Or maybe your experience is an anomaly and it isn't that Amazon has just brainwashed everyone else via their clever marketing. I have bought a large number of i

Or maybe your experience is an anomaly and it isn't that Amazon has just brainwashed everyone else via their clever marketing. I have bought a large number of items from Amazon, the price has always been competitive and even where slightly higher knowing I am not simply dealing with some remote company who managed to slap together a web page and who will have god knows what kind of service if I have a problem is worth some small(ish) price differential. As another anecdote, opposite to yours, a few years ago for Christmas I bought a flat panel monitor for my mom. It was kind of late and I did three day delivery. It was dropped on my porch (according to UPS) and was not there when I got home. I wrote Amazon expressing a bit of annoyance that they (actually, UPS) hadn't required a signature for a $400 monitor and just left it on my porch where it was apparently stolen. They were apologetic and said they would send another one overnight. It arrived early the next afternoon. No mixups, no blaming the shipper, no "sorry we will get you a replacement in a week", just good customer service, and on a tight deadline too. That said, I could be the anomaly, but I have heard similar good customer service stories from Amazon and Zappos (who Amazon bought and whose CEO is notorious for focusing on customer sat, which may have rubbed off in some small way on Amazon).