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I feel like my move to Amazon over the last 25 years has been little to do with price and more a symptom of my lack of free time when shops are open. I simply c

I feel like my move to Amazon over the last 25 years has been little to do with price and more a symptom of my lack of free time when shops are open. I simply can't get to most physical stores during the week. And my weekends are rammed with all the things I didn't get to do during the week... Then there is the issue of what physical stores have done to become more competitive. In many cases they have reduced their range. So now I'm worried that they simply won't have what I need.

steveBK123 1y ago
Yes a lot of urban retail seems to be in a death loop. Between online competition, wages, rent and shoplifting you see fewer locations, with a less convenient shopping experience, less staff and shorter hours. Which only leads to more Amazon usage.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  Yea, I want to "do the right thing" and shop locally more, but boy, they do their best to make it difficult. It's as if "Local Shopping" is a group that gets together for meetings to figure out the most effective ways to drive me to shop at Amazon instead.
  - rkomorn 1y ago
    What kind of things are "local shopping" doing to drive you away? And how many of those are related to not having the same economies of scale (and other competitive advantages) that Amazon has?
    - ryandrake 1y ago
      A random combination of inconvenient hours, skeleton-level staffing, rude and/or apathetic staffing, inflated prices[1], terrible handle on their own inventory (often can't tell me over the phone or online whether something is in stock), poor/lengthy product-returns experience, general condition/smell/cleanliness of stores. Not all local stores have all of these--but they always have some mix of them. 1: I get it that they'll never be able to meet or beat online pricing due to economies of scale, fine. But I've seen 2X+ markups depending on the store/product.
    - creer 1y ago
      Add: deliberately hiding their local price on their web site. They will try and give all kinds of info about the product in each local store - which aisle it's in, how many their stock mgt system thinks they have - but they will show a price that's deliberately different: "if purchased online".

steveBK123 1y ago

Yes a lot of urban retail seems to be in a death loop. Between online competition, wages, rent and shoplifting you see fewer locations, with a less convenient shopping experience, less staff and shorter hours. Which only leads to more Amazon usage.

ryandrake 1y ago
Yea, I want to "do the right thing" and shop locally more, but boy, they do their best to make it difficult. It's as if "Local Shopping" is a group that gets together for meetings to figure out the most effective ways to drive me to shop at Amazon instead.
- rkomorn 1y ago
  What kind of things are "local shopping" doing to drive you away? And how many of those are related to not having the same economies of scale (and other competitive advantages) that Amazon has?
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    A random combination of inconvenient hours, skeleton-level staffing, rude and/or apathetic staffing, inflated prices[1], terrible handle on their own inventory (often can't tell me over the phone or online whether something is in stock), poor/lengthy product-returns experience, general condition/smell/cleanliness of stores. Not all local stores have all of these--but they always have some mix of them. 1: I get it that they'll never be able to meet or beat online pricing due to economies of scale, fine. But I've seen 2X+ markups depending on the store/product.
  - creer 1y ago
    Add: deliberately hiding their local price on their web site. They will try and give all kinds of info about the product in each local store - which aisle it's in, how many their stock mgt system thinks they have - but they will show a price that's deliberately different: "if purchased online".