local competitor: Bol.com (and Marktplaats.nl). eBay has owned marktplaats since 2004. I think they’re conceptually the same. I’m also unsure if eBay’s modus operandi has ever been to acquire and transition local platforms to their eBay platform, which is probably for the better.
- Fnoord 6y ago
  Marktplaats is not an auction place, it is a market place (kind of like Craigslist). They never changed that, and eBay Netherlands has always remained a niche.
  - Scoundreller 6y ago
    Not much of eBay is an auction house anymore... My pet theory is that eBay acquires/operates classified marketplaces and lets them dominate enough to prevent a competitor from appearing and taking marketshare from the more profitable eBay platform.
    - Fnoord 6y ago
      I haven't checked recently but back in the days (00s) eBay offered more protection than Marktplaats.
  - mcv 6y ago
    You can also do auctions on Marktplaats, though it's much more freeform than eBay. I auctioned a 1980s Transformers toy there ages ago, and I got such weird vibes from the two top bidders that I was happy to sell to a third bidder that showed up.

by Fnoord 6y ago

mcv 6y ago

> It is called "The Netherlands"; not "Netherland". That's an archaic Anglicism in my opinion. Nobody in Netherland calls the country "de Nederlanden", and probably hasn't in two centuries. I think it's about time that English finally followed suit.

sokoloff 6y ago
I’d think it’s more important to get people to stop calling the whole country “Holland” first.
- dmoy 6y ago
  We can just wait a few decades and change it to "waterworld". :(
ByteJockey 6y ago
> I think it's about time that English finally followed suit. Why? Do you think that languages should all follow the same rules about everything?
- Leherenn 6y ago
  When it's about a proper noun with a clear authoritative source, I would say yes.
- mcv 6y ago
  Not everything, but names, yes. When China informed the world that their capital was called Beijing rather than Peking, the world fixed their spelling and pronunciation. Why would this case be any different? And of course there will remain spelling and pronunciation differences. I don't expect English to use "Nederland", but "Netherland" should be fine. Maybe also drop the "Dutch" and replace it with something like Netherlandish or Netherlandic. Because "Dutch" is another weird archaic holdover. Nobody in Netherland even knows why we're called that in English. (I suspect it stems from the medieval name "Diets" for a group of predecessors of our language, which stems from well before the country existed.)
  - ByteJockey 6y ago
    That's actually a really interesting example. Because you're entirely right about the city, and yet China doesn't call itself China. Actually, the big three SE asian countries (Japan, China, Korea) all have different names for themselves than most languages of european origin use. Presumably others do as well, but those are the ones I looked up. I wonder why that is. Edit: Further thought. Most of the major cities I'm aware of (especially capital cities) in those countries are pronounced fairly accurately (with room for accents, of course). That's actually a really interesting set up.

Scoundreller 6y ago

> The reason there is no huge Amazon.nl is the same reason there's no huge eBay.nl; there's already a large local competitor: Bol.com (and Marktplaats.nl). eBay has owned marktplaats since 2004. I think they’re conceptually the same. I’m also unsure if eBay’s modus operandi has ever been to acquire and transition local platforms to their eBay platform, which is probably for the better.

Fnoord 6y ago
Marktplaats is not an auction place, it is a market place (kind of like Craigslist). They never changed that, and eBay Netherlands has always remained a niche.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  Not much of eBay is an auction house anymore... My pet theory is that eBay acquires/operates classified marketplaces and lets them dominate enough to prevent a competitor from appearing and taking marketshare from the more profitable eBay platform.
  - Fnoord 6y ago
    I haven't checked recently but back in the days (00s) eBay offered more protection than Marktplaats.
- mcv 6y ago
  You can also do auctions on Marktplaats, though it's much more freeform than eBay. I auctioned a 1980s Transformers toy there ages ago, and I got such weird vibes from the two top bidders that I was happy to sell to a third bidder that showed up.