Convenience and cost, means amazon isn’t going anywhere. You can spend more time, and more money avoiding them if you want, but don’t be upset others aren’t willing.
Plus, even when you do find what you’re looking for elsewhere, are Walmart, Target, and Home Depot really so benevolent? The odds of me finding what I need from a small locally owned business (at least in my area) are pretty slim.
I know that feeling all too well. The small local grocery store is, at minimum, 2 to 3 times more expensive than Walmart, or even the Dollar General a block away. The local hardware stores aren’t much better.
This is also my experience. Recent example, I can buy a 1.9L container of mayonnaise for $8.99 at Costco to make homemade potato salad for my grandmother’s 95th birthday party. But I forgot to prepare until the last minute and realized I had no mayo, and so I went to the local place who charged $7.99 for 443mL of mayonnaise from the same brand.
Amazon sells 3.78L of mayonnaise (dear God who needs that much mayo?) for $18.70, making them not quite as competitive as Costco in terms of price per mL, but pretty damn close, and moreover still way better than the local place.
Increasingly I can’t be confident what the quality level of products will be at those places. Amazon has huge counterfeit item and poor quality item problems that they don’t care to fix. I know Target will have reasonable quality, I know if I buy a brand name product l, I’m getting that product. I know if I buy Walmart brand, the quality is lower, but not pure garbage. I currently get none of those guarantees on Amazon, even Amazon basics aren’t safe from these problems.
Definitely had issues with quality and/or damage, haven’t gotten a true counterfeit yet to my knowledge, but I can at least partially attribute that to the fact that I almost never buy things that aren’t shipped/sold by either Amazon or the manufacturer.
When I shop I usually search for something on Amazon, check if the manufacturer has a website & it is comparably priced, check if the local stores (Target, etc.) stock it at a fair price, and if all else fails I buy through Amazon (after checking CamelCamelCamel to verify I’m getting a good deal).
To my knowledge the worst offers for counterfeits are tech items like cables, chargers, and drives. I’ve also learned some designer board games are commonly counterfeits. Amazon comingles stock so it doesn’t matter who you buy from, if someone puts counterfeit product X into the system you have a chance to get it.
If you’re buying a branded product and it is shipped by the official brand store on Amazon, then you can be assured it is not counterfeit. If you buy a branded product that is shipped by Amazon it could be co-mingled with counterfeit stock.
Although I agree that might happen I think they have improved on it and at the end except for time lost that you cannot recover, the customer support is so good that you always get your money back or s replacement without issues.
Then I decide I want to try and support a small business. So, I find a website for one that looks legit enough. So far so good. Find the product. Yep! Go to check out… $10+ delivery fee. I know that’s not their fault. I do. But I’m not spending $20 on a $10 item that’s just not reasonable. Sometimes it’s fine to eat that cost if it’s like a cart full of stuff with just the one fee but for a bunch of individual things that I can’t get locally it doesn’t work.
But of course, and I’m not saying that. But I do think it’s perhaps a little bold to actively criticize a stranger for having the audacity to do business with Amazon as if they aren’t, for instance, using AWS-backed websites literally every day.
I’m not saying Amazon is good, but rather that hypocritically trying to call out people for failing purity tests that you yourself almost certainly don’t pass isn’t a particularly productive or positive use of one’s time.
That’s exactly why climate change is going to kill us all.
Edit : you can downvote me, but if you systematically go for the easiest and cheapest solution, and can do otherwise (and generally, you do), you’re a big part of the problem.
On Kbin, we see the # of upvotes and # of downvote separately, is that not the case here?
Also, the goal should maybe be turning the systematically easiest and cheapest solution into one that’s also green. Definitely some steps to get there though
Our personal responsibility is to make the State not deficient though, not a boycott of amazon.com or whatever you’re suggesting. A boycott of even their digital and physical storefronts probably wouldn’t even change much, since Amazon makes most of their profit via AWS. Something like 33% of all internet traffic goes through AWS in some fashion, so boycotting that is even harder. The only real option I can see is to make the State regulate them in some manner because all the people in the world can’t fight a trillion dollar company themselves.
There are certain things I can’t get anywhere near me from anyone other than Amazon, and I live in a city of 6 million people. Sadly I need to use Amazon about once a month. Getting groceries from them is ridiculous though.
Aren’t there any online shopping alternatives to amazon? Are they really the only online vendor who is allowed to mail stuff to your 6 million people city?
Hey, if anyone else or any store can get me the things I need within the week I 100% go there. but no one else is stocking specific temperature controllers anywhere near me. I can’t get 3D printer resin anywhere that isn’t a 40 minute drive away. Specific wiring I need, AliExpress is the only other company with it. Amazon stocks a lot of niche things that no one else is carrying.
It’s not just about the monopoly though. Their site is rife with counterfeits and is basically Wish now. Want a GE lightbulb? There’s a 50/50 chance you’re getting a counterfeit that isn’t UL tested so you don’t know it’s safe, and that’s if you can even find the product at all hidden between the random name generator company listings for random garbage that’s slightly similar to the search term you entered.
And if there was a competitor that sold only legit products without having to compete with AmazonBasics (who just steals designs and sells them for a cheaper price) or from JSOIY (who also steals designs, and yes, I made up that name), people would use them instead of Amazon.
A monopoly enables this behavior, since there are no other options.
What’s a better alternative? All I know of is eBay, but I used Amazon to buy DVDs and Blu-Rays to support films, and eBay sales don’t count as disc sales the same way that Amazon sales do.
So drive around from store to store in 104°F (40°C) heat looking for the thing that I want, but everyone seems to be out of, just to go home and order it online anyway (for less money, too) because no one had it?
With Fry’s and Radio Shack gone, I can’t even find electronics anymore. Best Buy is fucking useless, and they just closed the one nearest to me (not surprised. They were always out of stock of everything).
If I need electronics, I’m honestly not sure what my choice is.
I would have said Newegg for electronics but that too got enshittified a few years ago. A shame, because their offerings were pretty competitive and I could build a computer at a reasonable price.
I wish microcenter opened more locations. From what I’ve seen it’s essentially a modern day radio shack, but they have only 25 locations (in only 16 states!), and none of them are in my state. They do sell things online I guess, but they just aren’t as competitive online compared to their physical stores.
So do you just assume everyone lives within convenient travel distance of a wide variety of shops that would supply everything that they could possibly want, or are you claiming moral superiority because you shop at Walmart instead of online at Amazon?
Seriously, though… just because there are other vendors that sell online does mean that each and every thing someone may want/need is available from other vendors online. Amazon has spent decades forcing competitors either out of business or to work through Amazon. They also leverage volume and loss leaders to drastically undercut prices of competitors they can’t eliminate.
Even if you can find someone else that has what you’re looking for and are willing to pay more (and for the record, I absolutely pay extra to avoid Amazon whenever possible), there are a lot of small businesses that provide even shittier service (or are outright scams) than Amazon. You may or may not actually get what you ordered, and if something is wrong with it, good luck getting a replacement or refund short of a formal dispute with your bank. Many require credit cards for online transactions, and you have no idea how they’re handling that data. Plenty exist that store CC info on local servers with nonexistent security precautions.
“Just shop online elsewhere” is just as lazy and undeservedly self-righteous as assuming everyone can just walk to a physical store to buy whatever they want.
So did you just skip the first half of my comment, or did you not understand the words?
Newsflash: not everyone in America lives in a major urban area where a wide variety of shops are available, let alone small independent shops. I live 30 minutes from the nearest city, which is a small city. There’s a huge amount of products that are not available in either my immediate area or even in the closes city. I don’t mind paying extra to avoid major chains, and I typically look elsewhere before resorting to Amazon, but paying extra and spending 2+ hours in a car to avoid Amazon is not a viable alternative.
If you’re going to talk about the “natural state of things”, then I assume you simply go out into the nearest forest, cut down a tree, and build whatever you need using the assortment of stone tools you’ve hand crafted?
ya thats my problem too. at least an 1.5 hr drive one way to get to “shops” that are not ace hardware or safeway. i live in a town of about 2k up a steep mountain pass. i would love to ditch amazon but its really really hard to
Yeah, I’ve been making a real effort to look for alternatives to Amazon whenever possible. It’s hard, though, depending on what you want. Sure, there’s a ton of stuff on Amazon that I can get local if I’m willing to put up with some inconvenience. I don’t buy books off of Amazon anymore, for example, because I’d rather call the small independent book shop that’s about 35 minutes drive from my house, have them order the book for me, and then drive out and pick it up.
But the sheer volume of things Amazon sells means there’s going to be LOTS of things that they have that just aren’t available around me. A new fan for my specific model of laptop? A replacement knob for my specific washing machine (for less than a dollar)? Amazon it is.
No, your comment was clear: anyone who doesn’t make whatever level of effort it takes to never shop at Amazon infuriates you. Furthermore, you assume that there are always other choices besides Amazon and Walmart. What you obviously still aren’t getting is that those other choices besides Amazon and Walmart may not be practical for everyone.
Amazon is bad. No one is disagreeing. But if I need a left-handed monkey wrench and my choices are either buy from Amazon or drive 2 hours to the closest major city, go to a big box store that let’s be honest, isn’t really much better than Amazon in terms of economic impact, and then drive 2 hours back, you being infuriated by my choosing to not waste half a day to choose the slightly-lesser-of-two-evils is a lovely demonstration of privilege.
LOL the state of buying discs in brick and mortar store is abysmal now. I used to like buying discs from Walmart but the one near me has relegated everything to a bargain bin of kids’ movies, basically. Practically the only way to buy discs now is to do so online, or at a Best Buy or Barnes & Noble if you have one near you
Dang, I feel lucky to have a chain that is basically the modern equivalent of Blockbuster with several stores near me. It’s so much fun being able to physically browse through movies.
Genuine question, what better alternative is there? I put a lot of effort into buying from small businesses with good morals, but I have no idea how to do this for the things I would buy online. If I don’t buy from amazon, i’m buying from target, Walmart, or some other supermarket. I don’t see how those are better.
eBay is ok for a good portion of what Amazon sells, but it’s not a perfect replacement. It’s not all auctions now. There are lots of things you purchase outright and they ship very quickly. Watch out for people who resell Amazon items at a mark up though. It too is not all that much better than Walmart, Amazon, etc, but at least you keep anyone from dominating.
Otherwise, sometimes there are small sellers you can find for niche products.
The difference that there is at least some choice. The choices may all be bad, but still better than Amazon. They have no realy big competition. The fact that it is so hard not to order on Amazon is very concerning.
It’s also so much more expensive to buy from small, local businesses. Not everyone can afford to do that, no matter how much they hate buying from Amazon or Walmart.
It is faster to have 20 slaves in 20 different parts of the warehouse stuff 20 different envelopes than it is to have 1 single slave go to 20 different locations in a warehouse and stuff a box.
Their obligation is just to get the product from their facilities to your door. They don’t give a shit HOW it gets there.
I mean, if it were 20 different items I could probably put it down to that but there were six packets of each of the flavours and types. You’d think all the Alfredo’s could go in one package, for example, not each in their own padded envelope. Does pasta even need padding? It was just ridiculous, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a disgruntled worker engaged in a bit of malicious compliance!
I used to work in a shipping depot that delivered to Amazon, among others.
And whenever a shipment went out to Amazon, we had to take packages of 20 items, like they’d be delivered to retailers, and rip them open to put each item into packaging carton individually, before it was even delivered into an Amazon warehouse.
In our case, it was parasols, so it could be different for smaller items or just items that are more likely to be ordered in bulk, but yeah, I imagine, Amazon just does not want to deal with the packaging in their warehouse, if possible.
I’m in the process of manually transferring my wishlists for ebooks and physical books to Kobo and B&N atm. Then I’ll be transferring my other wishlists to Notebook.
After all that I’ll just use Amazon like a search engine.
They’re not shipping groceries from an Amazon warehouse lol. It’s usually just whole foods. Basically the same as doing a doordash or Instacart etc. It actually used to be pretty sweet because if you had prime they didn’t add the delivery fee so it would save me a trip. Sadly, they got rid of the free delivery. I believe there is or was a class action about them charging the delivery fee now
So at least in Europe, where they can unionize and can and do protest for their rights, I don’t see them as any worse than many other multinational chains that do the same.
Do you happen to know whether they actually are unionized in EU countries though, or just could? Genuine question, as I couldn’t tell you (as a German citizen)
Aside from that though, even if warehouse and delivery workers’ conditions were absolutely fine, their monopolistic tendencies are still somewhat of an issue. I’ll try not to turn this into a full essay, because this topic can get real philosophical REAL fast (we’re about 3 winded sentences away, I’d guesstimate).
But: AWS aka Amazon’s cloud business prints SO incredibly much money that they can perhaps unfairly undercut a grocery competitor like Kroger’s, Aldi, and whatnot are their names, that they can start to have a really, really good advantage quite quickly (as hinted to by OP’s order above: not plastics, not electronics, not household goods – food). In case any reader isn’t aware, grocery chains’ margins are absurdly, comically low.
The firm policies/microeconomics philosophy comes in here: how much cross-subsidizing should an undertaking actually be allowed to do? In other words, when is a company expanding too much – even though expansion is something that you could argue to be a core, if not the integral part of what defines a business? Europeans will perhaps see this a bit more strictly, whereas Americans might be inclined to answer close to unlimited here, but keep in mind, this can lead to Mega-everything-corp faster than you realize or like.
I didn’t make all of this up on the spot just now, BTW (some first further “readings”). This has been a somewhat well known issue for some years now, and people knew there could be a day coming where we as a (global) society have to ask ourselves: How many areas can a company dominate in before it becomes too dangerous?
Amazon may be monopolistic, but I have access to more products through from different brand names than I do through the rest of the local multinational chains.
That’s the core issue, I think.
Amazon might be the first major case of monopolistic tendencies where the firm’s behavior hasn’t been obviously disadvantageous (or obvious it will be in the not so distant future) to the consumers from the getgo. So you’d effectively be regulating and banning towards a worse consumer experience, as of now…
As an ex-warehouse employee, I will go out of my way of I have to get something just to not buy something online. The conditions of most warehouses I’ve seen, especially in this heat, should be illegal.
People here are saying they want to pay Amazon’s competitors, and your argument is that they shouldn’t do that because the workers should be starting their own Amazon competitors…
Their social situation probably does. If you are a good for nothing, or they won’t hire you anywhere else, what would you rather? Being homeless or working for Amazon?
Well my social situation means I have to take a bargain where it becomes available to me. Not just hypothetically, I’ve actually been homeless in the past so I don’t want to end up there again because I was spending more than I need to of my meager income in some desperate attempt to support people who own brick and mortar businesses. That’s a lot more than I’ve ever had.
If you know exactly what you’re looking for and you know the seller, Amazon can be alright. I just bought an album CD there from MusicMagpie who’s set up shop on Amazon.
But if what you want is vague, be prepared to be bombarded with a bunch of Chinese sellers with weird brand names going through shittier couriers than Amazon themselves. It’s getting worse than AliExpress at this point.
You mean you don’t want the Zhrmgdtech USB C Charger Cable 2M 2Pack Type C Charger Fast Charging 3A Lead Nylon Braided for Samsung Galaxy S21 S20 S10 S9 S8 A12 A20e A21s A40 A51 A70,Huawei P30 P20 P40,Google Pixel,Xiaomi,Sony Xperia,Switch?
It’s a catch 22 because if you already know the seller but are opting for their Amazon vendor e-commerce channel you’re undercutting their business by taking Amazon’s promo discount on shipping today and forcing the seller to make up the difference in vendor fees. Then when your favorite reasonable merchants that balance price and quality get squeezed out of business by cheap knockoffs competing on the same platform in 1-5 years you’ll wonder why you can’t find quality products of that type anymore except from niche boutique merchants who have to charge even more to ship quality to your door than they used to.
Not exactly true for Australian consumer laws. The retailer has to resolve a and b. C manufacturers and sellers need to adhere to standards but Amazon would be liable for selling dangerous products. Also get insurance.
I find it mildly infuriating that people still buy on Amazon 😅
Convenience and cost, means amazon isn’t going anywhere. You can spend more time, and more money avoiding them if you want, but don’t be upset others aren’t willing.
Plus, even when you do find what you’re looking for elsewhere, are Walmart, Target, and Home Depot really so benevolent? The odds of me finding what I need from a small locally owned business (at least in my area) are pretty slim.
I know that feeling all too well. The small local grocery store is, at minimum, 2 to 3 times more expensive than Walmart, or even the Dollar General a block away. The local hardware stores aren’t much better.
This is also my experience. Recent example, I can buy a 1.9L container of mayonnaise for $8.99 at Costco to make homemade potato salad for my grandmother’s 95th birthday party. But I forgot to prepare until the last minute and realized I had no mayo, and so I went to the local place who charged $7.99 for 443mL of mayonnaise from the same brand.
Amazon sells 3.78L of mayonnaise (dear God who needs that much mayo?) for $18.70, making them not quite as competitive as Costco in terms of price per mL, but pretty damn close, and moreover still way better than the local place.
Mayo for the whole year, if it doesnt expire before you use it up
the big boxes can operate at a loss until they choke out the local guys. after that they have a monopoly and can do whatever they want.
Increasingly I can’t be confident what the quality level of products will be at those places. Amazon has huge counterfeit item and poor quality item problems that they don’t care to fix. I know Target will have reasonable quality, I know if I buy a brand name product l, I’m getting that product. I know if I buy Walmart brand, the quality is lower, but not pure garbage. I currently get none of those guarantees on Amazon, even Amazon basics aren’t safe from these problems.
Definitely had issues with quality and/or damage, haven’t gotten a true counterfeit yet to my knowledge, but I can at least partially attribute that to the fact that I almost never buy things that aren’t shipped/sold by either Amazon or the manufacturer.
When I shop I usually search for something on Amazon, check if the manufacturer has a website & it is comparably priced, check if the local stores (Target, etc.) stock it at a fair price, and if all else fails I buy through Amazon (after checking CamelCamelCamel to verify I’m getting a good deal).
To my knowledge the worst offers for counterfeits are tech items like cables, chargers, and drives. I’ve also learned some designer board games are commonly counterfeits. Amazon comingles stock so it doesn’t matter who you buy from, if someone puts counterfeit product X into the system you have a chance to get it.
If you’re buying a branded product and it is shipped by the official brand store on Amazon, then you can be assured it is not counterfeit. If you buy a branded product that is shipped by Amazon it could be co-mingled with counterfeit stock.
Although I agree that might happen I think they have improved on it and at the end except for time lost that you cannot recover, the customer support is so good that you always get your money back or s replacement without issues.
Then I decide I want to try and support a small business. So, I find a website for one that looks legit enough. So far so good. Find the product. Yep! Go to check out… $10+ delivery fee. I know that’s not their fault. I do. But I’m not spending $20 on a $10 item that’s just not reasonable. Sometimes it’s fine to eat that cost if it’s like a cart full of stuff with just the one fee but for a bunch of individual things that I can’t get locally it doesn’t work.
Fine, then I’ll be upset at people continuing to support a company that systematically abuses its workforce.
I’d love to see the list of companies that produced all the various products in your house.
Nothing’s perfect. But that doesn’t mean we should accept the worse.
But of course, and I’m not saying that. But I do think it’s perhaps a little bold to actively criticize a stranger for having the audacity to do business with Amazon as if they aren’t, for instance, using AWS-backed websites literally every day.
I’m not saying Amazon is good, but rather that hypocritically trying to call out people for failing purity tests that you yourself almost certainly don’t pass isn’t a particularly productive or positive use of one’s time.
Amazon is hardly the worst, just the biggest
Are you referring to the concept of capitalism?
That’s exactly why climate change is going to kill us all.
Edit : you can downvote me, but if you systematically go for the easiest and cheapest solution, and can do otherwise (and generally, you do), you’re a big part of the problem.
not everyone has the ability to drive 50+ miles to get to the le creuset outlet store
On Kbin, we see the # of upvotes and # of downvote separately, is that not the case here?
Also, the goal should maybe be turning the systematically easiest and cheapest solution into one that’s also green. Definitely some steps to get there though
It shouldn’t be on the individual consumers to avoid monopolies; we need antitrust enforcement; we need to break up Amazon.
It shouldn’t be indeed, but unfortunately it is. We can’t just hide our personal responsibility behind the State when the State is deficient.
Unfortunately, organizing on the scale necessary to defeat Amazon is damn near impossible. I think doing so politically is our best bet.
Our personal responsibility is to make the State not deficient though, not a boycott of amazon.com or whatever you’re suggesting. A boycott of even their digital and physical storefronts probably wouldn’t even change much, since Amazon makes most of their profit via AWS. Something like 33% of all internet traffic goes through AWS in some fashion, so boycotting that is even harder. The only real option I can see is to make the State regulate them in some manner because all the people in the world can’t fight a trillion dollar company themselves.
Why not both? I’m happy to avoid buying Amazon (do I really need to avoid walking to the store?) while advocating for crackdowns on them.
There are certain things I can’t get anywhere near me from anyone other than Amazon, and I live in a city of 6 million people. Sadly I need to use Amazon about once a month. Getting groceries from them is ridiculous though.
Aren’t there any online shopping alternatives to amazon? Are they really the only online vendor who is allowed to mail stuff to your 6 million people city?
Not ones that can get me the things I need within the month.
Nah you’re just bad at online shopping.
Nah, some shit would take weeks to get to me from the few other alternate vendors, and I;m not waiting that long.
I think you just proved their point lol.
Hey, if anyone else or any store can get me the things I need within the week I 100% go there. but no one else is stocking specific temperature controllers anywhere near me. I can’t get 3D printer resin anywhere that isn’t a 40 minute drive away. Specific wiring I need, AliExpress is the only other company with it. Amazon stocks a lot of niche things that no one else is carrying.
I wish RadioShack survived
It’s not just about the monopoly though. Their site is rife with counterfeits and is basically Wish now. Want a GE lightbulb? There’s a 50/50 chance you’re getting a counterfeit that isn’t UL tested so you don’t know it’s safe, and that’s if you can even find the product at all hidden between the random name generator company listings for random garbage that’s slightly similar to the search term you entered.
And if there was a competitor that sold only legit products without having to compete with AmazonBasics (who just steals designs and sells them for a cheaper price) or from JSOIY (who also steals designs, and yes, I made up that name), people would use them instead of Amazon.
A monopoly enables this behavior, since there are no other options.
Ok fair point.
Don’t even get me started on phone chargers. Good fucking luck. The cheap knockoffs are such a fire hazard too I stg
Anker…?
That’s actually my go to a lot of the time now lol
Same. I use their chargers, cords, ear buds, and speakers and all have worked great with no issues.
As with all electronics, just look for products with UL or ETL certification and you should be OK.
Thanks I’ll keep that in mind for the future
What’s a better alternative? All I know of is eBay, but I used Amazon to buy DVDs and Blu-Rays to support films, and eBay sales don’t count as disc sales the same way that Amazon sales do.
This is completely unrelated but I love your instance name lol!!
Thanks! This actually is a Lotide instance! We’re kinda like Lemmy and Kbin but we have more of a Hacker News type feel
An actual shop?
So drive around from store to store in 104°F (40°C) heat looking for the thing that I want, but everyone seems to be out of, just to go home and order it online anyway (for less money, too) because no one had it?
With Fry’s and Radio Shack gone, I can’t even find electronics anymore. Best Buy is fucking useless, and they just closed the one nearest to me (not surprised. They were always out of stock of everything).
If I need electronics, I’m honestly not sure what my choice is.
B&h photo is a good alternative for electronics. Non electronics I’m not sure there is anything close to the selection and prices of Amazon.
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I try to do Best Buy but often times they don’t have what I want. I have HEB for groceries luckily
I would have said Newegg for electronics but that too got enshittified a few years ago. A shame, because their offerings were pretty competitive and I could build a computer at a reasonable price.
Sure, but the OP is talking about groceries…
truuu
I wish microcenter opened more locations. From what I’ve seen it’s essentially a modern day radio shack, but they have only 25 locations (in only 16 states!), and none of them are in my state. They do sell things online I guess, but they just aren’t as competitive online compared to their physical stores.
So do you just assume everyone lives within convenient travel distance of a wide variety of shops that would supply everything that they could possibly want, or are you claiming moral superiority because you shop at Walmart instead of online at Amazon?
Bruh I live in a place like the one you mentioned but even then I can’t find everything I want so online it is.
You are aware that there are other online vendors than amazon, right?
Really? I had no idea! /s
Seriously, though… just because there are other vendors that sell online does mean that each and every thing someone may want/need is available from other vendors online. Amazon has spent decades forcing competitors either out of business or to work through Amazon. They also leverage volume and loss leaders to drastically undercut prices of competitors they can’t eliminate.
Even if you can find someone else that has what you’re looking for and are willing to pay more (and for the record, I absolutely pay extra to avoid Amazon whenever possible), there are a lot of small businesses that provide even shittier service (or are outright scams) than Amazon. You may or may not actually get what you ordered, and if something is wrong with it, good luck getting a replacement or refund short of a formal dispute with your bank. Many require credit cards for online transactions, and you have no idea how they’re handling that data. Plenty exist that store CC info on local servers with nonexistent security precautions.
“Just shop online elsewhere” is just as lazy and undeservedly self-righteous as assuming everyone can just walk to a physical store to buy whatever they want.
And why do you think you have no other choice than Amazon and Walmart in America? It’s not a natural state of things.
So did you just skip the first half of my comment, or did you not understand the words?
Newsflash: not everyone in America lives in a major urban area where a wide variety of shops are available, let alone small independent shops. I live 30 minutes from the nearest city, which is a small city. There’s a huge amount of products that are not available in either my immediate area or even in the closes city. I don’t mind paying extra to avoid major chains, and I typically look elsewhere before resorting to Amazon, but paying extra and spending 2+ hours in a car to avoid Amazon is not a viable alternative.
If you’re going to talk about the “natural state of things”, then I assume you simply go out into the nearest forest, cut down a tree, and build whatever you need using the assortment of stone tools you’ve hand crafted?
ya thats my problem too. at least an 1.5 hr drive one way to get to “shops” that are not ace hardware or safeway. i live in a town of about 2k up a steep mountain pass. i would love to ditch amazon but its really really hard to
Yeah, I’ve been making a real effort to look for alternatives to Amazon whenever possible. It’s hard, though, depending on what you want. Sure, there’s a ton of stuff on Amazon that I can get local if I’m willing to put up with some inconvenience. I don’t buy books off of Amazon anymore, for example, because I’d rather call the small independent book shop that’s about 35 minutes drive from my house, have them order the book for me, and then drive out and pick it up.
But the sheer volume of things Amazon sells means there’s going to be LOTS of things that they have that just aren’t available around me. A new fan for my specific model of laptop? A replacement knob for my specific washing machine (for less than a dollar)? Amazon it is.
You obviously didn’t understand my comment. I may not have been clear, sorry if that was the case.
No, your comment was clear: anyone who doesn’t make whatever level of effort it takes to never shop at Amazon infuriates you. Furthermore, you assume that there are always other choices besides Amazon and Walmart. What you obviously still aren’t getting is that those other choices besides Amazon and Walmart may not be practical for everyone.
Amazon is bad. No one is disagreeing. But if I need a left-handed monkey wrench and my choices are either buy from Amazon or drive 2 hours to the closest major city, go to a big box store that let’s be honest, isn’t really much better than Amazon in terms of economic impact, and then drive 2 hours back, you being infuriated by my choosing to not waste half a day to choose the slightly-lesser-of-two-evils is a lovely demonstration of privilege.
I said explicitly the contrary…
LOL the state of buying discs in brick and mortar store is abysmal now. I used to like buying discs from Walmart but the one near me has relegated everything to a bargain bin of kids’ movies, basically. Practically the only way to buy discs now is to do so online, or at a Best Buy or Barnes & Noble if you have one near you
Dang, I feel lucky to have a chain that is basically the modern equivalent of Blockbuster with several stores near me. It’s so much fun being able to physically browse through movies.
That sounds awesome, what’s the chain called? I’ll be traveling in about a month and I’d like to stop by if I come across one
Vintage Stock or Movie Trading Company depending on the location. They’re mostly in Missouri/Kansas/Oklahoma/Texas.
Ah, I won’t be going through any of those states unfortunately
lol at actual shop… Those were put out of business a LONGGGGGGGGGGGG time ago…
Shops these days are home depot, walmart, best buy, academy, etc…
Genuine question, what better alternative is there? I put a lot of effort into buying from small businesses with good morals, but I have no idea how to do this for the things I would buy online. If I don’t buy from amazon, i’m buying from target, Walmart, or some other supermarket. I don’t see how those are better.
Dumb question incoming; do these companies not offer delivery via postal services or the like? Where are you located?
Many companies do, I always try to purchase from the source if possible. Unfortunately some only deliver via other retailers like amazon and Walmart.
eBay is ok for a good portion of what Amazon sells, but it’s not a perfect replacement. It’s not all auctions now. There are lots of things you purchase outright and they ship very quickly. Watch out for people who resell Amazon items at a mark up though. It too is not all that much better than Walmart, Amazon, etc, but at least you keep anyone from dominating.
Otherwise, sometimes there are small sellers you can find for niche products.
How is eBay better than Amazon though?
colorful logo
The difference that there is at least some choice. The choices may all be bad, but still better than Amazon. They have no realy big competition. The fact that it is so hard not to order on Amazon is very concerning.
Tyranny of convenience 😬
It’s also so much more expensive to buy from small, local businesses. Not everyone can afford to do that, no matter how much they hate buying from Amazon or Walmart.
I can order from amazon, or spend an hour in the car to go to a store and pay a higher price.
I’m buying from amazon.
It is faster to have 20 slaves in 20 different parts of the warehouse stuff 20 different envelopes than it is to have 1 single slave go to 20 different locations in a warehouse and stuff a box.
Their obligation is just to get the product from their facilities to your door. They don’t give a shit HOW it gets there.
I mean, if it were 20 different items I could probably put it down to that but there were six packets of each of the flavours and types. You’d think all the Alfredo’s could go in one package, for example, not each in their own padded envelope. Does pasta even need padding? It was just ridiculous, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a disgruntled worker engaged in a bit of malicious compliance!
I used to work in a shipping depot that delivered to Amazon, among others.
And whenever a shipment went out to Amazon, we had to take packages of 20 items, like they’d be delivered to retailers, and rip them open to put each item into packaging carton individually, before it was even delivered into an Amazon warehouse.
In our case, it was parasols, so it could be different for smaller items or just items that are more likely to be ordered in bulk, but yeah, I imagine, Amazon just does not want to deal with the packaging in their warehouse, if possible.
It’s been a last resort shop for me for the last year or so
If a place can’t get me something in time, isn’t available, or ultra expensive, I’ll get it at Amazon
While I will exhaust all local alternatives first, Amazon is my pinch hitter when I can’t find The Thing anyplace else.
Easy to find stuff
We’ve shifted the grocery past of our shopping to Thrive Market.
Damn. Someone should open a store in your area. They would make a killing.
I’m in the process of manually transferring my wishlists for ebooks and physical books to Kobo and B&N atm. Then I’ll be transferring my other wishlists to Notebook.
After all that I’ll just use Amazon like a search engine.
What other option is there, Aliexpress?
Assuming the person lives in a normal town or village, you always have plenty of options. Groceries by post is totally absurd.
I would believe amazon ships fresh food via whole foods. If you live by a whole foods, its almost guaranteed that there is an alternative nearby.
Dude I live in a village - this is redic
They’re not shipping groceries from an Amazon warehouse lol. It’s usually just whole foods. Basically the same as doing a doordash or Instacart etc. It actually used to be pretty sweet because if you had prime they didn’t add the delivery fee so it would save me a trip. Sadly, they got rid of the free delivery. I believe there is or was a class action about them charging the delivery fee now
Not if you’re being green by not owning a car.
Why tho. Their shipping is amazing. And they have pretty much anything you could want.
Yeah, and warehouse workers piss into bottles and cannot unionize.
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Do you happen to know whether they actually are unionized in EU countries though, or just could? Genuine question, as I couldn’t tell you (as a German citizen)
Aside from that though, even if warehouse and delivery workers’ conditions were absolutely fine, their monopolistic tendencies are still somewhat of an issue. I’ll try not to turn this into a full essay, because this topic can get real philosophical REAL fast (we’re about 3 winded sentences away, I’d guesstimate).
But: AWS aka Amazon’s cloud business prints SO incredibly much money that they can perhaps unfairly undercut a grocery competitor like Kroger’s, Aldi, and whatnot are their names, that they can start to have a really, really good advantage quite quickly (as hinted to by OP’s order above: not plastics, not electronics, not household goods – food). In case any reader isn’t aware, grocery chains’ margins are absurdly, comically low.
The firm policies/microeconomics philosophy comes in here: how much cross-subsidizing should an undertaking actually be allowed to do? In other words, when is a company expanding too much – even though expansion is something that you could argue to be a core, if not the integral part of what defines a business? Europeans will perhaps see this a bit more strictly, whereas Americans might be inclined to answer close to unlimited here, but keep in mind, this can lead to Mega-everything-corp faster than you realize or like.
I didn’t make all of this up on the spot just now, BTW (some first further “readings”). This has been a somewhat well known issue for some years now, and people knew there could be a day coming where we as a (global) society have to ask ourselves: How many areas can a company dominate in before it becomes too dangerous?
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That’s the core issue, I think.
Amazon might be the first major case of monopolistic tendencies where the firm’s behavior hasn’t been obviously disadvantageous (or obvious it will be in the not so distant future) to the consumers from the getgo. So you’d effectively be regulating and banning towards a worse consumer experience, as of now…
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As an ex-warehouse employee, I will go out of my way of I have to get something just to not buy something online. The conditions of most warehouses I’ve seen, especially in this heat, should be illegal.
SDA is the union that represents Amazon workers in Australia.
As long as you weren’t buying empty bottles, that’s probably OK.
And I thought it was the drivers that have to piss in bottles.
No one’s forcing them to work there 🤷♂️. Start your own amazon.
yeah, minimum wage worker, just beat one the biggest companies of human history
People said the same thing about Walmart but the great Jeff bezos worked hard and did it.
People here are saying they want to pay Amazon’s competitors, and your argument is that they shouldn’t do that because the workers should be starting their own Amazon competitors…
Yep
Their social situation probably does. If you are a good for nothing, or they won’t hire you anywhere else, what would you rather? Being homeless or working for Amazon?
Well my social situation means I have to take a bargain where it becomes available to me. Not just hypothetically, I’ve actually been homeless in the past so I don’t want to end up there again because I was spending more than I need to of my meager income in some desperate attempt to support people who own brick and mortar businesses. That’s a lot more than I’ve ever had.
So it’s amazons fault for giving “good for nothings” a place to work? Sounds like they are helping the situation
And you will have no recourse wheb the product you buy is (a) not what you thought you were getting, (b) going to break in a month or two or © set your house on fire if you leave it plugged in.
Really cuz I have returned tons of stuff without even being questioned. Amazon doesn’t make most the products they sell?
My house isn’t on fire.
Oh thabks for clarifying I guess since the problem hasn’t happened to you in particular its not actually a problem. /s
I’ve returned so much stuff to Amazon without query, just a refund. I’d be surprised if you got any pushback as the process is 100% automated.
If you know exactly what you’re looking for and you know the seller, Amazon can be alright. I just bought an album CD there from MusicMagpie who’s set up shop on Amazon.
But if what you want is vague, be prepared to be bombarded with a bunch of Chinese sellers with weird brand names going through shittier couriers than Amazon themselves. It’s getting worse than AliExpress at this point.
You mean you don’t want the Zhrmgdtech USB C Charger Cable 2M 2Pack Type C Charger Fast Charging 3A Lead Nylon Braided for Samsung Galaxy S21 S20 S10 S9 S8 A12 A20e A21s A40 A51 A70,Huawei P30 P20 P40,Google Pixel,Xiaomi,Sony Xperia,Switch?
Weirdo.
It’s a catch 22 because if you already know the seller but are opting for their Amazon vendor e-commerce channel you’re undercutting their business by taking Amazon’s promo discount on shipping today and forcing the seller to make up the difference in vendor fees. Then when your favorite reasonable merchants that balance price and quality get squeezed out of business by cheap knockoffs competing on the same platform in 1-5 years you’ll wonder why you can’t find quality products of that type anymore except from niche boutique merchants who have to charge even more to ship quality to your door than they used to.
Not exactly true for Australian consumer laws. The retailer has to resolve a and b. C manufacturers and sellers need to adhere to standards but Amazon would be liable for selling dangerous products. Also get insurance.
Preach lol
It’s easy 🤷♂️
This does not affect you at all. Let others be.
why? it’s super convenient. I do all of my grocery shopping via Amazon Fresh. cheaper than a brick & mortar store