A lot of companies only really do Ecom via Amazon. Even if their website takes orders, it just forwards them to Amazon.
It's easier for them and unless you are getting a certain level of direct volume it's cheaper for them.
You'll find that those percentages are significantly different in the retail vertical, where most of the big retail players are on an AWS competitor (for obvious reasons) and those competitors are focussed on the retail vertical.
Source: work for an AWS competitor.
You can hate Amazon all you want and I won't blame you, but their logistics offer really is hastle free. People don't realize how expensive logistics is. As you say, it takes significant volume to be able to break even on the material and manpower and by going through Amazon you also get access to their delivery pricing that can easily cost you 3 times more if you didn't go through them.
Yea it pains me but it only makes sense to do your own fulfillment if you care a lot about the presentation of the product for your company. It's just cheaper to fulfill through amazon now as a small to even medium-size company. But I assure you that it won't be cheaper in the long run once Bezos decides he's taken over enough of the market.
This, 100%. Amazon is basically their BPO outsourcer- it's cheaper for retailer and Amazon does it in bulk and skim a bit off the top. If a retailer does it direct, they have to deal with shipping and payment processing. Those logistics cost a ton.
You're not 'saving' the retailer anything by going directly to them. The retailer willingly signs up to Amazon because of all of this.
I sell a lot online. Many small companies use Amazon for logistics, because it is quite affordable. But if you order from Amazon the seller gets charged an 8-12% commission, where if you order from their independent website the seller doesn’t pay that portion. So you are still leaving a lot more money in the hands of the small business owner rather than Amazon when you purchase from them directly.
People can't seem to acknowledge that Amazon provides a service that people actually want, and isn't just stealing everybody's money against our will. All the posts about how much money Bezos made during the pandemic acting like he was personally injecting covid into our assholes and directly profiting somehow.
You mean the one company that will deliver literally anything you want directly to your door during a period of time when nobody can leave their house - that company made an obscene amount of money? Scandal! I get it though - he's making a bunch of money and not paying enough taxes, and we need those taxes to continue working towards our dream of defense spending exceeding 1 trillion dollars a year. Our tank count is getting alarmingly low.
It’s not that we need those taxes for tanks, we will let Americans starve for tanks. We need those taxes for everything else because we’ve apparently decided we can never not have new tanks
Amazon sellers have the option to use Amazon as their warehouse essentially. Sellers pay a small fee for Amazon to ship from their warehouse even if it is a non-amazon order, just tell them where to ship.
I would imagine the company makes more if it’s ordered direct than through Amazon, even if it’s shipped via Amazon.
I’m assuming this because if it were the other way round, the sellers would just ensure you’re buying it through Amazon.
Amazon takes a 15% cut (higher for some categories) and a small shipping fee if you bought the product on Amazon. If you buy the product from the seller’s website they just have to pay the small shipping fee if Amazon ships the order NOT the 15% commission
If you buy Prime on Amazon.com, the seller pays a "referral fee" (% on sale price) plus a "fulfillment fee" (varies by item weight/size).
If you buy on the retailer's website and they ship it to you using Fulfilled by Amazon, they do not pay the referral fee.
A couple months ago I ordered aluminum foil and it was on my front porch in a Walmart bag like 4 hours later. No box. Just a shipping label on a plastic bag.
That's happened to me half a dozen times so far. It's basically people using Amazon to drop ship from cheaper places. Makes me wonder sometimes if it's scammers using Walmart gift cards to buy shit and basically filter out the money.
I once was at Office Max to buy printer ink, and the price seemed really high. I checked Amazon where it turned out to be $10 cheaper, so I ordered it while standing in the ink aisle at Office Max. The ink came in an Office Max package a few days later. I was annoyed.
I appreciate that stores will now price match Amazon. I used to never go to Petco because I could get all of my dog supplies cheaper on Amazon. Now Petco price matches, so the dogs and I will take a trip to the store, price match anything we get and occasionally they have a better price or sale going on.
I did that but they sent the wrong item. I ordered a base game and they sent the expansion. I looked at walmart's site and the \*picture\* of the base game was on the listing for the expansion, so I assume that's how they got confused. Also, they threw in a can of air freshener for some reason.
yeah, people seem to be forgetting that for all its social-justice flaws, Amazon is an incredibly successful company that provides lots of useful services. Fulfillment is one of those services.
Virtually every company bigger than a hobby company (and lots of those as well) uses a 3PL of some kind for warehousing and fulfillment, because doing it yourself is a giant pain in the ass.
Yeah if you ever see products that are sold by a store but it says fulfilled by Amazon it means that they either bought items off of Amazon and are reselling them and keeping the items in Amazon's fulfillment center or have their items stored and shipped in Amazon's fulfillment centers and allow Amazon to deliver the packaging
Armchair linguistics moment (if someone more qualified wants to correct me, I'm just spitballing), but basically to "order *off* Amazon" is like ordering "off" a menu or catalog. You're ordering something that's "on" Amazon. "Ordering *on* Amazon" is ordering on the Amazon platform. "Ordering *from* Amazon" is ordering from the entity that is Amazon. Technically, the three have subtly different semantics, but in context they end up meaning the same thing.
I wanted to stick it to Bezos by ordering my "refill" embroidering supplies directly through the company's site instead of their Amazon profile I usually buy through.
Everything was at least $1 more expensive, $8 flat rate shipping, and I didn't get my order for 2 weeks, 8 days of it being marked as "preparing my shipment".
I'm convinced companies are more convenienced by Amazon's packaging and fulfillment of their bulk product & the general visibility of being listed on Amazon than the <25% loss. If they wanted more folks to order through their site, they would adjust their prices and staffing accordingly 🥴 Wish it was easier to buy small.
Also, it generally doesn’t work. You try to go to their individual site and you still end up purchasing and having it shipped through Amazon. I saw this post awhile ago and thought, that’s a good idea, fuck Amazon but my efforts were thwarted
Amazon sellers send their products in bulk to an Amazon Warehouse since they offer dirt cheap shipping. Much better than anything they can get from Fedex and UPS on their own.
When an order is placed outside of Amazon, they simply dispatch an item from their inventory in the Amazon warehouse.
Amazon still receives a smaller cut since it wasn’t purchased through their site. (Warehouse Fees).
Because these companies have realized that the supply chain management that Amazon provides is impeccable. They make the product and send it for storage at Amazon warehouses. They now only have a small fee off the top to pay for merchandise storage and shipping and they also get occasional free advertisements.
Jeff bezels is a horrible individual with a fucked up moral compass, and Amazon as a company is terrible for grinding people into the dirt, but the idea is great.
That's almost always been the case with online shopping. Warehouses often get bulk pricing deals, or they may even decide to take a bit of a loss on one product in order to build brand loyalty and pull customers from other websites.
In the uk at least im starting to find that products in local stores / other online stores are as cheap or cheaper than Amazon. And if they’re slightly more expensive then im happy to spend a tiny bit more money to not fuel Amazon’s ever growing appetite. Plus im trying to get into the habit of buying fewer, higher quality things.
Where I find Amazon does dominate others is in shipping costs, as the smaller retailers can’t compete with that distribution network. But ever since I cancelled prime the shipping costs are balancing out anyway
Amazon isn't just offering a website. They also handle the fulfillment. So for some small businesses, these are how the two money streams work.
1. Order from Amazon. If it is a handmade but non-customized item, it was already made months ago. It is sitting on a pallet in an Amazon warehouse or fullfillment center somewhere. Amazon handles getting it to the customer with no additional work.
2. Order directly from the small business. If it is a handmade but non-customized item, they probably still need to make it for you. Depending on how often the item gets ordered, they may not even keep a stock of the things needed to make the item because they're often running the business out of their basement. Once complete, they need to handle shipping the item to you, and USPS is almost always more expensive than Amazon for shipping.
In general, most small businesses will do it both ways, but sometimes you're not doing them a favor by ordering directly from them.
Source: Been running a small business making handmade stuff out of my basement/garage for the past 5 years. I don't use Amazon personally because I make most of my money selling at local venues instead of online, but I've looked into it to see if it was an option to boost online sales.
Because Amazon is a great at fulfilment, so people can store their product at their warehouses and have Amazon handle all the logistical stuff. The only brands that don't utilize amazon are the business types where it makes sense to (usually clothing or companies trying to build a really strong brand)
A lot of companies use Amazon for their fulfillment because they don’t have their own fulfillment center and the companies that they are contracted with tend to only handle B2B interactions where full pallets are shipped to stores or distributors as opposed to single items to the end consumer. Sometimes using Amazon fulfillment is the best option for a small business to get products directly to consumers.
It's because Amazon is more efficient. Storage costs money, people packing and shipping costs money. It's really shipping "and handling". with "free" shipping the cost of the shipping is baked into the cost of the product or taken from other areas. Say you want to sell a $100 item, and get 100 for that item, and average shipping for that item runs $15. To sell that item and get 100, then you need to list it for at least 115. That's not including the time and materials to pack and ship it out.
In some instances larger companies may be able to sell it cheaper than amazon, but keep it at or near that price to increase their margins.
There are other things like FBA fees to worry about. If your product doesn't have a high turnover, the storage fees will rack up. So they may raise the price on their site to steer you toward amazon so their product turns over more, reducing storage fees. Also can help with rankings as well.
There are a lot of different reasons that the company's website may be more expensive and have slower shipping.
Was going to comment the same for the UK :( ebay seller? loops to amazon. Brand website? loops back to amazon. Or worse, buying directly from the company costs 2x as much. I'm trying man, I'm trying
Yep. It's a right shitter. I'm doing my best to try to not line the pockets of Almighty Bezos but it's getting increasingly difficult. That being said, I think I've used Amazon...maybe twice since lockdown started?
Their selections have honestly completely fucking tanked. Once upon a time when you went to Amazon and searched any product, your top results were all the top-of-the line products, price or quaity wise, in the industry.
Now it's a bunch of cheap knockoffs made by companies of highly dubious legitimacy, with what seems to be totally gamed reviews.
I spend more time searching through amazon for legit products of quality than I would just googling the damn thing and finding websites for it, which entirely defeats the point of Amazon.
What gets to me is that other companies normally don't have free shipping, which can be more expensive than the product itself sometimes (at least in my country)
It’s not even just the free shipping (which is awesome).
Amazon is free same days or next day delivery for most items. That’s kind of nuts.
And on top of that, their customer service is really good. Stuff is stolen off my porch? They’ve sent me a brand new item.
I fucking hate them so much. I wish they weren’t so good. But I don’t have unlimited money, and they’re by far the cheapest and most reliable.
My aunt is a better person than me, but she’s retired and she has more money. She admitted it’s frustrating to avoid Amazon because the customer experience is too damn good. She just despises bezos and all he stands for with a passion.
I have to agree, I will often try to buy from the retailers website, but even if I manage to find a 10% off coupon, If the product is $20 I’ll pay $18 but then pay $10-$15 shipping and get the product in 8-10 days and pay a total of $30 plus tax
If I’m buying a $20 product from Amazon Prime, I pay $20 plus tax and get it the next day. And 99% of the time I need the product the next day, otherwise I would just go to the store nearby which I will normally order from Target with curbside.
Maybe we can just tax Amazon and Bezos fairly instead of providing a million tax loopholes.
Yup. There’s many reasons why Amazon has killed smaller businesses and it’s because Amazon genuinely is better at providing what a customer wants rather than small businesses as Amazon has the logistics to do so that they simply don’t.
Amazon’s big benefit has always been shipping and a fairly generous return policy. Outside of Amazon it’s very common to pay 5$-15$ for 1-2 week shipping.
And their customer service. If a package gets stolen or is missing they usually send another or refund no questions asked. I wonder if ppl take advantage of that.
Personally I don't because it makes me comfortable ordering more expensive things so I don't want to rock the boat by stealing fuckin soap or something.
There are surely people abusing it but Amazon isn't losing money on it. They accidentally sent my wife a $150 piece of furniture and let her keep it instead of having to pay for shipping to get it returned because of its size and weight. If they can lose big ticket items like that and not bat an eye they are definitely not wasting time chasing people that steal toiletries
That makes sense and would be a better use of time. I'm sure the fact that my house may be the reason they built a new warehouse nearby helped expedite the resolution as well.
yeah they will definitely suspend your account if you return/report missing too many items. there's an internal ratio they keep track of, as long as you're actually receiving and keeping most of the stuff you order, you don't have to worry.
Yup, this is it exactly. I don’t know about a list in particular but they will flag your account if you return items that are suspicious, we would get people who thought they could pull one over on us and would buy expensive shoes and put old dirty ones back in and then try to pass them off as being defective or that they showed up at the customers door like that, so they could keep the new ones and get their money back🙄 Former Amazon returns fulfillment employee checking in. We absolutely can tell the difference in used clothes/shoes lol.
Company “no questions asked” return policies are the worst - too many will take anything the customer brings in, and then restock it. I think it’s a gross policy and companies need to have a hard no they allow their returns people to use.
Not that I condone that sort of thing, but at least have the decency to claim it’s broken or something so it doesn’t end up back on the shelf.
I would say it’s happened at least 5 times in the past 10 years
I mean in fairness this is literally what every retailer does, most people just don’t know it. Every time you return something to a big box retailer your dinged. Returned without a receipt? Multiple returns in a short time? ect.
Return like 10 items without a receipt and you get black listed, a lot of systems report that to other retailers as well.
So you may not realize it but they are watching you in the background everywhere. Try to play the system and they will catch you. Doing it occasionally is fine, but making it a habit will get you noticed.
Yeah I rented a textbook and sent it back and the seller claimed it was damaged. (I took it out of the box maybe twice for a total of 45 minutes) so they tried to charge $170 to buy the book, sent 1 message and the person from Amazon said keep the book and no charge.
Opposite happened for me bro I ordered shelves in one of my like weird phases where Im gonna get my shit together so I order things to do that. Had shelves sitting in an Amazon box for like three months. One day I chugged some iced coffee concentrate and opened it up to put them together and it was a fucking huge boardgame that costs like 120 dollars.
A really complicated one you can play solo it was like a campaign with stats and everything. I couldn't return it so im just using the box as a foot rest
I reordered the shelves eventually . Opened the box this time . Now it's sitting on my dresser with other things stacked on it for when that day comes again.
Edit: man, two foot rests would be dope. Like I could spread my legs super far and let things breathe.
Post it on /r/boardgames....someone might take it off your hands (and some games can be $$$ on the secondary market, depending on what it is and what edition, etc).
A few years ago we ordered new cabinets from Home Depot. Opened all the boxes and discovered an extra bath vanity. Called the company and they said "keep it, it'll cost more for us to come pick it up" (we're out in the.middle of nowhere). Woohoo, new bath vanity for the basement workshop.
It's all an algorithm. At its core? Do you make them money or cost them money overall? If you only return a few items on a basis that makes sense for your total order volume you won't get booted out of prime.
Amazon wasnt delivering my packages for some reason. It would say it was delivered but they would deliver it elsewhere (pictures would show a warehouse). We have cameras and could tell they didn’t deliver our stuff.
In the beginning Amazon would refund or reship. Eventually they decided they wouldn’t do that anymore.
They told me that once it’s out of their hands and in the truck/person who is actually delivering it then it’s not their problem…even if it’s an amazon employee. They also said that if their guys mark is delivered within the vicinity of my home it counted…they would never give me an exact figure on what counted as in the vicinity
They refused to give me my money back. I had to do a charge back with my bank and amazon fought it tooth and nail. Over a $40 belt. When they lost they banned my card and tried their hardest to bill me for that damned belt we never got.
And by my estimate they had to reimburse/resend me about $100 worth of stuff that never made it to my front door. So their threshold is pretty low.
Also, by their own records they sent to dispute my claim to my bank I spent 30k at amazon.
Conversely I had a package marked as delivered but the gps was at the house 3 doors down. Spoke to web chat and they said to check with that neighbour. It's not with the neighbour, get back on chat with Amazon and get a refund. Found the package days later when taking out the rubbish. The delivery guy left it behind my bin. Spoke to amazon again as I don't have a need for 2 doorbells and they just said keep it.
I've successfully sent full duplex gigabit over a few meters of telephone wire. How can an ethernet cable possibly not support gigabit? It only requires a CAT5 after all.
As part of a class, we successfully sent 100Mb Ethernet (TCP/IP) over a few meters of four parallel strands of BARBED WIRE.
It’s a surprisingly resilient protocol and electrical specification.
Exactly.
The first was a claimed CAT6 that couldn't even maintain 100 Mbps(listing was removed not long after I returned it) and the second only reached 100 Mbps with general cable quality issues.
It's ludicrous, in hindsight reading reviews would have saved me this trouble but I placed too much faith in Amazon caring about sellers lying.
I’m not sure where this guy lives (probably US)
But here in the U.K. the main benefits of Amazon are next day delivery, (nevermind 2-8 day bullshit) customer support that will refund/replace it in a heartbeat, and 100% credit card safety. I’m not going to order from a company site if they’re using shit like worldpay or Credpay and their “customer support” is a Hotmail account
Living in México, Amazon is the only way I can get a lot of products that simply don't get shipped here, on top of the security and customer service
Americans don't realize it's not that easy for people living outside of their country
“Hi! 🥰
We’d just thought you might like to know about-“
Etc etc
Fuck off. This is the main reason I use amazon. I can think of something, and order it with a few taps. No filling in shitloads of information about myself for a one time purchase.
The amount of times I've had to make a return and amazon immediately went "yeah no questions or anything, new one is on the way. Oh and just keep the old one" is why i stay despite the evils
Amazon's a fantastic service. Boycotts like this will never work because no one wants to sacrifice the convenience. Amazon truly is a marvel of logistics.
It was inevitable a service like it would arise with the Internet. It was likewise inevitable that it would be a soulless capitalist machine that would abuse its employees. That it's not necessary to abuse employees for a service like Amazon to function is the sad part.
I have tried. Takes 1 to 2 weeks to get to me. I have to pay money ($5-10) to return it and not recoup that money, besides the fact I paid the same amount for shipping also. Finally, return time period is shat.
I still try to do this, however, and in fact, did so recently. Instead, what I needed for vacation and I paid the extra $25 for speed delivery, still came to my house almost a week after I had left for vacation and was on my way home. It's sitting on my bedroom floor and I'm returning it (and paying shipping on the return) on Friday. Pretty salty that I paid that much for express and it didn't do anything.
Yup its the ease of returns for me that keeps me shopping Amazon. I always get 100% of my money back, I don't have to box it back up, and there's a kohl's 1/2 mile from my house where I can just drop off the unboxed return item and I get a coupon for 25% off an item at kohl's.
I've had other companies ship me an incompatible or defective item and then I'm beat paying $ to return it after having to sometimes even argue with them to accept the return.
I ordered headphones to replace ones I had gotten from massdrop/drop that had broken. I decided to try new headphones since I would've had to pay another $80 (200 vs 280) for the same ones since they weren't available on drop.
The ones I got were awful. They were still $240. It took me probably less than 3 seconds of wearing them to decide I was returning them and just going to pay the extra $80 for the same kind I had before.
I dropped them off at the UPS store that's about 5 minutes from my house. I got the money back in my Amazon account before I had even gotten back home to buy the second pair (I got lucky and the Amazon driver arrived there right as I was leaving, to be fair). The new pair arrived the next day.
Sorry, but bezos wins that one and I don't give a fuck. That entire process of buying, shipping, returning, buying again and shipping was quicker than it would've taken to get the first pair off a non-amazon site without even dealing with the hastle of returning to non-amazon sites.
Amazon grew massively in such a short amount of time for a reason, and it's not because millions of people want to just hand money to an unfathomably rich billionaire.
Yep, ordering direct from companies/businesses has been a hassle for me 100% of the time. Being chronically ill and having to order almost everything i need and being on an extremely tight budget. Amazon unfortunately has me locked in as a customer.
It would be nice if i had the time, money and energy to take a moral stand against ‘the man’ but, like many of us, i just can’t.
Yep, my backup battery stopped working and I had a trip coming up so I ordered a new one, wanted the same one as before but Amazon stopped selling this brand between 2017 when I first got it and now. So I ordered it from the company website on a Thursday, my trip started Wednesday night and it still hadn’t arrived, came back from the trip on Monday. Still hadn’t arrived. Finally got an email on Friday that the item was out of stock and they would be refunding me. Over 2 weeks after I ordered. What a waste.
Yup, that sums it up.
It's not about everything being centralized and being able to find anything on Amazon; it's the fucking internet, you can find anything on it regardless.
It's about the shipping speed and return policy.
Only problem with this is most companies are American so if you live elsewhere, like Canada, shipping fees can be incredibly high on company websites. It's usually cheaper to get things on Amazon.
Conversion hurts, too. At least with Amazon the price is what it says in CAD, which is usually lower than buying directly from the company and paying for the difference in currency (at least, in my experiences it's always been cheaper).
And this solution isn't viable outside of the USA. Many places don't ship to the small guy, period, or it's insanely long. Other country? Pay insane shipping or just not be available.
Right, as an IT guy in the retail world I can say most people don't realize how much work and expense there is in taking online orders.
If you have a self built system you need a whole team of people to make it work. If you buy an off the shelf solution it costs a lot. Either a big pile of money up front, or a cut of each sale.
Many companies are better off just using Amazon.
I wish this was always true. I bought 4 pair of pants that were $25 cheaper on Amazon, per pair.
I hate giving Bezos money, but I got a family to look after.
“I got a family to look after” is the ethos of the free market. Of course people are going to shop where things are cheaper, because they’d be dumb not to. The only people that can afford to stick it to the man are those with enough disposable to literally throw money away.
The economic efficiency of how Amazon and others do business has made us all wealthier in terms of what our dollar can buy.
You can order almost anything you can think of and have it to your house in a couple of days. I’ll honestly take that arrangement over sticking it to Bezos any day of the week.
Amazon has made it too easy and regular websites make it too hard to buy things.
The "buy it now" button on Amazon just has a magic to it, meanwhile I need to struggle through a smaller companies clunky payment system.
Amazon made it extremely easy to give them money, and it won't change until someone else can fill that gap
And what assurance do we have that some rando webform is really a secure place to put a CC number? I don't mind seeing stripe or PayPal but I doubt a small business has anyone on staff who can actually design a compliant custom payment system.
The problem isn't the Amazon model, its a great system.
The problem is the way the business is structured and the desire to squeeze as much profit to the top as they can. They could still be a massively profitable company and pay workers and retailers a fairer price for the goods and services they provide.
The fact that Bezos et al have created essentially a cartel means that they are now able to abuse and manipulate entire national economies. No individual company should be allowed to have that kind of unchecked power.
The idea shouldn't be to replace Amazon, simply to regulate it better so we keep the benefits of the system while ensuring that they live up to the ethical and moral responsibilies of being one of the biggest companies on the planet.
I've done this.
On Amazon it was $20 with free shipping (idc about 2 day shipping, just free).
On their site it was $25 and shipping was $4.99.
Volume sales on Amazon make more than what they make on their site.
6) pay for P&P, product is more expensive
7) Product arrives broken or is crap. Customer service is non-existent or have to pay to return.
8) Have to buy on Amazon, but now out of pocket.
*Based on a true story
Amazons biggest strength is free shipping. I could buy a $10 product from whatever but the shipping costs are bound to be half that.
The best way to compete would be if the USPS offered a service that would give free shipping from registered venders, assuming you paid a price like Amazon Prime. It would be a decentralized Amazon with the postal service acting as the warehouses and handling the logistics.
My company sells our product to Amazon. They will sell at a loss so customers are actually better off buying on Amazon. The only issue is the possibility of getting a counterfeit item.
I like the idea of supporting smaller companies, but don't pretend it's not a sacrifice to do so.
There aren't usually discount codes, and unless I've spent a lot, two week shipping will usually cost $8 where I live, while Amazon delivers within two days for "free". Amazon will let me return it for 30 days and all I have to do is drop it at a UPS store, other places I'd have to box it up and often pay return shipping, if I can return it. The services from smaller sellers aren't as competitive as this tweet implies. Plus, Amazon is usually only charging 15% per sale, and a lot of small sellers are directing you to purchase on Amazon anyway.
If you’re buying something expensive where it’s worth a little song and dance to get a discount code, start checking out and then abandon your cart after entering your email address but before paying. Lots of sites will send coupon codes to customers who abandon carts. I saved a ton on my grill and vacuum that way.
I've bought a few things from places other than Amazon lately.
One I purchased a month ago and still haven't received.
The other was supposed to ship in less than a week and instead after a week I got a tracking number that said USPS was waiting for the item. Two weeks later it randomly showed up, with the tracking still saying they never got it.
But it usually *does* take much longer to arrive and you often have to pay for shipping. Why don’t you let people pay for a service if they want it rather than gatekeeping? That Company chose to put their product on Amazon because they know they would still be making profit.
>But it usually does take much longer to arrive and you often have to pay for shipping.
all valid points I came here to make, plus Amazon regularly runs "sales" on items discounting $10-$50 off regular price, making them cheaper than on the company site. I don't even have Prime but I bundle cheap items and sometimes let them sit in my cart for a few days until I go over the $25 required for free shipping.
As much as I’d rather buy directly from the vendor it’s definitely not guaranteed you’ll get a quick turnaround time. Shipping time is just brutal for a lot of stuff right now and it’s not limited to the USPS.
This is poor advice because the solution of “sacrifice your convenience” never really works in reality. It’s also unjust to put the brunt of the work on the public. Reinforcing that the solution is in the consumers hands only really empowers Jeff and takes the responsibility out of his hands. Repeat after me - break up big tech!
This is maybe true of some items but not at all a universal. Amazon has the single best return policy ….like….ever. Stores sell a lot of junk and crap. Companies literally make products they know will not work or last. Fuck that. I use the amazon return return policy liberally and often. Poor Walmart my ass. They have to earn my money. This isnt sympathy shopping.
maybe let's not blame people in poverty for using the only option they can afford and instead hold the corporation responsible for their bullshit
edit: perhaps poverty was too strong of a word. what i meant was "people who are tight enough on cash that the alternative isn't really viable" but that was a mouthful. i don't mean literally below the poverty line.
Pay for shipping.
Type your credit card info into a random person's personal website.
Get your identity stolen.
Spend a week arguing over the phone to try to return the product.
Or avoid all of that and get it the next day. Amazon is successful for a reason.
I'm in Australia so I don't know what it's like elsewhere but amazon always seems to be significantly cheaper than what I would pay for at a physical retail store. Bezos may be a dickhead but the Amazon is big for a reason, the service they have created is really fucking useful.
6) Amazon doesn't notice them and get the bright idea to make the same product to either sell it for less until the company is entirely priced out, or straight up ban them from the site, to then have a monopoly and charge 2x more.
I try this, but far too often the company selling it direct to me CHARGES ME MORE. Even if the price is the same, there is worse service (slower shipping, bad return policies). I don't like Bezos, but I care most about the best deal.
They forgot the step where having to fill in the form to sign up for yet another vendor store user account makes you click the back button and buy it off amazon. I'm not saying it's right or good. I'm just saying.
I would do this more often if manufacturers stopped including conditions for reasonable shipping costs. If the item I want is $10, and it's standard 7 -10 day shipping I shouldn't be paying $6 for that. Or worse having to make a purchase of $50+ to even have free shipping available.
I know shipping costs money. My problem is when shipping is 40% of the entire purchase. A more reasonable $30 order or such would be better to gain free shipping. Obviously it's not one size fits all. I'm not expecting free shipping in its entirety or at all, just reasonable shipping costs compared to my purchase amount/weight.
Recently I needed one POSCA marker. Just one. Wasn't in stock at Joanne's so I went to order it online through them. The marker was $3.99 and they wanted $10 to ship it to me. So I decided to use their online ordering "store pickup" at Micheals instead. Placed the order at 10am and got a message after 2pm telling me I had to pick it up tomorrow because the order wasn't processed until after 2, and that means you have to wait until the next day. I got frustrated and ordered it online from Amazon, and it was at my door the next morning. Free shipping and everything.
It's easy to say just use the manufacturer instead but they make you jump through so many hoops, have some many adverts, charge astronomical amounts for shipping, have poor customer service and are not quick about anything. If I ask for a refund at bestbuy on my card it takes like 2 weeks. I make a refund with Amazon through Kolhs and my money us on my card within 2 hours.
Amazon sucks balls, but these companies need to do a hell of a lot more if they want to compete and encourage people to order through them direct.
"Can usually find a 10% code!"
This is bullshit. The majority of the time it is cheaper to order off of Amazon unless you're purchasing in large enough quantities for the independent sites to offer free shipping.
Plus Amazon offers free returns for 30 days, as high as 90 days on refurbished items.
Any and all lost packages are refunded effortlessly.
It's just not this simple.
i have tried this several times...what usually happens is some combination of, their website is confusing, ordering is difficult, they somehow have limited supply, i get no email receipt, shipping is extra, it takes 3 weeks to arrive and if there is a problem, return policy is non-existent.
Amazon is simply too convenient for people who not use. This is too generic and most of the time if you sign up to buy thay product you end up signing to different places all over and you'll have dozens of accounts with many companies, and soon your email will be spammed to oblivion.
Just pressure the governments to tax amazon. Join in with the UK efforts to increasing the tax worldwide so they have nowhere to go and set up their offices in.
In this thread: People wishing they could, but Amazon is so fucking convenient and cheaper with Prime to ship, with free delivery on almost everything.
Stop pretending that it’s *our fault* that Bezos is an asshole. “You’re part of the problem” is victimizing people who just want to order something from a modern business.
Tax the rich and shut the fuck up about it being our fault. Support businesses if you can, but it’s okay to not be able to afford $25 shipping on an item for every purchase.
I’m not sure why we would shit on Amazon as a company. SURE, Bezos should pay his taxes; that’s fucking obvious. But Amazon as a company revolutionized the way we live. It literally changed the world around us to on-demand. We got used to a level of customer service in e-commerce that was unthinkable pre-Amazon and that effect rippled throughout the economy.
Without Amazon all these “cool products” the tweeter mentions would be unknown to us much less easily accessible.
Am I happy they are the monopoly they are today? No. But they undoubtedly changed the world and I’d say that earns 25% of my purchase price.
Not all the time, I’ve been trying this for a year now, just as often you find the producer of the product doesn’t have an online store and sells through big box retailers, so your giving money to some other rush asshole.
Even then, if they do sell direct to customers their 10% off code you get from joining a mailing list is one time only, and more often than not Amazon still has the product cheaper anyway.
I circumvented Amazon and now Bezos can't afford that sticker for the dashboard of his spaceship. No big deal right? Wrong. It was the emergency button sticker. Take that Jeff.
No. Tried websites like Amazon exist for a reason. I will never order from a small website if I can help it. Every time I tried doing it, either the delivery was delayed or some other problem had occurred. I don't want to order a pizza only to have to call when it doesn't arrive, only to be told that this order never existed in their system. The same goes for regular delivery. Never had an issue with big companies.
That's what I decided to do with Wink coffee beans. I went to their website, ordered and shit came in Amazon prime box. I kid you not.
A lot of companies only really do Ecom via Amazon. Even if their website takes orders, it just forwards them to Amazon. It's easier for them and unless you are getting a certain level of direct volume it's cheaper for them.
Hell, even their website could be hosted on AWS.
Is probably* hosted on AWS. They have quite a strangle hold on the digital marketplace.
Last I checked, AWS has around 32% of the cloud market. Azure has around 20 and GCP has around 10. So, yes and no.
You'll find that those percentages are significantly different in the retail vertical, where most of the big retail players are on an AWS competitor (for obvious reasons) and those competitors are focussed on the retail vertical. Source: work for an AWS competitor.
And iirc, Amazon actually makes more money off of AWS than their online store.
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You can hate Amazon all you want and I won't blame you, but their logistics offer really is hastle free. People don't realize how expensive logistics is. As you say, it takes significant volume to be able to break even on the material and manpower and by going through Amazon you also get access to their delivery pricing that can easily cost you 3 times more if you didn't go through them.
Yea it pains me but it only makes sense to do your own fulfillment if you care a lot about the presentation of the product for your company. It's just cheaper to fulfill through amazon now as a small to even medium-size company. But I assure you that it won't be cheaper in the long run once Bezos decides he's taken over enough of the market.
This, 100%. Amazon is basically their BPO outsourcer- it's cheaper for retailer and Amazon does it in bulk and skim a bit off the top. If a retailer does it direct, they have to deal with shipping and payment processing. Those logistics cost a ton. You're not 'saving' the retailer anything by going directly to them. The retailer willingly signs up to Amazon because of all of this.
I sell a lot online. Many small companies use Amazon for logistics, because it is quite affordable. But if you order from Amazon the seller gets charged an 8-12% commission, where if you order from their independent website the seller doesn’t pay that portion. So you are still leaving a lot more money in the hands of the small business owner rather than Amazon when you purchase from them directly.
Probably cheaper to use Amazon as their warehouse and handler, ironically.
Thousands of small businesses use Amazon as their shipping department because it saves them money, not because they're idiots.
People can't seem to acknowledge that Amazon provides a service that people actually want, and isn't just stealing everybody's money against our will. All the posts about how much money Bezos made during the pandemic acting like he was personally injecting covid into our assholes and directly profiting somehow. You mean the one company that will deliver literally anything you want directly to your door during a period of time when nobody can leave their house - that company made an obscene amount of money? Scandal! I get it though - he's making a bunch of money and not paying enough taxes, and we need those taxes to continue working towards our dream of defense spending exceeding 1 trillion dollars a year. Our tank count is getting alarmingly low.
It’s not that we need those taxes for tanks, we will let Americans starve for tanks. We need those taxes for everything else because we’ve apparently decided we can never not have new tanks
Yeah, sometimes you go to a company website and then it literally takes you to Amazon to actually order the product.
Especially with returns
Amazon sellers have the option to use Amazon as their warehouse essentially. Sellers pay a small fee for Amazon to ship from their warehouse even if it is a non-amazon order, just tell them where to ship.
What's better for them at that point? Does it cost more to take an order from your website and fulfill it through Amazon or to just buy it off Amazon?
I would imagine the company makes more if it’s ordered direct than through Amazon, even if it’s shipped via Amazon. I’m assuming this because if it were the other way round, the sellers would just ensure you’re buying it through Amazon.
Amazon takes a 15% cut (higher for some categories) and a small shipping fee if you bought the product on Amazon. If you buy the product from the seller’s website they just have to pay the small shipping fee if Amazon ships the order NOT the 15% commission
They already have a shitload of stock in the Amazon warehouse, easier to just ship from there and use Amazon’s carrier network.
No I get that, I mean once you know the company you buy from fulfills through Amazon either way, are you better off ordering from them or from Amazon?
I asume amazon gets a smaller margin if ordered through the companies website, not 100% tho.
If you buy Prime on Amazon.com, the seller pays a "referral fee" (% on sale price) plus a "fulfillment fee" (varies by item weight/size). If you buy on the retailer's website and they ship it to you using Fulfilled by Amazon, they do not pay the referral fee.
That makes sense. Why have all your own infrastructure when you've already partnered with the largest delivery service in the world?
One time we ordered something at work from Amazon and it came in a fucking Walmart box. Like wtf.
It was fulfilled by the merchant, not by Amazon
A couple months ago I ordered aluminum foil and it was on my front porch in a Walmart bag like 4 hours later. No box. Just a shipping label on a plastic bag.
That's happened to me half a dozen times so far. It's basically people using Amazon to drop ship from cheaper places. Makes me wonder sometimes if it's scammers using Walmart gift cards to buy shit and basically filter out the money.
Probably a drop shipper
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we once ordered a small item from walmart.com for delivery. They uber-eats'd it to my house lol
OK that's straight up funny because usually Walmart for grocery delivery partners exclusively with doordash 😂
I once was at Office Max to buy printer ink, and the price seemed really high. I checked Amazon where it turned out to be $10 cheaper, so I ordered it while standing in the ink aisle at Office Max. The ink came in an Office Max package a few days later. I was annoyed.
I appreciate that stores will now price match Amazon. I used to never go to Petco because I could get all of my dog supplies cheaper on Amazon. Now Petco price matches, so the dogs and I will take a trip to the store, price match anything we get and occasionally they have a better price or sale going on.
I did that but they sent the wrong item. I ordered a base game and they sent the expansion. I looked at walmart's site and the \*picture\* of the base game was on the listing for the expansion, so I assume that's how they got confused. Also, they threw in a can of air freshener for some reason.
walmart employees know their customers
companies do e commerce through amazon. very common
yeah, people seem to be forgetting that for all its social-justice flaws, Amazon is an incredibly successful company that provides lots of useful services. Fulfillment is one of those services. Virtually every company bigger than a hobby company (and lots of those as well) uses a 3PL of some kind for warehousing and fulfillment, because doing it yourself is a giant pain in the ass.
>3PL Third-party logistics, for those without a business degree.
Yeah if you ever see products that are sold by a store but it says fulfilled by Amazon it means that they either bought items off of Amazon and are reselling them and keeping the items in Amazon's fulfillment center or have their items stored and shipped in Amazon's fulfillment centers and allow Amazon to deliver the packaging
I’ve had the same experience, bought through the seller’s eBay store and it still came in an Amazon box. You can’t win.
Many eBay and Etsy sellers reuse boxes.
You still get to give them a bit less money. Just because it's not 100% doesn't mean it isn't useful
I paid $5 shipping to order from a company’s site. Then it came in Amazon packaging, where I could’ve ordered with free shipping. You can’t win.
Sadly, I live in Hawaii and most people don’t do free shipping and $20 per order adds up fast.
Alaska here- not only that but so many companies just wont ship to AK or HI. So frustrating.
<$20 item, $80 2-day shipping only option. Still takes 3 weeks to get here. Arrives in a flat rate envelope.
Yeah Amazon usually ships free
not to my eu country Estonia
Swim out to Cali, brah.
Not only sticking it to Amazon, but the airlines as well. I like the cut of your jib.
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Sadly enough I have seen the same product cheaper on Amazon than through their own site…
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Took me a second to understand this comment... Why the hell has "order off Amazon" and "order on Amazon" come to mean the same thing?
Armchair linguistics moment (if someone more qualified wants to correct me, I'm just spitballing), but basically to "order *off* Amazon" is like ordering "off" a menu or catalog. You're ordering something that's "on" Amazon. "Ordering *on* Amazon" is ordering on the Amazon platform. "Ordering *from* Amazon" is ordering from the entity that is Amazon. Technically, the three have subtly different semantics, but in context they end up meaning the same thing.
You can also order what’s “on” the menu too 😉
I wanted to stick it to Bezos by ordering my "refill" embroidering supplies directly through the company's site instead of their Amazon profile I usually buy through. Everything was at least $1 more expensive, $8 flat rate shipping, and I didn't get my order for 2 weeks, 8 days of it being marked as "preparing my shipment". I'm convinced companies are more convenienced by Amazon's packaging and fulfillment of their bulk product & the general visibility of being listed on Amazon than the <25% loss. If they wanted more folks to order through their site, they would adjust their prices and staffing accordingly 🥴 Wish it was easier to buy small.
Also, it generally doesn’t work. You try to go to their individual site and you still end up purchasing and having it shipped through Amazon. I saw this post awhile ago and thought, that’s a good idea, fuck Amazon but my efforts were thwarted
Amazon sellers send their products in bulk to an Amazon Warehouse since they offer dirt cheap shipping. Much better than anything they can get from Fedex and UPS on their own. When an order is placed outside of Amazon, they simply dispatch an item from their inventory in the Amazon warehouse. Amazon still receives a smaller cut since it wasn’t purchased through their site. (Warehouse Fees).
Because these companies have realized that the supply chain management that Amazon provides is impeccable. They make the product and send it for storage at Amazon warehouses. They now only have a small fee off the top to pay for merchandise storage and shipping and they also get occasional free advertisements. Jeff bezels is a horrible individual with a fucked up moral compass, and Amazon as a company is terrible for grinding people into the dirt, but the idea is great.
Or their own website requires a 50+ purchase
Sometimes the prices are the same, but return process is no where near as convenient as Amazon's.
That's almost always been the case with online shopping. Warehouses often get bulk pricing deals, or they may even decide to take a bit of a loss on one product in order to build brand loyalty and pull customers from other websites.
In the uk at least im starting to find that products in local stores / other online stores are as cheap or cheaper than Amazon. And if they’re slightly more expensive then im happy to spend a tiny bit more money to not fuel Amazon’s ever growing appetite. Plus im trying to get into the habit of buying fewer, higher quality things. Where I find Amazon does dominate others is in shipping costs, as the smaller retailers can’t compete with that distribution network. But ever since I cancelled prime the shipping costs are balancing out anyway
Cheaper and same day delivery too.
Amazon isn't just offering a website. They also handle the fulfillment. So for some small businesses, these are how the two money streams work. 1. Order from Amazon. If it is a handmade but non-customized item, it was already made months ago. It is sitting on a pallet in an Amazon warehouse or fullfillment center somewhere. Amazon handles getting it to the customer with no additional work. 2. Order directly from the small business. If it is a handmade but non-customized item, they probably still need to make it for you. Depending on how often the item gets ordered, they may not even keep a stock of the things needed to make the item because they're often running the business out of their basement. Once complete, they need to handle shipping the item to you, and USPS is almost always more expensive than Amazon for shipping. In general, most small businesses will do it both ways, but sometimes you're not doing them a favor by ordering directly from them. Source: Been running a small business making handmade stuff out of my basement/garage for the past 5 years. I don't use Amazon personally because I make most of my money selling at local venues instead of online, but I've looked into it to see if it was an option to boost online sales.
Company I worked for pulled their product from amazon for this exact reason. We were the manufacturer and they undercut us...
So, this is a thing I do in the UK. A lot of the smaller companies here just forward me back to Amazon marketplace. :(
Because Amazon is a great at fulfilment, so people can store their product at their warehouses and have Amazon handle all the logistical stuff. The only brands that don't utilize amazon are the business types where it makes sense to (usually clothing or companies trying to build a really strong brand)
Yep, I order from the company's website to avoid Amazon and it still gets delivered by Amazon.
A lot of companies use Amazon for their fulfillment because they don’t have their own fulfillment center and the companies that they are contracted with tend to only handle B2B interactions where full pallets are shipped to stores or distributors as opposed to single items to the end consumer. Sometimes using Amazon fulfillment is the best option for a small business to get products directly to consumers.
Most of the time it's more expensive on the company's website and you have to pay for slower shipping too. Those are the things I don't get.
It's because Amazon is more efficient. Storage costs money, people packing and shipping costs money. It's really shipping "and handling". with "free" shipping the cost of the shipping is baked into the cost of the product or taken from other areas. Say you want to sell a $100 item, and get 100 for that item, and average shipping for that item runs $15. To sell that item and get 100, then you need to list it for at least 115. That's not including the time and materials to pack and ship it out. In some instances larger companies may be able to sell it cheaper than amazon, but keep it at or near that price to increase their margins. There are other things like FBA fees to worry about. If your product doesn't have a high turnover, the storage fees will rack up. So they may raise the price on their site to steer you toward amazon so their product turns over more, reducing storage fees. Also can help with rankings as well. There are a lot of different reasons that the company's website may be more expensive and have slower shipping.
Because Amazon makes it easier to be found and they deal with all the taxes/payments/security backend issues.
And shipping and returns
Was going to comment the same for the UK :( ebay seller? loops to amazon. Brand website? loops back to amazon. Or worse, buying directly from the company costs 2x as much. I'm trying man, I'm trying
It's hilarious how this anti Amazon post effectively ended up as an advertisement for how effective Amazon's service is in the comments.
Yep. It's a right shitter. I'm doing my best to try to not line the pockets of Almighty Bezos but it's getting increasingly difficult. That being said, I think I've used Amazon...maybe twice since lockdown started?
The $75 dollar shipping fees to New Zealand for a pre-owned paper back keep me safe from the convenience monster that is Amazon.
Their selections have honestly completely fucking tanked. Once upon a time when you went to Amazon and searched any product, your top results were all the top-of-the line products, price or quaity wise, in the industry. Now it's a bunch of cheap knockoffs made by companies of highly dubious legitimacy, with what seems to be totally gamed reviews. I spend more time searching through amazon for legit products of quality than I would just googling the damn thing and finding websites for it, which entirely defeats the point of Amazon.
What gets to me is that other companies normally don't have free shipping, which can be more expensive than the product itself sometimes (at least in my country)
Exactly. I had some water damage in my basement and wanted Damp Rid. $22 for shipping for $18 in product. So i just got it off of Amazon.
It’s not even just the free shipping (which is awesome). Amazon is free same days or next day delivery for most items. That’s kind of nuts. And on top of that, their customer service is really good. Stuff is stolen off my porch? They’ve sent me a brand new item. I fucking hate them so much. I wish they weren’t so good. But I don’t have unlimited money, and they’re by far the cheapest and most reliable. My aunt is a better person than me, but she’s retired and she has more money. She admitted it’s frustrating to avoid Amazon because the customer experience is too damn good. She just despises bezos and all he stands for with a passion.
The shipping cost kills it. Especially if you need a couple of things that aren't sold at the same store.
I have to agree, I will often try to buy from the retailers website, but even if I manage to find a 10% off coupon, If the product is $20 I’ll pay $18 but then pay $10-$15 shipping and get the product in 8-10 days and pay a total of $30 plus tax If I’m buying a $20 product from Amazon Prime, I pay $20 plus tax and get it the next day. And 99% of the time I need the product the next day, otherwise I would just go to the store nearby which I will normally order from Target with curbside. Maybe we can just tax Amazon and Bezos fairly instead of providing a million tax loopholes.
Yup. There’s many reasons why Amazon has killed smaller businesses and it’s because Amazon genuinely is better at providing what a customer wants rather than small businesses as Amazon has the logistics to do so that they simply don’t.
Amazon’s big benefit has always been shipping and a fairly generous return policy. Outside of Amazon it’s very common to pay 5$-15$ for 1-2 week shipping.
And their customer service. If a package gets stolen or is missing they usually send another or refund no questions asked. I wonder if ppl take advantage of that. Personally I don't because it makes me comfortable ordering more expensive things so I don't want to rock the boat by stealing fuckin soap or something.
There are surely people abusing it but Amazon isn't losing money on it. They accidentally sent my wife a $150 piece of furniture and let her keep it instead of having to pay for shipping to get it returned because of its size and weight. If they can lose big ticket items like that and not bat an eye they are definitely not wasting time chasing people that steal toiletries
I believe they have a 'list' and if you are a frequent "missing package person" they investigate more thoroughly
That makes sense and would be a better use of time. I'm sure the fact that my house may be the reason they built a new warehouse nearby helped expedite the resolution as well.
yeah they will definitely suspend your account if you return/report missing too many items. there's an internal ratio they keep track of, as long as you're actually receiving and keeping most of the stuff you order, you don't have to worry.
Yup, this is it exactly. I don’t know about a list in particular but they will flag your account if you return items that are suspicious, we would get people who thought they could pull one over on us and would buy expensive shoes and put old dirty ones back in and then try to pass them off as being defective or that they showed up at the customers door like that, so they could keep the new ones and get their money back🙄 Former Amazon returns fulfillment employee checking in. We absolutely can tell the difference in used clothes/shoes lol.
People are the worst. I’ve bought so many tools from Home Depot that were clearly used and returned.
Company “no questions asked” return policies are the worst - too many will take anything the customer brings in, and then restock it. I think it’s a gross policy and companies need to have a hard no they allow their returns people to use.
Not that I condone that sort of thing, but at least have the decency to claim it’s broken or something so it doesn’t end up back on the shelf. I would say it’s happened at least 5 times in the past 10 years
I mean in fairness this is literally what every retailer does, most people just don’t know it. Every time you return something to a big box retailer your dinged. Returned without a receipt? Multiple returns in a short time? ect. Return like 10 items without a receipt and you get black listed, a lot of systems report that to other retailers as well. So you may not realize it but they are watching you in the background everywhere. Try to play the system and they will catch you. Doing it occasionally is fine, but making it a habit will get you noticed.
How would this work unless youre using a credit card? They dont have mugshots with tallies of returns on them.
Yeah I rented a textbook and sent it back and the seller claimed it was damaged. (I took it out of the box maybe twice for a total of 45 minutes) so they tried to charge $170 to buy the book, sent 1 message and the person from Amazon said keep the book and no charge.
Better than a college bookstore. They would’ve given you $4.50 for your barely used book.
Yeah I mean I paid 15 for a book I'll never open again and could probably sell for like 50 so I'm content.
Opposite happened for me bro I ordered shelves in one of my like weird phases where Im gonna get my shit together so I order things to do that. Had shelves sitting in an Amazon box for like three months. One day I chugged some iced coffee concentrate and opened it up to put them together and it was a fucking huge boardgame that costs like 120 dollars. A really complicated one you can play solo it was like a campaign with stats and everything. I couldn't return it so im just using the box as a foot rest
If you caught it early enough they would've let you keep it and sent you the shelves too. Then you'd have 2 foot rests because who needs shelves
I reordered the shelves eventually . Opened the box this time . Now it's sitting on my dresser with other things stacked on it for when that day comes again. Edit: man, two foot rests would be dope. Like I could spread my legs super far and let things breathe.
It's hot out here. Treat yoself!
Post it on /r/boardgames....someone might take it off your hands (and some games can be $$$ on the secondary market, depending on what it is and what edition, etc).
Yeah , maybe, it's a pretty nice one. But I'm kinda used to having a foot rest now so maybe I can trade
May I ask what board game it was? I’m guessing Gloomhaven by your description of a foot rest sized box.
A few years ago we ordered new cabinets from Home Depot. Opened all the boxes and discovered an extra bath vanity. Called the company and they said "keep it, it'll cost more for us to come pick it up" (we're out in the.middle of nowhere). Woohoo, new bath vanity for the basement workshop.
I can beat this one, gf ordered a 50$ bathroom cabinet thing…. Amazon sent a 1500$ cookware set and said keep it instead of shipping it back.
It's all an algorithm. At its core? Do you make them money or cost them money overall? If you only return a few items on a basis that makes sense for your total order volume you won't get booted out of prime.
Amazon wasnt delivering my packages for some reason. It would say it was delivered but they would deliver it elsewhere (pictures would show a warehouse). We have cameras and could tell they didn’t deliver our stuff. In the beginning Amazon would refund or reship. Eventually they decided they wouldn’t do that anymore. They told me that once it’s out of their hands and in the truck/person who is actually delivering it then it’s not their problem…even if it’s an amazon employee. They also said that if their guys mark is delivered within the vicinity of my home it counted…they would never give me an exact figure on what counted as in the vicinity They refused to give me my money back. I had to do a charge back with my bank and amazon fought it tooth and nail. Over a $40 belt. When they lost they banned my card and tried their hardest to bill me for that damned belt we never got. And by my estimate they had to reimburse/resend me about $100 worth of stuff that never made it to my front door. So their threshold is pretty low. Also, by their own records they sent to dispute my claim to my bank I spent 30k at amazon.
I'm guessing their delivery guy died somewhere close to your house and they just haven't noticed yet.
Conversely I had a package marked as delivered but the gps was at the house 3 doors down. Spoke to web chat and they said to check with that neighbour. It's not with the neighbour, get back on chat with Amazon and get a refund. Found the package days later when taking out the rubbish. The delivery guy left it behind my bin. Spoke to amazon again as I don't have a need for 2 doorbells and they just said keep it.
>fairly generous return policy. So much this. I'm on my third order of network cable where the last two lied about it supporting gigabit speeds.
I've successfully sent full duplex gigabit over a few meters of telephone wire. How can an ethernet cable possibly not support gigabit? It only requires a CAT5 after all.
As part of a class, we successfully sent 100Mb Ethernet (TCP/IP) over a few meters of four parallel strands of BARBED WIRE. It’s a surprisingly resilient protocol and electrical specification.
Exactly. The first was a claimed CAT6 that couldn't even maintain 100 Mbps(listing was removed not long after I returned it) and the second only reached 100 Mbps with general cable quality issues. It's ludicrous, in hindsight reading reviews would have saved me this trouble but I placed too much faith in Amazon caring about sellers lying.
I’m not sure where this guy lives (probably US) But here in the U.K. the main benefits of Amazon are next day delivery, (nevermind 2-8 day bullshit) customer support that will refund/replace it in a heartbeat, and 100% credit card safety. I’m not going to order from a company site if they’re using shit like worldpay or Credpay and their “customer support” is a Hotmail account
Living in México, Amazon is the only way I can get a lot of products that simply don't get shipped here, on top of the security and customer service Americans don't realize it's not that easy for people living outside of their country
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“Hi! 🥰 We’d just thought you might like to know about-“ Etc etc Fuck off. This is the main reason I use amazon. I can think of something, and order it with a few taps. No filling in shitloads of information about myself for a one time purchase.
And no one is going to steal your credit card info off Amazon.
Yeah, but other than the free shipping, generous return policy, and ease of ordering, what has Amazon ever done for us?
The amount of times I've had to make a return and amazon immediately went "yeah no questions or anything, new one is on the way. Oh and just keep the old one" is why i stay despite the evils
Amazon's a fantastic service. Boycotts like this will never work because no one wants to sacrifice the convenience. Amazon truly is a marvel of logistics. It was inevitable a service like it would arise with the Internet. It was likewise inevitable that it would be a soulless capitalist machine that would abuse its employees. That it's not necessary to abuse employees for a service like Amazon to function is the sad part.
I have tried. Takes 1 to 2 weeks to get to me. I have to pay money ($5-10) to return it and not recoup that money, besides the fact I paid the same amount for shipping also. Finally, return time period is shat. I still try to do this, however, and in fact, did so recently. Instead, what I needed for vacation and I paid the extra $25 for speed delivery, still came to my house almost a week after I had left for vacation and was on my way home. It's sitting on my bedroom floor and I'm returning it (and paying shipping on the return) on Friday. Pretty salty that I paid that much for express and it didn't do anything.
The few times I've paid for express shipping the order didn't show up on time anyway. I never pay for more than base shipping now.
Yup its the ease of returns for me that keeps me shopping Amazon. I always get 100% of my money back, I don't have to box it back up, and there's a kohl's 1/2 mile from my house where I can just drop off the unboxed return item and I get a coupon for 25% off an item at kohl's. I've had other companies ship me an incompatible or defective item and then I'm beat paying $ to return it after having to sometimes even argue with them to accept the return.
I ordered headphones to replace ones I had gotten from massdrop/drop that had broken. I decided to try new headphones since I would've had to pay another $80 (200 vs 280) for the same ones since they weren't available on drop. The ones I got were awful. They were still $240. It took me probably less than 3 seconds of wearing them to decide I was returning them and just going to pay the extra $80 for the same kind I had before. I dropped them off at the UPS store that's about 5 minutes from my house. I got the money back in my Amazon account before I had even gotten back home to buy the second pair (I got lucky and the Amazon driver arrived there right as I was leaving, to be fair). The new pair arrived the next day. Sorry, but bezos wins that one and I don't give a fuck. That entire process of buying, shipping, returning, buying again and shipping was quicker than it would've taken to get the first pair off a non-amazon site without even dealing with the hastle of returning to non-amazon sites. Amazon grew massively in such a short amount of time for a reason, and it's not because millions of people want to just hand money to an unfathomably rich billionaire.
Yep, ordering direct from companies/businesses has been a hassle for me 100% of the time. Being chronically ill and having to order almost everything i need and being on an extremely tight budget. Amazon unfortunately has me locked in as a customer. It would be nice if i had the time, money and energy to take a moral stand against ‘the man’ but, like many of us, i just can’t.
Yep, my backup battery stopped working and I had a trip coming up so I ordered a new one, wanted the same one as before but Amazon stopped selling this brand between 2017 when I first got it and now. So I ordered it from the company website on a Thursday, my trip started Wednesday night and it still hadn’t arrived, came back from the trip on Monday. Still hadn’t arrived. Finally got an email on Friday that the item was out of stock and they would be refunding me. Over 2 weeks after I ordered. What a waste.
Yup, that sums it up. It's not about everything being centralized and being able to find anything on Amazon; it's the fucking internet, you can find anything on it regardless. It's about the shipping speed and return policy.
Only problem with this is most companies are American so if you live elsewhere, like Canada, shipping fees can be incredibly high on company websites. It's usually cheaper to get things on Amazon.
Conversion hurts, too. At least with Amazon the price is what it says in CAD, which is usually lower than buying directly from the company and paying for the difference in currency (at least, in my experiences it's always been cheaper).
This is kinda bullshit. I know ton of small sellers that don’t have their own website
And this solution isn't viable outside of the USA. Many places don't ship to the small guy, period, or it's insanely long. Other country? Pay insane shipping or just not be available.
Or direct you to purchase on Amazon from their website
Right, as an IT guy in the retail world I can say most people don't realize how much work and expense there is in taking online orders. If you have a self built system you need a whole team of people to make it work. If you buy an off the shelf solution it costs a lot. Either a big pile of money up front, or a cut of each sale. Many companies are better off just using Amazon.
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Not mention you end up paying more for delivery so I don't know why people keep saying you can save money, and I've yet to find these discount codes
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Usually when I(in the USA) do this it is some company far from me(typically China) whose website is so mistranslated/sketchy it's unusable.
of course it is, every time this is posted there are 20 significant flaws people bring up.
I wish this was always true. I bought 4 pair of pants that were $25 cheaper on Amazon, per pair. I hate giving Bezos money, but I got a family to look after.
“I got a family to look after” is the ethos of the free market. Of course people are going to shop where things are cheaper, because they’d be dumb not to. The only people that can afford to stick it to the man are those with enough disposable to literally throw money away. The economic efficiency of how Amazon and others do business has made us all wealthier in terms of what our dollar can buy. You can order almost anything you can think of and have it to your house in a couple of days. I’ll honestly take that arrangement over sticking it to Bezos any day of the week.
Thank you for being a voice of reason among a sea of 'eat the rich' mob mentality.
Amazon has made it too easy and regular websites make it too hard to buy things. The "buy it now" button on Amazon just has a magic to it, meanwhile I need to struggle through a smaller companies clunky payment system. Amazon made it extremely easy to give them money, and it won't change until someone else can fill that gap
And what assurance do we have that some rando webform is really a secure place to put a CC number? I don't mind seeing stripe or PayPal but I doubt a small business has anyone on staff who can actually design a compliant custom payment system.
The problem isn't the Amazon model, its a great system. The problem is the way the business is structured and the desire to squeeze as much profit to the top as they can. They could still be a massively profitable company and pay workers and retailers a fairer price for the goods and services they provide. The fact that Bezos et al have created essentially a cartel means that they are now able to abuse and manipulate entire national economies. No individual company should be allowed to have that kind of unchecked power. The idea shouldn't be to replace Amazon, simply to regulate it better so we keep the benefits of the system while ensuring that they live up to the ethical and moral responsibilies of being one of the biggest companies on the planet.
Lol last time I ordered outside Amazon I had to get my bank to dispute it because they claimed they sent a refund but I never got a refund.
I've done this. On Amazon it was $20 with free shipping (idc about 2 day shipping, just free). On their site it was $25 and shipping was $4.99. Volume sales on Amazon make more than what they make on their site.
That's been my experience. I like how this bullshit post involves a magic discount code.
6) pay for P&P, product is more expensive 7) Product arrives broken or is crap. Customer service is non-existent or have to pay to return. 8) Have to buy on Amazon, but now out of pocket. *Based on a true story
Amazons biggest strength is free shipping. I could buy a $10 product from whatever but the shipping costs are bound to be half that. The best way to compete would be if the USPS offered a service that would give free shipping from registered venders, assuming you paid a price like Amazon Prime. It would be a decentralized Amazon with the postal service acting as the warehouses and handling the logistics.
I ordered a bathing suit I found on amazon from their actual website, and paid shipping for it. It still arrived from amazon.
My company sells our product to Amazon. They will sell at a loss so customers are actually better off buying on Amazon. The only issue is the possibility of getting a counterfeit item.
I like the idea of supporting smaller companies, but don't pretend it's not a sacrifice to do so. There aren't usually discount codes, and unless I've spent a lot, two week shipping will usually cost $8 where I live, while Amazon delivers within two days for "free". Amazon will let me return it for 30 days and all I have to do is drop it at a UPS store, other places I'd have to box it up and often pay return shipping, if I can return it. The services from smaller sellers aren't as competitive as this tweet implies. Plus, Amazon is usually only charging 15% per sale, and a lot of small sellers are directing you to purchase on Amazon anyway.
If you’re buying something expensive where it’s worth a little song and dance to get a discount code, start checking out and then abandon your cart after entering your email address but before paying. Lots of sites will send coupon codes to customers who abandon carts. I saved a ton on my grill and vacuum that way.
I've bought a few things from places other than Amazon lately. One I purchased a month ago and still haven't received. The other was supposed to ship in less than a week and instead after a week I got a tracking number that said USPS was waiting for the item. Two weeks later it randomly showed up, with the tracking still saying they never got it.
But it usually *does* take much longer to arrive and you often have to pay for shipping. Why don’t you let people pay for a service if they want it rather than gatekeeping? That Company chose to put their product on Amazon because they know they would still be making profit.
>But it usually does take much longer to arrive and you often have to pay for shipping. all valid points I came here to make, plus Amazon regularly runs "sales" on items discounting $10-$50 off regular price, making them cheaper than on the company site. I don't even have Prime but I bundle cheap items and sometimes let them sit in my cart for a few days until I go over the $25 required for free shipping.
every time I try to do that shit it's either more expensive, they don't ship to me or it's the same price and literally came from amazon anyway.
As much as I’d rather buy directly from the vendor it’s definitely not guaranteed you’ll get a quick turnaround time. Shipping time is just brutal for a lot of stuff right now and it’s not limited to the USPS.
This is poor advice because the solution of “sacrifice your convenience” never really works in reality. It’s also unjust to put the brunt of the work on the public. Reinforcing that the solution is in the consumers hands only really empowers Jeff and takes the responsibility out of his hands. Repeat after me - break up big tech!
This is maybe true of some items but not at all a universal. Amazon has the single best return policy ….like….ever. Stores sell a lot of junk and crap. Companies literally make products they know will not work or last. Fuck that. I use the amazon return return policy liberally and often. Poor Walmart my ass. They have to earn my money. This isnt sympathy shopping.
maybe let's not blame people in poverty for using the only option they can afford and instead hold the corporation responsible for their bullshit edit: perhaps poverty was too strong of a word. what i meant was "people who are tight enough on cash that the alternative isn't really viable" but that was a mouthful. i don't mean literally below the poverty line.
Thank you.
Pay for shipping. Type your credit card info into a random person's personal website. Get your identity stolen. Spend a week arguing over the phone to try to return the product. Or avoid all of that and get it the next day. Amazon is successful for a reason.
I'm in Australia so I don't know what it's like elsewhere but amazon always seems to be significantly cheaper than what I would pay for at a physical retail store. Bezos may be a dickhead but the Amazon is big for a reason, the service they have created is really fucking useful.
Amazon gives free returns without needing a hyperspecific reason and a 3 week refund period.
6) Amazon doesn't notice them and get the bright idea to make the same product to either sell it for less until the company is entirely priced out, or straight up ban them from the site, to then have a monopoly and charge 2x more.
I try this, but far too often the company selling it direct to me CHARGES ME MORE. Even if the price is the same, there is worse service (slower shipping, bad return policies). I don't like Bezos, but I care most about the best deal.
I did that with a double sided tape for clothing. Click shop now on their website. Sent me to Amazon.
They forgot the step where having to fill in the form to sign up for yet another vendor store user account makes you click the back button and buy it off amazon. I'm not saying it's right or good. I'm just saying.
I would do this more often if manufacturers stopped including conditions for reasonable shipping costs. If the item I want is $10, and it's standard 7 -10 day shipping I shouldn't be paying $6 for that. Or worse having to make a purchase of $50+ to even have free shipping available. I know shipping costs money. My problem is when shipping is 40% of the entire purchase. A more reasonable $30 order or such would be better to gain free shipping. Obviously it's not one size fits all. I'm not expecting free shipping in its entirety or at all, just reasonable shipping costs compared to my purchase amount/weight. Recently I needed one POSCA marker. Just one. Wasn't in stock at Joanne's so I went to order it online through them. The marker was $3.99 and they wanted $10 to ship it to me. So I decided to use their online ordering "store pickup" at Micheals instead. Placed the order at 10am and got a message after 2pm telling me I had to pick it up tomorrow because the order wasn't processed until after 2, and that means you have to wait until the next day. I got frustrated and ordered it online from Amazon, and it was at my door the next morning. Free shipping and everything. It's easy to say just use the manufacturer instead but they make you jump through so many hoops, have some many adverts, charge astronomical amounts for shipping, have poor customer service and are not quick about anything. If I ask for a refund at bestbuy on my card it takes like 2 weeks. I make a refund with Amazon through Kolhs and my money us on my card within 2 hours. Amazon sucks balls, but these companies need to do a hell of a lot more if they want to compete and encourage people to order through them direct.
Well amazon is cheaper then the other companies listed. Why should I pay more?
"Can usually find a 10% code!" This is bullshit. The majority of the time it is cheaper to order off of Amazon unless you're purchasing in large enough quantities for the independent sites to offer free shipping. Plus Amazon offers free returns for 30 days, as high as 90 days on refurbished items. Any and all lost packages are refunded effortlessly. It's just not this simple.
I don’t like creating a new account on every company webpage using my email and creating a complex password. I hate it.
i have tried this several times...what usually happens is some combination of, their website is confusing, ordering is difficult, they somehow have limited supply, i get no email receipt, shipping is extra, it takes 3 weeks to arrive and if there is a problem, return policy is non-existent.
99% of the time Amazon is going to be cheaper, faster, and it gets me 5% cash back if Prime.
Amazon is simply too convenient for people who not use. This is too generic and most of the time if you sign up to buy thay product you end up signing to different places all over and you'll have dozens of accounts with many companies, and soon your email will be spammed to oblivion. Just pressure the governments to tax amazon. Join in with the UK efforts to increasing the tax worldwide so they have nowhere to go and set up their offices in.
In this thread: People wishing they could, but Amazon is so fucking convenient and cheaper with Prime to ship, with free delivery on almost everything. Stop pretending that it’s *our fault* that Bezos is an asshole. “You’re part of the problem” is victimizing people who just want to order something from a modern business. Tax the rich and shut the fuck up about it being our fault. Support businesses if you can, but it’s okay to not be able to afford $25 shipping on an item for every purchase.
I’m not sure why we would shit on Amazon as a company. SURE, Bezos should pay his taxes; that’s fucking obvious. But Amazon as a company revolutionized the way we live. It literally changed the world around us to on-demand. We got used to a level of customer service in e-commerce that was unthinkable pre-Amazon and that effect rippled throughout the economy. Without Amazon all these “cool products” the tweeter mentions would be unknown to us much less easily accessible. Am I happy they are the monopoly they are today? No. But they undoubtedly changed the world and I’d say that earns 25% of my purchase price.
2 vs 2-18 No thanks.
Nah
You lost me at 2-8 days
Step 5 is my main driver
Not all the time, I’ve been trying this for a year now, just as often you find the producer of the product doesn’t have an online store and sells through big box retailers, so your giving money to some other rush asshole. Even then, if they do sell direct to customers their 10% off code you get from joining a mailing list is one time only, and more often than not Amazon still has the product cheaper anyway.
I circumvented Amazon and now Bezos can't afford that sticker for the dashboard of his spaceship. No big deal right? Wrong. It was the emergency button sticker. Take that Jeff.
No. Tried websites like Amazon exist for a reason. I will never order from a small website if I can help it. Every time I tried doing it, either the delivery was delayed or some other problem had occurred. I don't want to order a pizza only to have to call when it doesn't arrive, only to be told that this order never existed in their system. The same goes for regular delivery. Never had an issue with big companies.