5 ms·

I think most people's objections to Google and Amazon are macro objections to harm their business does to the world, not the individual consumer. I shop on Ama

by yaseer 5y ago

I think most people's objections to Google and Amazon are macro objections to harm their business does to the world, not the individual consumer. I shop on Amazon like I eat steaks. I get individual value out of Amazon and the steak, but at macro scale, Amazon is harming other businesses, and my steaks increase carbon emissions (amongst other things).

blitzar 5y ago
Yeah, but have you tried the alternatives to amazon? Got to say the competition is really not doing itself any favours. Same price / more + $6.50 in postage arriving in 4 days time. And you are going to harass me with emails because now you have it...
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  The alternatives are much better. I try to cut out all middlemen and buy from the brand directly if possible, assuming that I will get the highest quality product / least chance of counterfeit that way. Then I go to the big box stores’ websites that do not have 3rd party sellers or offer the ability to filter them out. And then I might go to Amazon. Amazon prices are notoriously high for any liquid or household product bought regularly, Costco and Target and Walmart are way cheaper for those.
- krono 5y ago
  Chicken and the egg. It's the exact opposite here in the Netherlands, where Amazon has only recently started to gain some ground.
- asddubs 5y ago
  I did buy a power supply for my laptop on lenovo.com recently, just because I had 0 confidence that if i bought it on amazon it wouldn't be a fake. I checked out the site for a local electronics retailer first, but apparently they also started allowing third party sellers on their platform. In any case, it ended up being half the amazon price anyway
  - tialaramex 5y ago
    Making my life difficult certainly isn't how to get me to use your direct retail site rather than Amazon. My preferred boots have a catalogue number. It's printed inside the boots, it's printed on the box they come in, it has remained the same for many years and it clearly identifies the exact model of boots and foot size. If you type that number in to the manufacturer's own retail web site they're confused, what can this possibly be? It's unclear to them apparently, maybe I want er... women's boots? [What even are women's boots? Answer: The same boots, but limited to small foot sizes. I actually have size 10 feet.] When I type the same code into Amazon, unsurprisingly it matches a product advertised by a seller, because the sellers have a strong incentive to advertise codes that result in sales. I get the exact product I want, admittedly it still doesn't auto-select the correct size but at least I'm on a page showing the product I want, one drop-down away from buying my boots. So, Amazon gets the sale and the manufacturer misses out on what's presumably a considerable gap between their wholesale price and the retail price I'd have paid on their own store.
    - ramphastidae 5y ago
      > So, Amazon gets the sale and the manufacturer misses out on what's presumably a considerable gap between their wholesale price and the retail price I'd have paid on their own store. So you are knowingly paying more than MSRP because you can’t be bothered with using keywords to search the manufacturer’s website instead? Weird. How often and how many boots are you buying that this would be worth the trade off?
      - mcintyre1994 5y ago
        They're not saying that. They're assuming that Amazon (or the seller on their platform) buys at a wholesale price below what the manufacturer charges as retail on their own website. So the manufacturer loses out on the difference if you buy from Amazon instead of direct. That's broadly going to be true whether the Amazon retail price ends up being higher or lower than the manufacturer's retail price.
        5y ago
- deergomoo 5y ago
  > Same price / more + $6.50 in postage arriving in 4 days time It’s unfortunate, because free postage is a complete myth that everyone now expects. A company the size of Amazon can afford to burn money for years and years until they’re at the point where they have their own logistics network and make the numbers work. There are very few companies that can do that—or that should, really.
  - twobitshifter 5y ago
    I had read an article that said Amazon requires sellers to offer them the lowest price and provide free shipping to get top position in search results. The consequence of this is that prices have now risen by the cost of free shipping.
- FridayoLeary 5y ago
  Amazon.com really is shockingly, atrociously poor. They barely even bother searching your keywords, for example. Even Google does a better job of searching then the native search engine. It beggars belief that they leave such basic features like filters so broken. But yeah, they have unreal fulfilment times plus guaranteed money back if something goes wrong. They accomplish this by treating everybody else like dirt.
- chrischen 5y ago
  Maybe the harm increases prices overall, so you never know. Take hassle free returns and credit card points. Both features look like pro-consumer policies but end up forcing all online retailers to bake the cost into their prices. At the end of the day consumers just get no choice on this cost.

by yaseer 5y ago

blitzar 5y ago

Yeah, but have you tried the alternatives to amazon? Got to say the competition is really not doing itself any favours. Same price / more + $6.50 in postage arriving in 4 days time. And you are going to harass me with emails because now you have it...

lotsofpulp 5y ago
The alternatives are much better. I try to cut out all middlemen and buy from the brand directly if possible, assuming that I will get the highest quality product / least chance of counterfeit that way. Then I go to the big box stores’ websites that do not have 3rd party sellers or offer the ability to filter them out. And then I might go to Amazon. Amazon prices are notoriously high for any liquid or household product bought regularly, Costco and Target and Walmart are way cheaper for those.
krono 5y ago
Chicken and the egg. It's the exact opposite here in the Netherlands, where Amazon has only recently started to gain some ground.
asddubs 5y ago
I did buy a power supply for my laptop on lenovo.com recently, just because I had 0 confidence that if i bought it on amazon it wouldn't be a fake. I checked out the site for a local electronics retailer first, but apparently they also started allowing third party sellers on their platform. In any case, it ended up being half the amazon price anyway
- tialaramex 5y ago
  Making my life difficult certainly isn't how to get me to use your direct retail site rather than Amazon. My preferred boots have a catalogue number. It's printed inside the boots, it's printed on the box they come in, it has remained the same for many years and it clearly identifies the exact model of boots and foot size. If you type that number in to the manufacturer's own retail web site they're confused, what can this possibly be? It's unclear to them apparently, maybe I want er... women's boots? [What even are women's boots? Answer: The same boots, but limited to small foot sizes. I actually have size 10 feet.] When I type the same code into Amazon, unsurprisingly it matches a product advertised by a seller, because the sellers have a strong incentive to advertise codes that result in sales. I get the exact product I want, admittedly it still doesn't auto-select the correct size but at least I'm on a page showing the product I want, one drop-down away from buying my boots. So, Amazon gets the sale and the manufacturer misses out on what's presumably a considerable gap between their wholesale price and the retail price I'd have paid on their own store.
  - ramphastidae 5y ago
    > So, Amazon gets the sale and the manufacturer misses out on what's presumably a considerable gap between their wholesale price and the retail price I'd have paid on their own store. So you are knowingly paying more than MSRP because you can’t be bothered with using keywords to search the manufacturer’s website instead? Weird. How often and how many boots are you buying that this would be worth the trade off?
    - mcintyre1994 5y ago
      They're not saying that. They're assuming that Amazon (or the seller on their platform) buys at a wholesale price below what the manufacturer charges as retail on their own website. So the manufacturer loses out on the difference if you buy from Amazon instead of direct. That's broadly going to be true whether the Amazon retail price ends up being higher or lower than the manufacturer's retail price.
      - 5y ago
deergomoo 5y ago
> Same price / more + $6.50 in postage arriving in 4 days time It’s unfortunate, because free postage is a complete myth that everyone now expects. A company the size of Amazon can afford to burn money for years and years until they’re at the point where they have their own logistics network and make the numbers work. There are very few companies that can do that—or that should, really.
- twobitshifter 5y ago
  I had read an article that said Amazon requires sellers to offer them the lowest price and provide free shipping to get top position in search results. The consequence of this is that prices have now risen by the cost of free shipping.
FridayoLeary 5y ago
Amazon.com really is shockingly, atrociously poor. They barely even bother searching your keywords, for example. Even Google does a better job of searching then the native search engine. It beggars belief that they leave such basic features like filters so broken. But yeah, they have unreal fulfilment times plus guaranteed money back if something goes wrong. They accomplish this by treating everybody else like dirt.
chrischen 5y ago
Maybe the harm increases prices overall, so you never know. Take hassle free returns and credit card points. Both features look like pro-consumer policies but end up forcing all online retailers to bake the cost into their prices. At the end of the day consumers just get no choice on this cost.