Comment by beezischillin
5 years ago
I am European, Amazon does not operate in my country but sometimes I am forced to order things from them that I cannot find locally and every time I look their discoverability looks worse and worse due to the quality of the 3rd party product listings. I used to use the UK Amazon page, now I am forced to use the German one and the last time I tried to order some parts for my 3d printer the majority of the sellers were Chinese shell companies, some of whose results were flat out scams. The delivery time is often a month or more on these results. I am always forced to dig deep into reviews just to see if the seller is reliable. I’ve seen confirmed buys say they received some random plastic kick knacks and a weight in the package instead of what they ordered, etc. I usually look for specific products to buy instead of just browsing for stuff so it’s pretty frustrating to have to deal with it. It makes some sense to me that Amazon be forced to claim some responsibility for barely policing their listings.
It’s not squarely an Amazon phenomena, of course, local e-retailers allowing 3rd party sellers in a similar manner ended up with similar results but it’s kinda frustrating to have to deal with all that as a buyer; it removes a lot of the convenience of buying products online when I have to conduct an investigation just to order what I wanted.
I've said this before, amazon's search is so horribly bad that there is really no other explanation than that it is somehow desired. Really searching for something specific typically gives you pages of cheap slightly related products (e.g. search for a specific tablet with part number even, gives tons of results of screen protectors and other crap), and you're lucky to find the actual product within the first couple of pages. Similarly small spelling changes can make a huge difference, but theres no obvious logic to it.
Really the experience of shopping at amazon in Europe is so off putting that I would rather only shop in person if they would be my only choice.
I'm in the UK and frankly we've gone a bit mad when it comes to Amazon orders, however I also noticed higher number of random sellers in China selling some most absurd items, often with silly prices too. I still find Amazon useful for basic stuff,like books, some household items,etc. However anything beyond that and I'm off their website in no time at all.