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To be honest maybe I am just old but it seems like every argument and quibble people have been having over Amazon is the exact same arguments I saw back in the

To be honest maybe I am just old but it seems like every argument and quibble people have been having over Amazon is the exact same arguments I saw back in the early 2000's the only difference is the company was Wal-Mart instead of Amazon.

zaphod12 4y ago
There is one single really key difference. Walmart takes responsibility for the products they put in their store. That they are genuine and represented as they are. They squeezed sellers, encouraged moves to china and all of that, but they aren't a marketplace - they are a store. Amazon has abrogated all responsibility in that area and pretended they are the equivalent of the open field on which a flea market is set up.
- user3939382 4y ago
  Yep. For the curious, go search Amazon for "1 TB USB" for a good laugh.
  - vel0city 4y ago
    Sadly walmart.com is the same kind of trash. I searched 1TB USB and the top non-sponsored result was this: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Jonephe-USB-Flash-Drive-1TB-Metal-Memory-Stick-3-0-Waterproof-USB-Stick-1000GB/1541636209 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Jonephe-USB-Flash-Drive-1TB-Metal... Which has some obviously fake reviews along with probably a real comment stating: "Only problem is the transfer speed sucks and it causes errors in half the files I transfer to it." Truly emblematic of how these scam USB drives work. And its the top organic result on walmart.com!
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    Ya, and if you report or comment on the scams, Amazon acts to protect the scams. They have to know what is going on and simply don’t care.
    - wardedVibe 4y ago
      they have done a bad enough job that fakespot has a viable business model vetting their products.
- phil21 4y ago
  > Walmart takes responsibility for the products they put in their store. Amazon also did this for it's physical stores. Walmart does not do this for it's web presence - it has a third party marketplace you need to actively avoid. I have both Prime and Walmart+ due to credit card benefits, and honestly don't see a huge difference in either experiences. Amazon is more spammy but faster shipping, Walmart less selection and slower but more reliable shipping. Walmart is more curated, but you still need to ignore the third party crap.
  - rkagerer 4y ago
    Walmart third-party is a dumpster fire. Every single thing I ordered through it here in Canada arrived late or not at all, replacement orders sometimes arrived eventually, products were often damaged (a jug of glasses cleaner was leaking right through a soaked outer shipping box), vendors take zero responsibility, and it took multiple calls/emails/delays to get refunds from Walmart. I avoid it like the plague. I don't even use their website because it's hard to consistently filter that crap out. And their site wasn't great to start off with in any case. Good riddens.
    - rascul 4y ago
      Doesn't setting the retailer to Walmart filter the third part stuff out? Or am I missing something?
      - rkagerer 4y ago
        I think I have to repeat that after each search (at least back when I last used the site). And it usually took many searches to find the product I sought.
- rileyphone 4y ago
  Another really key difference is that Walmart operates retail locations that compete with (more realistically, undercut) smaller local businesses and gut small town America. Let's not paint a rosier picture just because it happened a while ago.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Amazon has killed plenty of small businesses that survived Walmart. Walmart didn’t go after the hobby shop style niche business the way Amazon’s million product warehouse could. People worked out you can compete with Walmart by having a deeper selection as long as the population density supports it, but it’s not clear what small retail can do to survive Amazon.
    - mtnGoat 4y ago
      On the flip side Amazon created hundreds of thousands of small business, it allowed them access to a global market. The ones that died could have done the same and remained competitive, they were asleep at the wheel instead. I see Walmart as more of a monopolist by going into small towns and selling at a loss. Whereas Amazon was an equalizer allowing anyone to compete in a global marketplace, those that opted not to, got their lunch stolen.
      - Retric 4y ago
        Hardly, the vast majority of physical stores don’t manufacture anything they simply aggregate merchandise from wholesalers and operate a physical location. There is no way to transition that model to Amazon marketplace because they don’t have any way way to differentiate themselves. Attempting that transition would have simply lost them a great deal of money. There are a mix of ways to profitability operate with Amazon both legitimately or via various kinds of fraud. However, suggesting that transition is often as reasonable as telling a barber to open a veterinary clinic, it’s just a completely different kind of business.
        mtnGoat 4y ago
- makestuff 4y ago
  Walmart now operates a marketplace (https://marketplace.walmart.com/ https://marketplace.walmart.com/). However, I am unsure if they take those same validation steps as they do in their physical stores or not.
  - klyrs 4y ago
    Came here to make that point. I know that newegg and bestbuy have done the same. And, much like amazon and ebay, I expect pretty much zero verification and Sisyphean dispute processes.
- tcmart14 4y ago
  I do agree with your point on Walmart, what is on the shelves at a physical location. However, Walmart's online store is just as bad, if not worst, than Amazon.
autoexec 4y ago
There are a few complaints that are unique to Amazon, but really it just speaks to how little has been done to fix the problems Walmart brought to our attention decades ago. Not dealing with those issues back then just opened the door for Amazon to come in and screw people over in similar ways. I hope people realize that their problems they have now aren't just about Amazon either and that unless things change it'll be some other company 10-20 years in the future doing the same things to the next generation.
- scarface74 4y ago
  So how do you propose those “problems” be “fixed” and not cause harm to customers who are getting cheaper goods?
  - autoexec 4y ago
    I refuse to believe that customers getting "cheaper goods" is dependent on employees having to piss in bottles to keep their jobs, or employees suffering twice the number of severe injuries as other warehouse workers. Surely, selling counterfeit/fraudulent products and allowing scammers to have free run of their platform isn't a requirement for consumers getting inexpensive goods either. Amazon pockets billions every year. They can more than afford to treat their employees and their customers better without raising prices a single penny and still remain profitable. Less profitable perhaps, but profitable. Amazon should be held accountable for their failures and for the harms they are causing to both customers and employees so that the next company to rise up knows that abusing workers and turning a blind eye to fraud won't be tolerated and that the laws and protections enacted to rein in amazon's exploitative practices will effect them as well.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      I’m not referring to Amazon’s practices or counterfeit goods. I’m referring to passing laws that “prevent the harm done” by Walmart crushing mom and pop stores. Walmart has never to the best of my knowledge been accused of the rampant selling of counterfeit goods in their physical stores nor do the people who deliver to stores have to “pee in bottles”.

zaphod12 4y ago

There is one single really key difference. Walmart takes responsibility for the products they put in their store. That they are genuine and represented as they are. They squeezed sellers, encouraged moves to china and all of that, but they aren't a marketplace - they are a store. Amazon has abrogated all responsibility in that area and pretended they are the equivalent of the open field on which a flea market is set up.

user3939382 4y ago
Yep. For the curious, go search Amazon for "1 TB USB" for a good laugh.
- vel0city 4y ago
  Sadly walmart.com is the same kind of trash. I searched 1TB USB and the top non-sponsored result was this: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Jonephe-USB-Flash-Drive-1TB-Metal-Memory-Stick-3-0-Waterproof-USB-Stick-1000GB/1541636209 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Jonephe-USB-Flash-Drive-1TB-Metal... Which has some obviously fake reviews along with probably a real comment stating: "Only problem is the transfer speed sucks and it causes errors in half the files I transfer to it." Truly emblematic of how these scam USB drives work. And its the top organic result on walmart.com!
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  Ya, and if you report or comment on the scams, Amazon acts to protect the scams. They have to know what is going on and simply don’t care.
  - wardedVibe 4y ago
    they have done a bad enough job that fakespot has a viable business model vetting their products.
phil21 4y ago
> Walmart takes responsibility for the products they put in their store. Amazon also did this for it's physical stores. Walmart does not do this for it's web presence - it has a third party marketplace you need to actively avoid. I have both Prime and Walmart+ due to credit card benefits, and honestly don't see a huge difference in either experiences. Amazon is more spammy but faster shipping, Walmart less selection and slower but more reliable shipping. Walmart is more curated, but you still need to ignore the third party crap.
- rkagerer 4y ago
  Walmart third-party is a dumpster fire. Every single thing I ordered through it here in Canada arrived late or not at all, replacement orders sometimes arrived eventually, products were often damaged (a jug of glasses cleaner was leaking right through a soaked outer shipping box), vendors take zero responsibility, and it took multiple calls/emails/delays to get refunds from Walmart. I avoid it like the plague. I don't even use their website because it's hard to consistently filter that crap out. And their site wasn't great to start off with in any case. Good riddens.
  - rascul 4y ago
    Doesn't setting the retailer to Walmart filter the third part stuff out? Or am I missing something?
    - rkagerer 4y ago
      I think I have to repeat that after each search (at least back when I last used the site). And it usually took many searches to find the product I sought.
rileyphone 4y ago
Another really key difference is that Walmart operates retail locations that compete with (more realistically, undercut) smaller local businesses and gut small town America. Let's not paint a rosier picture just because it happened a while ago.
- Retric 4y ago
  Amazon has killed plenty of small businesses that survived Walmart. Walmart didn’t go after the hobby shop style niche business the way Amazon’s million product warehouse could. People worked out you can compete with Walmart by having a deeper selection as long as the population density supports it, but it’s not clear what small retail can do to survive Amazon.
  - mtnGoat 4y ago
    On the flip side Amazon created hundreds of thousands of small business, it allowed them access to a global market. The ones that died could have done the same and remained competitive, they were asleep at the wheel instead. I see Walmart as more of a monopolist by going into small towns and selling at a loss. Whereas Amazon was an equalizer allowing anyone to compete in a global marketplace, those that opted not to, got their lunch stolen.
    - Retric 4y ago
      Hardly, the vast majority of physical stores don’t manufacture anything they simply aggregate merchandise from wholesalers and operate a physical location. There is no way to transition that model to Amazon marketplace because they don’t have any way way to differentiate themselves. Attempting that transition would have simply lost them a great deal of money. There are a mix of ways to profitability operate with Amazon both legitimately or via various kinds of fraud. However, suggesting that transition is often as reasonable as telling a barber to open a veterinary clinic, it’s just a completely different kind of business.
      - mtnGoat 4y ago
makestuff 4y ago
Walmart now operates a marketplace (https://marketplace.walmart.com/ https://marketplace.walmart.com/). However, I am unsure if they take those same validation steps as they do in their physical stores or not.
- klyrs 4y ago
  Came here to make that point. I know that newegg and bestbuy have done the same. And, much like amazon and ebay, I expect pretty much zero verification and Sisyphean dispute processes.
tcmart14 4y ago
I do agree with your point on Walmart, what is on the shelves at a physical location. However, Walmart's online store is just as bad, if not worst, than Amazon.

autoexec 4y ago

There are a few complaints that are unique to Amazon, but really it just speaks to how little has been done to fix the problems Walmart brought to our attention decades ago. Not dealing with those issues back then just opened the door for Amazon to come in and screw people over in similar ways. I hope people realize that their problems they have now aren't just about Amazon either and that unless things change it'll be some other company 10-20 years in the future doing the same things to the next generation.

scarface74 4y ago
So how do you propose those “problems” be “fixed” and not cause harm to customers who are getting cheaper goods?
- autoexec 4y ago
  I refuse to believe that customers getting "cheaper goods" is dependent on employees having to piss in bottles to keep their jobs, or employees suffering twice the number of severe injuries as other warehouse workers. Surely, selling counterfeit/fraudulent products and allowing scammers to have free run of their platform isn't a requirement for consumers getting inexpensive goods either. Amazon pockets billions every year. They can more than afford to treat their employees and their customers better without raising prices a single penny and still remain profitable. Less profitable perhaps, but profitable. Amazon should be held accountable for their failures and for the harms they are causing to both customers and employees so that the next company to rise up knows that abusing workers and turning a blind eye to fraud won't be tolerated and that the laws and protections enacted to rein in amazon's exploitative practices will effect them as well.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    I’m not referring to Amazon’s practices or counterfeit goods. I’m referring to passing laws that “prevent the harm done” by Walmart crushing mom and pop stores. Walmart has never to the best of my knowledge been accused of the rampant selling of counterfeit goods in their physical stores nor do the people who deliver to stores have to “pee in bottles”.