Comment by ljm
2 years ago
I love how Amazon has gone from customer obsession to the lowest of the lowest common denominator. Easiest boycott of my life to stop buying tripe from them.
They’ve successfully pivoted from customer obsession to obsessed customers.
Everything on Amazon is shady knock-off garbage.
I made the mistake of buying bandaids from there, they looked like a brand name but slightly off, they gave my kids rashes.
I made the mistake of buying LED light bulbs from there, the brand name was reputable but who knows if what I actually got was the same brand or a copy, they started flickering and randomly going out within a year.
I made the mistake of buying an LED monitor from there. It turned out to be some third party seller with a ridiculous return policy, so even though I had been conditioned to think Amazon had good return policy, now that they let third party sellers set their own policies I had to eat 30% of cost to return it.
No more Amazon for me.
Amazon sells a bunch of knockoff oil filters. I accidentally bought them for a Toyota and luckily noticed. Imagine blowing an engine because you tried to buy an OEM filter.
I've had good luck with https://www.rockauto.com/ though I haven't bought anything big through them.
The website is fun and nostalgic to me.
Light bulbs and batteries, I had to quit. Even if you’re buying name-brand, they’re so often counterfeit, it’s just not worth it.
I've had good luck with the eneloops, not sure how to tell if they're counterfeit but they've lasted multiple use over 3 years (I have a toddler so we use batteries like there's no tomorrow)
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Where else you go for online shopping?
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No no, sometimes they are simply nearly expired product made for resale in another country. I received a cr2032 that was meant to be sold in Türkiye before, but I’m pretty sure it was actually Duracell.
Back in 2010, in the insurance industry we were warned that imported electrical products were found forging the UL (Underwriters Laboratories) labels. Surge protectors and electrical strips were cited as prone to meltdown at the time.
I don't know if this was ever made public knowledge, but I'm wondering if this is now coming to fruition a decade later with all these e-bike fires.
I figure if I ever need to commit arson I'm just going to charge a Chinese e-bike on a Chinese power strip and feign ignorance.
Wow you did buy one of everything. So you definitely have the authority to say
> Everything on Amazon is shady knock-off garbage.
I have had the opposite experience. Everything I have bought over the past 20 years has been legit, except for one single thing.
I'm honestly confused how many people run into "nothing but counterfeits" and others never see any (or maybe the counterfeits aren't actually worse quality so this goes unnoticed)
The good thing with Amazon is their lax return policy. You have 1 month to test the product and if you don't like it, you return it to one of several available places (Wholefoods, Amazon locker, UPS, even leave it at the door for UPS to pick up, etc.)
No other store/website even comes close to this. BB gives you 2 weeks to try the product, and you'd have to drive all the way to their location to return the thing.
I keep purchasing from Amazon mainly because of the return policy, but I agree that there are cheaper options out there.
A Amazon marketplace product I ordered was wrong. I ordered a memory module and got the wrong one. After checkingy order I saw that I ordered the right one. No problem, I thought. Filled a return form, entered "wrong product" as reason, send it back.
The marketplace reseller denied my refund because he claims I swapped the product. I escalated the issue to the Amazon support. They told my that this decision is final and I can nothing do about it. I let my lawyer send them a letter. Only then Amazon gave me my money back.
This if the story how Amazon lost me as a long time customer because of poor and stubborn support over a 23€ product.
To be fair, they have to deal with a lot of returns fraud.
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I'm more curious what led you to contact a lawyer over a $20 loss... I don't think I've met a lawyer who was cheap enough for that to make sense. If you're going to fight a vendor, why not just do a bank chargeback?
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It’s weird to me that they refuse to do price adjustment for sales and force customers to return items and purchase again.
Who’s getting shafted on processing these returns?
Costco? Essentially lifetime return policy except 3 months on electronics.
I wonder how long before "Electronics" is no longer a useful categorization because everything other than food is electronic.
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I tried to quit shopping from Amazon, and I did find alternatives. But, where do you buy your electronics from? a TV, a GPU, a monitor? What's their return policy?
Amazon is 12 month 0% APR installments on anything >$50, 5% cash back on everything else, no questions asked drop-off at Whole Foods/UPS returns/pickups. Your money is back in your pocket that day.
I tried Best Buy, NewEgg, and eBay. NewEgg, you'd think, would be better. But their return policy is non-existent compared to the convenience Amazon provides.
I think how I feel Amazon.com has degraded is that they've made it so smooth to shop that I end up buying things I don't need. It feels like the site has spliced itself into my "oh yeah I can solve that" internal loop and makes me spend $30 on some crappy (cheap) solution and before I know it it's on my doorstep.
Big-ticket items are easily bought directly from the brands.
I had the choice of buying my 65" LG from Amazon, sure, I have an account already. But someone (Reddit?) suggested to buy directly from LG to make sure you get a factory-fresh box. Seeing all the Amazon shenanigans, it was an easy decision. 10 minutes and I checked out the new TV from LG directly.
I buy small household items from Amazon, floor wipe refills, batteries - and these are not at risk of being scammy products in the first place, unless someone is a total dolt.
As for return policies - that's just a matter of doing your homework. I don't think I ever returned anything to Amazon.
Batteries on amazon? you would be surprised how many are fake
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Costco for TVs and monitors. GPUs are a bit harder to find in stores, admittedly.
> GPUs are a bit harder to find in stores, admittedly.
If you live in the USA and have a Microcenter anywhere nearby, I suggest paying a visit.
Some Americans might not realize that in other countries with Costco you cannot get a membership unless you are in a certain profession (i.e., teacher) or circumstance.
> But, where do you buy your electronics from? a TV, a GPU, a monitor? What's their return policy?
That seems so strange to me. Here in Germany we have countless electronics shops that have better (as in cleaner, well categorized) inventory as well as better prices than Amazon. Amazon can work quite well for these devices but it's just one of many options. Not using something like Geizhals to compare prices very likely results in overpaying.
And of course, a minimum return policy of 14 days is set via european legislation for all shops.
In London I’ll just go into town and do high street shopping the old fashioned way. For anything too big or unwieldy then John Lewis is a safe bet and their return policy is great. In some cases I’ll just go direct to the brand or some other company I know has a good rep (like Scan for computer parts). For books I’ll browse a local book shop or Waterstones and if I leave empty handed then bookshop.org is my online backup.
The last few times I tried to buy anything expensive from Amazon, the item I received was faulty and I ended up just sending it back and buying a replacement direct from the retailer. I also don’t care at all about next day delivery since if I need something so urgently I can just go out and find it myself.
Any other online store without 3rd party resellers? Over here for computer parts I use mostly use Megekko, Alternate and Azerty. For batteries it is Replacedirect. For printer supplies it is 123Inkt. I can't imagine other regions not having similar options.
These days I avoid 'market' places like Amazon and Bol like the plague as I've been bitten too many times.
from Costco
> I love how Amazon has gone from customer obsession to the lowest of the lowest common denominator.
Maybe I'm misremembering but I don't remember this halcyon time where amazon was able to distinguish themselves from competitors to the consumer via anything but listed inventory. Their website has always been a cluttered mess filled with spam....
What I remember being useful was that, when you clicked on an item, somewhere on the page would be a carousel with items that other customers who looked at that item eventually ended up buying/also looked at. It was genuinely helpful information that generally would make it faster to find what you were actually looking for.
At some point they got rid of that despite it being useful. I assume that Amazon prefers being able to control what you see when you search for an item. Now you’ll still see carousels and comparison tables when you click on an item, but it’s all stuff that vendors paid to have placed there (or that Amazon decided it wants you to see).
You probably haven’t been using it long enough. 12 years ago+ it was amazing
Yea I guess I'm not sure what people envision when they say "amazing"—having an online store might have been revolutionary in 1994, but not by 2004, and certainly not by 2012. What set them apart was just inventory.
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I basically use them as a delivery service. I only come to Amazon with a brand and model already in mind. Get basically instant delivery. Return it anywhere, any condition. Nowadays, manufacturers have started accepting payments directly and even payment plans and I still get quick shipping so they’re losing their edge there.
customer obsession, but the customer they're obsessed with is the scammy marketplace seller, because that's who they really make money off of.
Does Amazon have no review/verification for what gets uploaded on their store?
Not entirely, they can't check every single thing, and because they inventory mix, if I have a legit product and you have a fake, once it's all tagged as the same, they'll send whichever one the system picks regardless of who's 'store' I buy from.
Additionally, because of inventory mixing, they don't really know who put the fraud in and who didn't (maybe they do, but they don't seem to do anything about it)
Additionally, some of the stuff on the site is not stored or shipped by them at all, you buy from the store site and it gets shipped from the vendor.
So no, they really haven't made a system that they can use to validate their items sold at scale.
Of course not.
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