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We’re in a race to the bottom. There’s no way a company selling legitimate products will be able to compete or grow a customer base in the AI future, because we
by labster 3y ago
We’re in a race to the bottom. There’s no way a company selling legitimate products will be able to compete or grow a customer base in the AI future, because we’ll be swimming in garbage.
- zebomon 3y agoI really don't see how one follows the other without then in sequence, as the comment you replied to describes, value-based businesses emerge to fill the obvious gap and compete.
- dylan604 3y agopeople still shop at Amazon, so I'm not too convinced in your argument
- 2muchcoffeeman 3y agoIt’s the delivery. I can often get something inconsequential for net cheaper, faster from Amazon. Local stock is usually next day. And I can often get stuff internationally cheaper and faster through Amazon than the real retailer. You’d have to duplicate this to take them on.
- dylan604 3y agostep by step that slope gets just a little more slippery, or is it the frog in the pot of boiling water?
- 2muchcoffeeman 3y agoThe delivery part of the service is really good when things go right. Very difficult to get a hold of someone when they lose a package even when they explicitly tell you “contact us”. But if you stick to inconsequential items, it’s great. I needed a few USBC cables and charging cables the other day and got them next day at half the price. I checked the local stores and none had what I was after. But yeah, I agree with your point
- Semaphor 3y agoI have gotten a fake product one time (public domain book, PoD instead of what I wanted and what apparently used to be under that URL) refunded, no questions asked, even got to keep the book (anyone in Germany interested in an HP Lovecraft decent quality hardcover PoD book?). I realize that it’s apparently way worse in the US, but there supposedly are issues here as well, I just never encountered them (or the products are so well-faked that it’s a distinction without a difference). Fast delivery, a lot of choices, both "Aliexpress but faster delivery for a price", but also EU products, and a customer service that does pretty much anything asked.
- stOneskull 3y agothere'll still be people and communication. and so, word-of-mouth.
- soerxpso 3y agoThis assumes that the only ways people have to find companies are search engines and other mediums that are prone to AI takeover. If everyone starts to realize that most of the surface internet is garbage, they would start communicating with humans they know about which places are not garbage. It was possible to find good businesses to interact with before Google existed. Obviously in a world where every online retailer is nearly useless, a guy who creates an online retailer that is not useless would immediately have anyone he personally tells about it as customers, and anyone they tell about it, and so on (since in this hypothetical, everyone is desperate for a good retailer).
- UtopiaPunk 3y agoThat's how people find the good torrent spots, so topical.
- bsenftner 3y agoAnd the few, lone, honest online retailers get early discovered by online scammers who turn that honest retailer inside out, destroy them financially, and then take over their URL. I've seen it happen, and it nearly happened to me but I shut down rather than spiral down, unable to wage war on so many fronts.
- codpiece 3y agoCould you please elaborate? This is fascinating.
- pbhjpbhj 3y agoEven when you take a recommendation from yourself ... ie re-buy a product, it often seems that the company has been captured by VC and the brand has been used to make short term profits and it's no longer any better than whatever white label products you can find on AliExpress.
- giantg2 3y agoPlenty of niche, premium, or physical stores out there. People might need to pay a little more for it, but they do exist. Not everyone buys everything from the same super stores.
- UtopiaPunk 3y agoWhat are some of your favorites (tech or otherwise)?
- prmoustache 3y agoYes. In term of online store it is better to look for the ones specializing in a specific market than wholesale stores.
- andrei_says_ 3y agoWe swim in garbage already (looking at amazon) but bhphoto and sweetwater still exist.
- RajT88 3y agoNewegg as well.
- Izkata 3y agoNewegg is now an amazon-style marketplace, with stuff they sell mixed in to the rest same as how AmazonBasics is mixed in to the rest.
- RajT88 3y agoWell shit.
- yomlica8 3y agoNewegg is a shadow of its former self, but it is still possible to turn the 'sold my newegg' knob on relatively easily. It seems impossible to do that with Amazon. Walmart online you can do it but you'll have to watch it like a hawk as it gets aggressively disabled again.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- homarp 3y agoand apple.com
- fennecfoxy 3y agoThe streamlined and stylised experience of paying multiple hundreds of percents mark-up for ram and SSDs.
- INGSOCIALITE 3y agoSweet water is great - they even have a dedicated rep call you a little after your order arrives to make sure you’re happy with the product and that it’s just what you wanted. Plus they send you candy
- neilv 3y agoWe're already getting there. Maybe Amazon brands will at least be predictable, but the non-Amazon brands on Amazon will be increasingly counterfeits and noise. (A contributor to the current problem of eroding non-Amazon brands with counterfeits seems to be Amazon's commingling from different marketplace sellers of the "same ASIN". And the current mass-spam search DoS of random-name brands and near-identical products from overseas sellers is also a problem. Amazon can not only shield their own brands from both of those problems, but can also exercise more supply chain integrity control for its brands than is possible for the non-Amazon brands if Amazon doesn't cooperate.)
- dragonwriter 3y ago> Maybe Amazon brands will at least be predictable, but the non-Amazon brands on Amazon will be increasingly counterfeits and noise. Of course, because that helps sell the Amazon brand goods.
- smithza 3y agoYet I think Amazon brands are setup to eliminate competition due to their insider information in the market place. I wouldn’t put my money in them because they aren’t playing fairly in the market.
- itsoktocry 3y ago>I wouldn’t put my money in them because they aren’t playing fairly in the market. They identify widely ordered products and source their own version to sell. Why is that a negative? Costco does the same. As long as they vet the quality (my experience with AmazonBasic products has been fine), seems like a win-win?
- fineIllregister 3y agoCostco doesn't sell counterfeits of the third-party items they are competing against. Amazon's co-mingling practice is anti-competitive.
- Fricken 3y agoThis might be why physical bookstores are making a comeback. Trustworthy curation is essential, and worth paying a premium for. This has always been the case, but maybe not fully appreciated.
- interestica 3y agoThis has been why I've started to really like Costco -- they're essentially acting as product curators (and back it up with a generous return policy.)
- dangus 3y agoWell, I like how local bookstores go about curation more than Costco. I don't know if we can say that a store with unlabeled aisles can be a source of curation.
- yonaguska 3y agoit's curation in that the products they do offer are generally trustworthy.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dangus 3y agoThere’s a big difference between limiting SKU count to simplify operations and products being curated to be “the best” and most trustworthy options. Natural foods stores have much more stringent standards on things like artificial colors, animal treatment, and use of chemicals. For example, Tide Original is banned in New York for having too much of a cancer-causing chemical. Costco sells it. Costco sells products with artificial colors linked to ADHD in children. Costco’s best organic eggs are visibly and nutritionally inferior to eggs from pasture-raised chickens. The fact that Costco doesn’t sell low quality private label and discount brand items has more to do with customer demographic than trust and curation. This is also the store that allows third-party companies’ representatives to harass customers about solar panels and DirecTV in the store. “Trustworthy.” They’re really no different on “trust” than Walmart or Target, and I think people need to stop being a part of its retail cult and take it for what it is: a store with good prices on staple goods.
- prmoustache 3y agoPeople might revert to buy in person. I mean you get scammed maybe twice by a company, then buy somewhere else. You quickly realize that it is better spending 3-4 times the amount of money for something that will last 10 years than buying stuff that do not work or keep breaking after a few months/years. I am too poor to be able to afford buying cheap stuff.
- phpisthebest 3y agoIf that was going to happen, it already would have. Most people still just buy the cheapest version of an item they are looking for.
- ben_w 3y agoI'm already switching to buying in person, though in my case because of the delivery service usually redirecting to depots further away than the shops selling the same items.
- wombat-man 3y agoYeah, I'd rather go to target or something and choose from the 3 spatulas they have then spend any time trying to figure out which of the 1000 listings are good on amazon. It's just less work.
- sneak 3y agoIt's not less time, however. It's easier and cheaper to buy all of the top 5 spatulas on amazon (and throw 4 away) than to drive to a strip mall and find parking.
- wombat-man 3y agoLol, sure. Personally I don't like dealing with online returns and I dislike the idea of buying things just to immediately throw them in the garbage. I'm picking an item I plan to use regularly, I want to see it irl and know what I'm getting. Also, I am not trying to hyper optimize my use of time, but rather I find the experience of huge selection, fake reviews mixed with sponsored listings to be very unpleasant. I have slightly more faith in quality control at a department store, or even a dedicated housewares store.