Google is building an anti-Amazon alliance, and Target is the latest to join | Hacker News Reader

Google is building an anti-Amazon alliance, and Target is the latest to join

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101 pointsZhenya117 comments

If I order toilet paper via my Google Home, where does it come from? Wal Mart or Target? How long for shipping? If they send me dog food instead, how do I get in touch with customer service? Is it Google's customer service or Target's?

I don't see how this is a threat to Amazon. People don't shop there because they have voice -- they shop there because I can Prime myself anything in 2 days or less and if it's messed up I can talk to a human being and find out why. I'd hate to try and get the same kind of service via Google and Target.

I order by price, so that means not ordering things like paper towels from amazon. Their grocery and household goods are often more expensive than just going down the street.

Also target has amazing returns. You can return online orders to the store - not like you can do that with amazon. I believe Walmart is the same.

Starting this month, you'll be able to return some Amazon items to some Kohl's locations. [0] I suspect that will be true for Whole Foods as well at some point soon.

[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/kohls-returns-amazon-how-to-2...

> they shop there because I can Prime myself anything in 2 days or less and if it's messed up I can talk to a human being and find out why.

Really? Amazon is often very late with Prime deliveries in my experience, only hitting the 2-day mark maybe 60% of the time. And when the miss the delivery (which I am paying $100/year for!!) there are no options presented for customer service or support, just "check back here in 3 days and if your package still hasn't arrived we'll present you with more options".

Meanwhile I can call Google any time and get great customer support for the products I pay for. I'd vastly prefer the Google delivery experience that I'd expect them to create compared to what Amazon Prime is now.

> Meanwhile I can call Google any time and get great customer support for the products I pay for.

We must not use the same Google.

Lack of available support is one of the most cited reasons for not buying Google hardware, especially their own Chromebooks.

Yeah, cryptoz's experience goes totally against the grain with respect to all of my friend's and family's experience too. Although I do have issues with Prime from time to time, Amazon's customer service usually kicks me a discount or another month of Prime as recompense.

As a bit of an outlier, Google Fiber's customer service has been stellar for me though.

Yeah, all of my experiences with Amazon's customer service have been great. I usually have to Google the CSR chat link to find it, but I'd probably do that anyway.

Or the same Amazon for that matter.

I suspect it has to do with the kind of things I order, and where I'm located, but Amazon deliveries have always arrived within two days for me (sometimes one day). Exceptions being when I order stuff that is not eligible for prime, but I know that at the time of ordering. Their customer service has also been excellent in my experience.

That said, I haven't had a terrible experience with Google yet, but I've barely used their support. I'll find out soon, because my Google-purchased phone started the infamous bootloop the other day.

Exactly my reaction. Google is known for having almost non existent customer support. Not just in products but also things like Google Cloud (before that App Engine). It works well and you are happy but if there's some issue with your site/app, getting in touch with a human being is almost impossible.

>I can call Google any time and get great customer support

For what, specifically? Because this is the opposite of reality for everyone else.

> Really? Amazon is often very late with Prime deliveries in my experience, only hitting the 2-day mark maybe 60% of the time.

I wonder if that depends on a city. I have ordered probably over a thousand things from amazon over the years and it was late for 2 day delivery maybe once or twice. And customer service is also the biggest reason why I use amazon even if the price is higher. I know that I can online chat with someone within minutes and they solve my problem most of the time. I had issues with paid google g suite or whatever they call it now, account and I don’t want to deal with their non existent customer service again.

Depends on where you live. If you live in the UK you can get reliable 1-day delivery (prime in the UK guarantees 1-day delivery, and if you're in a city, same-day delivery on certain items). There are advantages to high population density I guess.

Amazon has been messing up most of my deliveries lately and they make it as difficult as possible to talk to someone to find out why. When I do talk to someone, they always pretend to check the status, say that the item has been lost in transit, ship another one, and extend my prime membership by 1 month. Now I've got a hassle, a late shipment, and often a duplicate on the way that I'll have to deal with later.

So they give you two products and a month of prime... what response did you want on the customer service end?

If the same issues keep showing up they probably want a fix to the actual problem. And really, having two show up at some random date is not going to be helpful if you miss a kids birthday etc.

They didn't intend to give me two products, and the month of prime is worthless if they don't actually have 2-day shipping. The response I want on the customer service end is for them to stop using their shitty AMZL carrier and deliver reliably like they used to for the last 10 years. It would also be nice if Amazon didn't hide their customer service options so I didn't have to waste a bunch of time finding it every time there's a problem.

You can ask them to make a note on your account to not use their in-house delivery.

I've been contacting them a lot lately, and they haven't made me aware of that option. Thanks for letting me know!

The question "what do you want their customer service to do better" misses the point: the person doesn't want to have to call customer service in the first place to get a replacement product that shouldn't have gone missing in the first place.

last time I had a messed up delivery, not that long ago - i did a report on their site, they emailed within an hour and had another one overnighted to me.

When you make your order, they give a guaranteed delivery date. When they miss that date, they just send another one as fast as possible but still late. What does the guarantee mean?

You can report a problem with your order and get a free month of Prime when they miss their dates (up to 12 per Prime renewal). It's somewhere in the shipping guarantee. If you paid for any accelerated shipping they'll refund those fees.

I used to be able to nearly double my Prime length this way. The shippers in my area have gotten much better though recently and I haven't had a late package in almost a year.

Edit: Hm, they may have quietly discontinued it recently. It used to be listed on this page:

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=201117450

And I can find articles up to December 16 stating it still works. Doesn't hurt to try though, they're usually pretty accommodating.

The guarantee means that if the package doesn't arrive after that point it's their responsibility to assume it's not going to arrive and make alternate arrangements.

In other words, if they "guarantee" tomorrow at 5 PM and it doesn't show then it's late, whereas if they "estimate" tomorrow at 5 PM and it doesn't show then it's whatever, call back tomorrow.

I'm having so much problems with DHL in Germany that my prime subscription is extended every month. I guess I'll never have to pay again for a service that's getting next to useless. When they use Hermes[1] though, it's always on time.

[1]: https://www.myhermes.de

You are sure it's that way around? Everybody I know is happy when DHL is used (particularly me as a "Packstation" is nearby) and fears for their newly-acquired property when Hermes is the carrier.

I have never once had DHL successfully take a package from one location to another without screwing it up somehow.

I ordered something from Thinkgeek once. It got from New Jersey to Montreal in two days, and it took them a week to actually get it to me. They'd no-show on days customer service told me they'd deliver, then they'd deliver on days customer service told me they wouldn't be showing up. That was the day I learned the value of shipping things to work.

I had a replacement MacBook power adapter shipped out. They left a notice once, and then customer service told me that there'd been three failed attempts and no further attempt would be made. When I asked where the package was, the agent didn't seem to know, but guessed that it was at the depot. When I got to the depot I gave my delivery slip to the guy behind the counter, who came back and said he couldn't find the package. I told him to go look again and this time he actually found it.

I ordered a kit from 23andMe. DHL tried to deliver it once and then returned it to sender. I got them to send me another one (at a $25 fee), which DHL never delivered. I tried a third one, and this one was "at the depot". I went there and waited an hour in a small cement room with nothing but a chair in it while they looked. Eventually they came back and said they'd given up.

Every single encounter I've had with DHL has shown they're completely incapable of performing the core aspect of their business: getting a thing from one person to another. Worse still, they don't really seem to care or even understand that a screw-up is happening.

Email Jeff Bezos (jeff@amazon.com) and see if you get a real answer.

Various articles in the media state that he does read them, and typically forwards to the relevant executive in charge.

What I really want is to the ability to optionally select the shipper... UPS, FedEx, USPS, OnTrac, with different prices as needed. I think a lot of people who have trouble with one particular shipping company in their area (which one varies by area) would enjoy the ability to choose the one that is more reliable, and be willing to pay for it.

With that said, I’m really irked that amazon is using “private” shipping companies, I’m tired of seeing joe schmoes ring my bell in their Honda Civic or uhaul rental van, with my goods, my address, and seeing my house and family. They even take pictures with cell phone of package at door, wtf. Is there any background check, nope. Stick to a professional shipping company and not fly by night, random folks please

Have you had any actual problems with these "fly by night" shipping companies? Do "schmoes" not work at Fedex and UPS?

I have never seen a UPS employee throw a package at my house

It happens. https://www.google.com/search?q=ups+employee+throws+package&...

There is an entire website dedicated to UPS employees throwing packages: http://dontthrowmypackage.com/category/ups/

Ha. I'll assume you are being sarcastic.

I doubt it. We just moved, but in our previous neighborhood, we knew the UPS guy who did our deliveries. It was always the same guy, and he was great! He even gave us some great tips on where to vacation! I knew about his family probably more than he knew about ours.

The end game is squeezing margins down until only house thieves are motivated to take such jobs, and either disclaiming responsibility or trying to manage it so few enough people get attacked/robbed/etc by predators signing up to deliver for whatever the ultra-budget-shipping thing is. And of course in the end the whole thing gets automated, but until then the strategy is to squeeze shipping as hard as possible, because employing safe people is part of the margin and it's cheaper if they're a lot more ephemeral.

You don't need to get a job delivering packages to rob someone's house.

The research opportunity certainly increases the ROI

Nor would it be a good idea or helpful in any way to a thief. You would be robbing homes that someone somewhere has a list of, which is tied to your name.

Why would a house thief waste time delivering packages?

Not only would that not help your thieving at all, but the company that hired you having all your info on file would make you much more likely to get caught. Assuming you are robbing houses you can deliver too.

Putting on a fake delivery uniform and carrying around boxes that aren't meant to be delivered makes a lot more sense if you just need to case the houses before robbing.

Nobody has a career of being a "house thief", it's always a crime of opportunity. Given the low barrier to entry for delivery, they are good jobs for people coming out of jail or people with low education levels. So Joe Schmoe comes to your house, sees easy access to your backyard where your expensive BBQ sits, and wonders "shit, I could make a quick hundred bucks stealing that tonight, I already have the truck to move it!"

> Nobody has a career of being a "house thief", it's always a crime of opportunity.

plenty of people have life long careers of house burglary.

here are two, but there are very many others.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/16/burglar-with-crim...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/12187965/Career...

This all sounds like FUD. Have you personally had any problems with delivery people or have any data on problems in the aggregate?

We have had problems with them marking items delivered that are not, but I know USPS has done this, and I expect UPS and FedEx have as well. It's not a big deal, especially since Amazon will send replacements without issue, but it is a little annoying. It is strange to receive mail from someone wearing a wife beater, and, in my experience, the drivers are much curter than USPS, UPS, or FedEx drivers, but I haven't come across anything that would cause me to file a complaint.

> Have you had any actual problems with these "fly by night" shipping companies? Do "schmoes" not work at Fedex and UPS?

Yes. Fedex, UPS, and USPS drivers clearly have a much better grasp of how to correctly handle delivery exception scenarios. That's probably because they actually train their employees, and schedule them so they can learn their routes. You're never going to get that with with the short-term gig-economy randos Amazon hires.

how dare these dirty proles touch my precious package

Clear ad-hominem attack if I've ever seen one. Maybe the comment could have been better phrased as a question:

What is actually unprofessional about Amazon contracting package delivery to random individuals?

I'm not in favor of it, but I haven't thought about it enough to have a good argument about the topic. @viperscape does bring up good points though: personal vehicles and the perception that Amazon has "granted permission" to random people to enter property and handle their goods. What are the arguments in favor or Amazon's new delivery model?

From my experience the probability of receiving a damaged package is much higher with OnTrac than with UPS or Fedex for example.

And your theory is there is something fundamentally and transformationally different when a guy working for a local subsidiary or independent contractor shows up in a truck with FedEx painted on the side?

The theory is that the incentives to behave properly differ between people who are employed delivering packages full time and those who do it as a gig.

Regardless of the number of times UPS drivers have been filmed just throwing a package over a fence or lobbing it onto a veranda rather than actually walking up the path?

My experience has been far better with Amazon's deliverers than with shipping companies. I even had one who left a package under my doormat early in the morning and then noticed our lights come on so she came back to let us know it was there.

With UPS, it's more likely I check my tracking number after being home all day and see it go from 'out for delivery' to 'waiting for pickup at UPS store' with no notification. They don't even make the attempt to deliver it, and that makes things less efficient (loading the truck up just to unload it again, making me wait all morning just to have to go to the store anyway, etc.)

So yeah, personally it makes much more sense to me from all kinds of angles for Amazon to handle this stuff directly rather than deal with UPS or Fedex. Those companies are fine for getting a package from me to someone in Halifax, but for getting something from Amazon's warehouse an hour away to my doorstep, it makes no sense.

Yes. If my security cam records him throwing the package onto my porch, I have somewhere I can complain to, and I can probably ask my neighbors if they've had the same problems with the same driver. Whereas, when some guy I've never seen before rolls up in a Honda Civic, who do I complain to? I can try complaining to Amazon, but were they even the one who hired the guy? Or did they subcontract that out to a logistics company who subcontracted it to a local company who subcontracted it to the guy with the Civic? Those smaller subcontractors don't have to worry about damaging their brand. If they start losing customers, they simply rebrand or sign up with a different one of their supercontractors and keep on trucking.

Is there any background check, nope.

Yes, actually there are background checks.

Are there background checks for ups or FedEx drivers? Many FedEx drivers are actually contractors as well.

Random folks doing odd jobs is good. It puts responsibility back on society. Rather than background checks done by an employer, we should regulate industry. The equivalent of a food handlers license for customer privacy and safety for Uber drivers, Amazon delivers and Walmart greeters and even your bank manager and CPA would be better for society

YES! finally the 3rd party shipper Amazon uses will be as convenient and efficient as the postal service!

That is a good idea. If you sell ice cream in the street you still need a Pedlar's License in the UK. If it is a school fete and you are selling ice cream to passers-by in the street then that is still law breaking but if you are doing that one day in a year in a small village with the money going to charity then that can be overlooked, but every day? I think you would be closed down soon.

I think the gig economy should have a similar Pedlar's License. There should be some paperwork. Maybe no more hard than Basic Food Hygiene that you get working in the food trade.

This would also allow local authorities to refuse. So if they didn't want the food delivery guys then they could just restrict licences.

Standards, e.g. lights on bikes, MOST for cars, all should be part of this license for doing door to door deliveries.

Standardisation could result in no drivers getting it wrong whether hired the UPS or FedEx way.

If the driver ID was a standardized way of doing tracking then that could even be part of the final mile procedure.

More licensure with requirements for using the license might be good for a gig economy, but likely only if we have some way of vetting licenses for general usefulness, so they aren't just ways to limit a market and protect the existing license holders and not the public.[1]

If we had rules about what a license should promote (such as public safety, accountability, etc) and what it should try to prevent (rent seeking, protectionism) and metrics by which to measure this (even if an impartial panel), we could possible greatly increase the number of licenses we require while also lowering the bar of entry for many existing licensed businesses.

I understand this would be a tricky path to take. It's layering bureaucracy, which is often problematic. But I'm not sure we necessarily want random unaccountable people driving around throwing packages at us, nor doctors practicing without experience, and I don't think having to pay $1000 and take a one week course for licensure to deliver packages for Amazon is useful either.

1: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/04/14/524007928/episo...

It's not really good for the random folks either; those jobs pay shit wages and offer no benefits

Lol. I'm sure random people walk around your house all the time unless you're in the middle of nowhere.

What's stopping a random guy from walking around taking pictures through all the windows when they see you leave? Nothing. Dude just dresses up like the meter reader and does whatever he wants. Even if you "catch" the guy he did nothing illegal. In most places it's totally fine to stroll around on other people's land unless "no trespassing" is clearly marked. Got one of those big signs in your front yard?

If you ever leave the house I'm sure pictures of you with your family have been streamed on countless webcams over the years and probably live TV.

You have no real security unless you've got a cement room with no windows and a metal door. Anything less is just to make people feel better

Your perceived privacy violations sound pretty mundane to me.

I agree. I have seen these kind of complaints a lot and I just don't get it. "Now some random person knows where I live." ... Uh, well, they know where -someone- lives, but they don't know you. I can't see how this is a problem unless your house is some kind of camoflauged hidden lair.

Houses are easy enough to find. You don't need to get a job as a delivery person to find where houses are. The fact that they delivered a package to your house doesn't make you any more of a target than anyone else. Maybe if you were having gold bricks delivered and they were clearly marked "expensive gold bricks" on the package.

It's just thinly veiled racism/classism. Nothing to see here.

That or the dude legitimately expects white glove delivery for bottom shelf pricing, which is even more absurd.

Big retailers don't do well in this type of online marketplace. Target and Toys"R"Us already tried partnering with Amazon and both deals failed [1][2].

Google should start developing warehouse technology and a delivery network in order to start competing directly with Amazon. Their current strategy is just a coat of paint on declining businesses.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100017752821017751 [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB113798030922653260

They should start with something more basic: customer support department.

Nah, they should start with figuring out how to not kill a project that people want.

>If I order toilet paper via my Google Home, where does it come from?

Well, you would specify where it came from by mentioning Walmart or Target.

>If they send me dog food instead, how do I get in touch with customer service? Is it Google's customer service or Target's?

The same customer service you ordered the product from and was clearly stated in the email confirmation you received from either Walmart or Target.

This is as much a threat to Amazon as Microsoft PlaysForSure was to Apple.

Really? Because if an order is screwed up with Target you can either call and talk to a live person, or walk into a store and talk to a live person. I love Amazon but they've got nothing on target from a service perspective (IMO).

I talked to various developers from a few retail stores a few years ago and they said their companies are absolutely terrified of Amazon. Developers would be happy to use AWS but they are not allowed because it would be giving business to Amazon.

But when there is fear, there is opportunity. So Google is using that opportunity here. Not a bad move. Walmart is on-board as well it seems.

Saw news about Microsoft partnering with Amazon recently for some machine learning API. But wouldn't Microsoft compete with Amazon too? Though wonder if they are more worried about Google, "enemy of my biggest enemy is my friend" kind of thing.

So far I've ordered twice from Costco, and once from Walgreens, using google express. Both the times my order got 'canceled' with no reason specified. There's no "why?" link/button/reason either.

When I went to Costco and talked to the folks there, they said they don't deliver via Google Express. And I've no idea what went wrong with the Walgreens order, and I don't feel like trying again either.

Google needs to set higher standards for themselves and their business partners if they want to compete with Amazon.

Just last night I was talking with a friend about how good Amazon is compared to any other of the tech companies. They weren’t blamed for the elections, they haven’t gotten mixed up with terrorists, their “personalized” recommendations are sometimes so cutely wrong its actually pleasant to see.

I mean they still probably have too much power, but more in the sense of Walmart in the 1990’s. Amazon might be a monopoly, but at least they don’t undermine democracy (yet). Google as I am typing this is undermining the electorate.

That being said, my praise of Amazon is really more praise of Jeff Bezos. If he dies, or has a change of heart, we could be in trouble.

Also these partnerships mean nothing. I remember at Oracle an exec telling us how many “partnerships” he announced with Apple/Samsung/whatever at SAP. They whole point of the partnership wasn’t to “collaborate”, it was to release a press release. What do people think happens in the end?? That the most brilliant engineers of each company fly to a secret location, get into a room, and then diagram (“ideate!”) a solution on a whiteboard like it’s an episode of Numbers or Law and Order: Criminal Intent??

> They weren’t blamed for the elections

Trump has taken some shots at Amazon (primarily b/c Bezos owns WaPo), so they have been "in the mix" w/ respect to the current political climate.

> That being said, my praise of Amazon is really more praise of Jeff Bezos. If he dies, or has a change of heart, we could be in trouble.

Also, if you read some other threads on HN, there is a strong sentiment that Bezos is "shaking down" North American cities to determine which one is most willing to bend to his will for a secondary headquarters

It's not all rainbows and ponies in AMZN land.

I just got an image in my head of a GOOG vs. AMZN animated rainbows and ponies battle.

> Also, if you read some other threads on HN, there is a strong sentiment that Bezos is "shaking down" North American cities to determine which one is most willing to bend to his will for a secondary headquarters

There's also some sentiment in the Seattle investor/business community that Amazon is using the opportunity as a threat to the city. That it's willing to expand somewhere else if the city doesn't become more friendly towards Amazon's demands/preferences. This certainly lines up well with the idea that Amazon announced a HQ2 without actually naming a city, leaving the media buzz and PR to influence the city of Seattle.

Though these are all rumblings I've heard and should be taken with a grain of salt.

> Google as I am typing this is undermining the electorate.

[citation needed]

>Just last night I was talking with a friend about how good Amazon is compared to any other of the tech companies.

It would seem you missed the part about their studio chief being suspended for sexual harassment.

Google should be called out on their pathetic support culture. Are they afraid of hiring support folks, if this is not ideology driving business decisions what is? There is no way they can compete even 1% with Amazon's customer service.

Everyone knows you can automate untill you need review at which point you need people. No amount of machine learning can take away human review and misguided attempts to do so simply pretend the world is perfect and ignore reality in favour of fairy tales and ideology. Of course the customer is left paying the price for these insane assumptions.

This is just Shopping Express. On the times they got my order wrong, they just let me keep the wrongly sent item and sent the correct thing. That's how they automate support in this product.

It seems to vary a lot by product. I had awful billing support on GCP (quite some time ago now so it might be better now like the Googler who replied to me last time I talked about it on HN said it would). Project Fi support has been fantastic though.

> Google should be called out on their pathetic support culture. Are they afraid of hiring support folks, if this is not ideology driving business decisions what is? There is no way they can compete even 1% with Amazon's customer service.

"Google...is institutionally so used to its ‘customers’ actually being its products that when it gets into businesses where it actually has customers it really has little sense of how to deal with them."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-on-googles-farm

These alliance or partnership deals rarely work out in the long-term. Voice shopping is still very nascent. Having two companies in the shopping pipeline can only cause problems and/or miss blind spots. Being vertically integrated is a huge advantage for Amazon.

Amazon and Target are themselves a great example of this - Target.com used to be run by Amazon.

https://www.geekwire.com/2011/target-finally-parts-ways-amaz...

Surprised this hasn't happened sooner, IMO Google controlling the online UX/AI for products sourced from brick and mortars is the only viable e-commerce competitor to Amazon's continued dominance.

I'm a happy Amazon customer so I wouldn't switch, but as it's always healthy to have competition, I'd be a customer of both.

Either way handing over the user-facing UX to a major tech company doesn't bode well for the long-term future of Brick and Mortars as Google's brand will only become stronger with consumers who'd be a front for their suppliers that are ruthlessly competing in a war for the lowest price.

Why would I order from Target, Walmart or others and then wait unknown amount of time for delivery, when I can order anything I need on Amazon and have it in my hands in two days delivered for free, or sometimes even same day? I think Amazon spend great amount of money into delivery infrastructure and it works: I rarely shop now anywhere else, because I hate uncertainly: when I paid for something, I want it in my hands NOW. I doubt Target, Walmart or others will able to provide this. They are not ready for online shopping. Amazon is. And alliance will fail at some point in future, when all these stores will decide to deliver goods themselves to avoid middle men. So no, sorry. I don't get it!

I don't think it's there yet, but I believe the long term plan would be delivery from a Walmart/Target near you.

Walmart, at least, was moving that way. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2017/06/01/w...

I feel the same way as you, and the unpredictability and unreliability of AMZL has really turned me off of Amazon lately. They're constantly lying about deliveries, saying they handed a package directly to me when they left it at another building or claiming they couldn't get through the gate when they lost the package or missed the deadline.

  They're constantly lying about deliveries, saying they handed a package directly to me when they left it at another building or claiming they couldn't get through the gate when they lost the package or missed the deadline.

How is this an Amazon problem and not a delivery service (USPS, UPS, FedEx, et al.) problem?

Because I'm talking about AMZL, which is Amazon's delivery service. I haven't had these problems with USPS, UPS, or FedEx in the 3 years I've lived at this address.

Oh okay, thanks for clarify and sorry I missed that point. I suppose if Amazon is delivering it's an Amazon problem, eh? :D

I think it would be their issue anyway, as I was responding to someone saying they prefer Amazon because they have reliable delivery. Unreliable delivery that isn't their fault is still unreliable delivery.

I can weigh in on this since I ordered some kitchen stuff and non-perishable groceries from Walmart last week. I'd looked up the prices on Amazon first and they were inflated by ~50% compared to buying locally (hypothetically if my grocery store carried them), while Walmart had the prices matching what you'd see in stores.

Prime used to be a deal, but now it seems that base prices on anything Prime eligible have had the price jacked up to cover Prime shipping, and are usually available from a "non-prime" seller for $5-10 cheaper.

If you're ordering a Prime eligible item and don't have a membership, it's always a crappy price because the fast shipping fee has been built into it, but you get slow shipping instead. And if you do have a membership, what's that $100/year going toward? Apparently not the shipping, since Prime items are consistently priced higher. I'd speculate it's funding their other ventures like Music and TV instead.

Walmart does free shipping on most orders over $35 (in some cases 2-day), no price inflation, no membership required. And as far as I know, they don't have Amazon's counterfeiting problems. I'll be checking on them in the future before I buy anything else on Amazon.

Here's an example. This is the actual item that spurred me to look at other stores: "Better Than Bouillon" vegetable broth base. For some reason my grocery store carries their chicken and beef bases, but not vegetable.

Wal-Mart - $4.64, free 2-day shipping on orders $35 and up https://www.walmart.com/ip/Better-Than-Bouillon-Premium-Seas...

Amazon - $15.99, prime eligible https://www.amazon.com/BETTER-BOUILLON-PREMIUM-SEASONED-VEGE... (only listing I can find for the exact product)

Amazon $7.80, add-on item w/ free shipping on $35+ https://www.amazon.com/Better-Than-Bouillion-Vegetable-Base/... (similar product from same brand)

I'm not sure what "Superior Touch" is compared to "Premium" but it costs 68% more and I've been using the cheaper one for years. After first looking for it on Amazon, I bought it from Wal-Mart instead.

Related story on another obscure food product - I almost got screwed by subscribe and save because I'd subscribed on a cheap product (around $7, discounted maybe $1), and the price had suddenly tripled when it came time for the next subscription order to go out. As far as I can tell there's no protection for this. You'd think it could check "Hey, you subscribed to this at $7, maybe you don't want to pay $21 for the same thing," but no.

[EDIT - checked order history, the original S&S order was at $6.90. I unfortunately don't have a definite record for the one I cancelled. It's currently available at $10.20 for a 1-pack or $8.70 for a 2-pack, because that makes sense.]

I happened to sign in and notice before it shipped out, so I canceled. And (unsurprisingly) it was still sold near the original price on the listings from every other seller. They'd just offered a minor discount to get people into a subscription and then screw them with a price increase.

I don't think the question should be "Why would you buy from Wal-Mart/Target/etc?" It should be "Why would you buy from Amazon unless you absolutely can't avoid it?"

> I don't think the question should be "Why would you buy from Wal-Mart/Target/etc?" It should be "Why would you buy from Amazon unless you absolutely can't avoid it?"

This is exactly where I'm at. Amazon just isn't competitive on many axes anymore:

1. Price: Amazon just doesn't seem to be price competitive with local stores anymore, and like you observed, sometimes the prices are jacked up unreasonably.

2. Selection: It's way easier to find specific items at specialist stores/websites. Amazon's search for long-tail items sucks.

3. Delivery: Amazon delivery is vastly inferior to USPS, etc. where I live. Why do I want to pay more to get an item delivered in to days, when I could pay less and get it now with a 30 min trip to the right shop?

Amazon deliveries here get shipped to the local post office and then use USPS for the last mile, so I haven't had problems with that. But on the rest, absolutely.

Search is terrible, items are miscategorized all the time, there are multiple listings for the same thing when they should all be grouped as multiple sellers of one product, the product info is missing or wrong, prices are sometimes totally out of whack (like my comment above where a 2-pack is cheaper than a 1-pack), you have no idea if you'll get the item you ordered or a counterfeit version, Amazon has no idea if they sent you the item you ordered or a counterfeit version, and the description/photos/actual item sometimes don't match. Pretty much anything that can be wrong with a product page frequently is.

I should cancel my Amazon Prime subscription. It's a huge selection of stuff available in one place, but that's about the only thing they have going for them.

I'll second this - Walmart is my go to for online purchases of consumable items.

Walmart does free shipping on most orders over $35 (in some cases 2-day), no price inflation, no membership required. And as far as I know, they don't have Amazon's counterfeiting problems.

Some Walmart brand name items are made specifically for Walmart, in much the same way certain items are made specifically for Massdrop. In effect, they're genuine official counterfeits, not the fly by night kind.

I wouldn't call that a counterfeit, that's just cheaper generic brand products in the same vein as grocery stores have been doing for decades.

If I know that I'm buying a "Great Value" branded product, that's fine. If I go on Amazon and spend $30 on an official Apple USB charger and get a fake one instead (still with an Apple logo though), then I've got a problem. The manufacturer of these are doing them at even lower quality/safety than the cheap brands like Anker, since they don't have to worry about damage to their own brand when it burns someone's house down.

Amazon has a huge problem with fake products being sold as name brands. Inventory from different sellers gets comingled, so you can't even avoid it by buying from a particular store.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3133627/technology-law...

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/20/birkenstock-quits-amazon-in-... [autoplay video warning]

I think we need a good competitor in this space, and can't think of another company that could help to leverage retailers enough. To me this is like google vs apple. Only good can come out of this for the consumer.

If they are fighting how will they become Googlezon ? :-)

I don't think Google saves itself by being a federated shopping platform (aka the Uber for Amazon). It would do much better by continuing to attack Amazon's AWS offerings with its own, after all if Google can keep Amazon from making a profit on their infrastructure it goes back to be a cost/liability at Amazon rather than an Asset. That cuts into profits eventually.

In between profit and liability is break-even. For a company with a mantra of "your margin is our opportunity", break-even is an acceptable outcome.

As long as companies can make money on float, sheer volume can be its own profit center.

Were you referring to this [1]? If you s/Friendster/Facebook/ I think it seems very interesting. The information-security-state is already here, we just don't have most of the benefits (those accrue to the advertisers and TLAs).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPIC_2014

When the axe came into the Forest, the trees said "The handle is one of us".

This one is hilarious!!

Until they solve the selection issue I just don't care what else they can offer.

Amazon has won in my book by being a one stop shop for literally everything. I almost never price compare anymore because it's just so damn convenient being able to go on there, search, and have it in 2 or fewer days.

I just went through my last two months of Amazon purchases and searched for them on Target:

  No results: 16 items
  Results, but inferior products I wouldn't have purchased: 3
  Equivalent item but far more expensive (double or more): 3
  Identical item or equivalent I still would have purchased: 11

In the end, they could have "replaced" Amazon 33% of the time for me. That's low enough I'm never going to bother.

Edit: I saw Wal-Mart in the article so I did the same items with them. They were only missing 4 items for an 88% success rate and a few looked higher quality than I got. Not sure if they're any less "evil" (whatever that means here) but they fared much better than I expected.

Did you also compare prices? In the last couple of weeks I've heard from many people that Walmart is significantly cheaper on everyday things.

And Walmart will even bring your order out to your car for you for pick up. Definitely worth it for the price savings compared to Amazon.

No. They were ballpark the same on everything (+\- 10%) but I didn't look closer than that.

Target has big problems with their online ordering. I've ordered items from them, had the order lost and no contact from the company at all. If you go to a local store where you can also have items delivered, they have no order info, and can't help you. There is a reason why Amazon is popular.

My counter anecdote: I had a fantastic online ordering experience at Target about a week or two ago. I needed something during the work day, so I placed an order with the nearest store to my office over the Internet and they had my order ready for in-store pickup in under a half hour. Stopped by, walked in, picked it up, and left. Still had time to go get lunch.

I can now talk to an "intelligent" AI when my shipment doesn't arrive on time or if I have to complain about a product I bought. May be a post in Google Forums.

What a difference a word can make:

This post heading:

Google is building an anti-Amazon alliance, and Target is the latest to join

and the source article:

Google is essentially building an anti-Amazon alliance, and Target is the latest to join

The one word changes the article from providing an interpretation of a set of facts to a declaration of a proven fact. Since Recode has some gravitas the difference is even greater than if it was a blog mill churning out click bait.

Voice shopping doesn't work well if it offers choices of vendors for a single product. The voice interface is a bit awkward for that.

Google will end up being a kingmaker in this space. I suppose they could round robin suppliers, but to do this well requires tight integration, which also pushes you to fewer suppliers.

Won't competition be both good for Amazon and for consumers? Right now, Amazon is a monopoly (because of Prime and good selection [although still lots of room there for improvement], and I also use Amazon Prime a lot, but a second option would probably improve things, I think.

I know a guy who knows some Google VPs who say Google is afraid people will go directly to Amazon for all their shopping searches rather than starting with Google, hence ad spend is threatened. Big deal for Google.

Good for Google. What about a Prime-like service including videos, movies, and music for 20-30 USD per year?

YouTube Red is 120 USD per year for just videos and music (no movies), so what you're asking for is extremely unlikely.

I mean, they do have movies, just really not a great selection. $30 for a year seems pretty cheap though, I agree.

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