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Anyone here taking a dislike against Amazon?

jetsonx

Let's face it Amazon are great.

Their selection is great. Their customer service is great (not that you'll ever need it). Their prices can be competitive.

But there is a problem. Amazon seem to want to dominate e-commerce across most consumer product categories. They have become a giant industrial cash sucking vacuum of ecommerce. This cannot be good or fair to other retaillers. The platform that is the internet, in theory at least, should be the most equitable marketplace ever invented. But that's not happening.

Is there anyone else here who now takes a ABA (anyone but Amazon) approach when buying on the internet?

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Wabbit Ears

had my first negative amazon experience. bought a halloween costume, turns out was shipped from china. Didn't end up needing it as halloween basically didnt happen so went to return it. Seller first said sure I can use ait again another year and itll take to long to return, i said I still wanted to return it so they sent me a return slip to post back to china at my own expense. Dreading seeing how much this will cost when I drop into the post office tomorrow.

So need to be more careful that its a 'fulfilled by Amazon' because their sellers don't necessarily adhere to the same standards of no questions asked easy returns to a UK warehouse.

pgj2015

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

had my first negative amazon experience. bought a halloween costume, turns out was shipped from china. Didn't end up needing it as halloween basically didnt happen so went to return it. Seller first said sure I can use ait again another year and itll take to long to return, i said I still wanted to return it so they sent me a return slip to post back to china at my own expense. Dreading seeing how much this will cost when I drop into the post office tomorrow.

So need to be more careful that its a 'fulfilled by Amazon' because their sellers don't necessarily adhere to the same standards of no questions asked easy returns to a UK warehouse.

I bought a pair of expensive football boots on amazon lately, they started ripping after 3 wears. sent them back at a cost of 21 euro, got a new pair but sports direct haven't replied to my email showing the 21 euro receipt, sent it a week ago. a lot of products you buy on amazon are poorly made crap that falls apart soon after.

Gregor Samsa

That specifically sounds more like an issue with Sports Direct, TBH.

Capt'n Midnight

CelticRambler wrote: »

I have had to use Amazon's customer service a few times, and it is great, so that's one reason why I'll regularly go there first when looking for something that I need, and especially if I need it in a hurry.

From the margins they make they easily can afford it.

From the volume they buy and the dominance in the market they can force the suppliers to suck it up and take the hit.

the_syco

Eleven Benevolent Elephants wrote: »

The only issue I have is that they always delay the dispatch for Irish addresses, but it's not an issue for me as I usually use my UK address parcel Motel.

They used to around when COVID hit, but not so much anymore. For example, I ordered something 3am on Saturday, and it'll arrive tomorrow.

Ubbquittious wrote: »

It seems to me that people get hooked on Amazon out of convenience but all their stuff is available elsewhere. Lots of Chinese tat being re-sold on there you can also get on ebay or ali express , not that I use those two sites much either

I agree, but I can get it in a few days from Amazon for maybe 5% more, rather than having to wait a few weeks and possibly have to pay customs charges if ordering from China. If it's €20 or €30 more locally, I may buy it locally, but it's often €80 more expensive locally!

NSAman wrote: »

In the States, coupons, discount codes etc., mean Amazon are not always the best option.

100% agreed. But in Toronto, shipping from a store was very easy. Got stuff from Walmart sent with ease (item was never in stock in the store).

Church on Tuesday wrote: »

Their delivery charge has shot up over the last couple of years.

Prime pays for itself if you order a few things.

Oink

My understanding of Amazon is that its single purpose is to make money by any legal means necessary. They tolerate their staff only as long as they have to, until they have automated every possible corner of their operations.
They also invest $0.00 towards CSR unless they have to.
And they may eventually kill/cannibalize a major portion of our shops.

But yeah it’s convenient as fck.

Happy to be corrected on any of the above - maybe there is a soul in there somewhere.

LeBash

Ubbquittious wrote: »

That fcuker Bezos has too much money and there's real risk to giving him too much power. Once the smaller sites start to succumb to the competition we're in trouble but that doesn't seem to be happening yet

Too late for that. Their data scaling business is way bigger than the shopping platform. Scores of times bigger.

Amazon the shopping platform isn't something that gets to the top table meetings anymore.

pgj2015

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

That specifically sounds more like an issue with Sports Direct, TBH.

what im saying is the UK companies arent the best either.

Gregor Samsa

LeBash wrote: »

Too late for that. Their data scaling business is way bigger than the shopping platform. Scores of times bigger.

Amazon the shopping platform isn't something that gets to the top table meetings anymore.

This isn’t accurate.

Amazon’s own online stores accounted for $163 billion in revenue in the past year.

Marketplace - third party sellers using Amazon as a platform - accounted for $63 billion.

Amazon Web Services accounted for $40 billion in revenue.

Then there’s ad revenue/payment services, physical stores and subscription services making up $17, $17 and $22 billion respectively.

AWS is a big business, but e-commerce is still the main one by a long shot.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/amazon-revenue-model-2020/

steves2

I've stopped buying through Amazon unless I can't find it from an Irish retailer, I want to support Irish business especially at this time. I think a few people are trying this in the current situation.

Capt'n Midnight

Oink wrote: »

My understanding of Amazon is that its single purpose is to make money by any legal means necessary. They tolerate their staff only as long as they have to, until they have automated every possible corner of their operations.
They also invest $0.00 towards CSR unless they have to.
And they may eventually kill/cannibalize a major portion of our shops.

But yeah it’s convenient as fck.

Happy to be corrected on any of the above - maybe there is a soul in there somewhere.

It's a large corporation and IMHO for most of them "legal" means sharp practice, denying anything is illegal and pay any fines out of operating expenses until they get hit with massive PR damage or punitive fines or top management face prison.

But Amazon do seem to go out of their way to exploit those they can. I have zero expectations of them not abusing a monopoly position.

I'm tired of seeing stuff on Amazon that's multiples of the price on Aliexpress :P

appledrop

I have no time whatsoever for amazon.

Anytime I've ever tried to buy anything end up with about 20 different suppliers of the item + then I have to waste time wading though all that looking for cheapest one + one who delivers to Ireland because half the time they don't!

Thought I would have to use them during 1st lockdown as my sons birthday + all shops closed + back then Smyths didn't do click + connect.

It was going to take a full month to deliver toys he wanted!

Thankfully saved by small shop in Ireland who delivered in 3 days + I sent them a lovely email to say thanks.

You can keep Amazon not for me.

mrpdap

jetsonx wrote: »

Let's face it Amazon are great.

Their selection is great. Their customer service is great (not that you'll ever need it). Their prices can be competitive.

But there is a problem. Amazon seem to want to dominate e-commerce across most consumer product categories. They have become a giant industrial cash sucking vacuum of ecommerce. This cannot be good or fair to other retaillers. The platform that is the internet, in theory at least, should be the most equitable marketplace ever invented. But that's not happening.

Is there anyone else here who now takes a ABA (anyone but Amazon) approach when buying on the internet?

I avoid buying on the internet as much as possible preferring to buy local.
However I bought two items through Amazon recently as there were no other options. In both cases I found the product on the www but fulfillment was done through Amazon.

3d4life

Anyone with an interest in what it was like a few years ago to be a seller on Amazon might find The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell of interest

kal7

Am supporting local and Irish, and EU, not a monopoly style player in market, and avoid US companies when I can.

You may miss the local shops when there gone

Ubbquittious

If you become a seller on amazon and your product does well, amazon themselves will try to find the Chinese supplier of said product and cut you out

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-scooped-up-data-from-its-own-sellers-to-launch-competing-products-11587650015

[Deleted User]

Last Monday I decided to order an album from an Irish retailer on Discogs rather than give Amazon the business. Partly because of guilt trip hectoring from a neckbeard acquaintance who it turns out is friendly with the seller.

Paid for the item straight after the order.
Heard nothing until Friday evening when I got an “item unavailable - cancelled by seller” notification. There was a half-hearted message “sorry man, I sold the LP on Ebay last week and forgot to update the listing on Discogs”

Flakey b*stard.

Ordered it from Amazon yesterday and it’s shipped already.

pgj2015

Ubbquittious wrote: »

If you become a seller on amazon and your product does well, amazon themselves will try to find the Chinese supplier of said product and cut you out

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-scooped-up-data-from-its-own-sellers-to-launch-competing-products-11587650015

scumbags. that is probably the worst thing I have heard about them.

I only ever buy stuff from them with e-vouchers so I never actually give them my money.

harr

Just something that happened to me this week , loads of media telling everyone to order off
Irish stores .
I ordered a child’s toy , hand made wooden toy from a .ie website even had support small Irish businesses on website. Ordered something and when it arrived it had a big sticker hand made in Devon U.K and it was shipped from U.K. .. it turns out the company here in Ireland just order from this other company in U.K. with a fairly big mark up in price.

Jimbob1977

We complain about Amazon and sweatshop practices.

Yet we still want our cheap product yesterday.

heroics

Probably have over a 100 orders with Amazon since March. Use it for everything.

It’s the ease of use and the service.

Anytime day or night I think of something I need. Onto the app order and delivered generally pretty quickly. Plenty of updates/comms

Tried ordering from an Irish company recently and the website was such a pain to use I just gave up onto Amazon ordered in a couple of mins

CelticRambler

Ubbquittious wrote: »

If you become a seller on amazon and your product does well, amazon themselves will try to find the Chinese supplier of said product and cut you out

And in the same way, if you put in a bit of effort, you can probably find the Chinese supplier yourself on Ali and buy it for 25% of what Amazon charge.

I see several people mention the attraction of next-day delivery. I think that sums up the Amazon target market - the "I want it now" customer who can't get to a bricks-and-mortar store. There's very little that I buy that needs to get to me by tomorrow; in fact most of the time, I'd rather stuff wasn't delivered too quickly, because I'll often place several orders (from different merchants) while I'm away from home and aim to have them all delivered within the same few days, especially if they're coming by courier. The one and and only time I really, really, really needed a next-day delivery coincided with a Prime trial. My Friday morning order turned up ... on Monday - when I was 600km away. :rolleyes:

Potential-Monke

I've purchased a few things from Amazon over the years, but lately I don't like it. I've only ever had an Irish address, and I'm sick to the teeth of getting results in a search only to find out they don't ship to Ireland. As soon as they make a specific Irish site (seeing as the UK is no longer EU, would we be liable to customs charges now?), that only gives results of sellers or products that ship to Ireland, I try to avoid it.

I also hate the constant "Leave a comment" emails they send. If I want to leave a comment, I will, otherwise just feck off.

Guy:Incognito

jetsonx wrote: »

.

But there is a problem. Amazon seem to want to dominate e-commerce across most consumer product categories.

All businesses would like to totally dominate as much as they can.

nofools

Ubbquittious wrote: »

I've bought one thing off amazon ever because I couldn't get it elsewhere but the past 10 years or so I managed to avoid Amazon completely with little bother. It seems to me that people get hooked on Amazon out of convenience but all their stuff is available elsewhere. Lots of Chinese tat being re-sold on there you can also get on ebay or ali express , not that I use those two sites much either

That fcuker Bezos has too much money and there's real risk to giving him too much power. Once the smaller sites start to succumb to the competition we're in trouble but that doesn't seem to be happening yet

It is like an online poundshop in some categories.

Lots of tech bros with their wanky parasitic FBA businesses ripping off both sides and filling the planet with cheap throwaway plastic and silicone. Bezos happy to be the co middle man.

Really hard to pick a quality product sometimes.

No more custom from me if i can avoid it.

**** audible and kindle too, they have managed to get everyone reading the same fluff books at the same time for that bland hive mind life.

nofools

Potential-Monke wrote: »

I've purchased a few things from Amazon over the years, but lately I don't like it. I've only ever had an Irish address, and I'm sick to the teeth of getting results in a search only to find out they don't ship to Ireland. As soon as they make a specific Irish site (seeing as the UK is no longer EU, would we be liable to customs charges now?), that only gives results of sellers or products that ship to Ireland, I try to avoid it.

I also hate the constant "Leave a comment" emails they send. If I want to leave a comment, I will, otherwise just feck off.

Actually is there now a VAT saving? Saw something elsewhere where the euro price was less than the sterling number.

ExMachina1000

Walmart are similar. They would move into a mid size town and undercut every business within radius until nothing was left.

pgj2015

Potential-Monke wrote: »

I've purchased a few things from Amazon over the years, but lately I don't like it. I've only ever had an Irish address, and I'm sick to the teeth of getting results in a search only to find out they don't ship to Ireland. As soon as they make a specific Irish site (seeing as the UK is no longer EU, would we be liable to customs charges now?), that only gives results of sellers or products that ship to Ireland, I try to avoid it.

I also hate the constant "Leave a comment" emails they send. If I want to leave a comment, I will, otherwise just feck off.

parcel wizard.

Cordell

The fact it turned into some sort of ebay - a marketplace with too much dropshipping from China.

Potential-Monke

pgj2015 wrote: »

parcel wizard.

Haven't used them yet, but did use Parcel Motel and they damaged one of the items. It's been nearly 3 weeks since they said that it wasn't packaged properly and get onto the seller, even though they provided a picture showing it managed to get from the UK to Antrim in tact, and the damage was caused from there to my place.

So using a third party is no longer something I'm willing to do.