4 ms·
I end up ordering from Amazon the things that Whole Foods, OfficeMax and BestBuy won't keep in stock. I moved recently, so we've been ordering 2-4x /week while
by jasonv 6y ago
I end up ordering from Amazon the things that Whole Foods, OfficeMax and BestBuy won't keep in stock. I moved recently, so we've been ordering 2-4x /week while getting the new place in order.
I buy locally what I can, but retail offerings are so anemic (even for, say, granola bars) that online options massively eclipse what stores carry.
I don't want to order from Amazon, but I don't want to get by with the meager brick-and-mortar offerings.
Another example: Recently I went to Best Buy to grab an HDMI-DisplayPort cable. They had it priced at $38. Amazon had it for $12. I'd have paid up to $20 for the retail stock surcharge, but that overage was obscene.
- MaxBarraclough 6y agoCables have been this way for years for some reason, and it's not just Best Buy, it's the same here in the UK. Brick-and-mortar stores charge several times what you'd pay online. edit I've heard they make more selling you a USB cable than selling you a printer.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoCables have been that way when I worked as a bestbuy black shirt 20 years ago
- pixl97 6y agoCables is how best buy makes their money. They don't make anything on the TV you buy, its the 400% markup on the cable where the profit is.
- jfim 6y agoFYI, in the US, monoprice.com is usually the place to go online for cables, as long as you don't need them quickly.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoGood if you need a lot of cables, if you just need one or two then amazon is still cheaper and you get it faster.
- e_y_ 6y agoA decade ago, I remember the experience from Monoprice being very fast. 1-2 days between ordering and having it delivered from Rancho Cucamonga to the Bay Area. But earlier this month, I ordered something from them and it took 4 days to hand it off to some shipping company, 3 days for that company to deliver it to USPS, and another 2 days to get to my door.
- ghaff 6y agoPeople buy a TV. They need a cable. They comparison shopped and maybe bargained the hell out of the TV. They just buy the cable. I wrote an aticle about this ages ago: https://www.cnet.com/news/the-economics-of-cables/ https://www.cnet.com/news/the-economics-of-cables/