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Yeah.

  > there’s one basic ingredient to living online that Sweden still lacks.
  > 
  > They don’t have access to Amazon.

Uh. Presumptive much?

  > while locals clamor

I'm admittedly one mountain range over, but I feel inclined to say '[citation needed]', here.

This whole thing reads like a paid-placement Amazon advertisement.

Same in the Netherlands, we have Amazon, sorta-kinda, but there's barely anything on it without expensive multi-week international shipping... literally never heard of anyone using it. And there's absolutely nobody who talks about wanting it, either.

That's not because we don't find it useful, we just have local alternatives.

You don't know what you are missing. Your life could be very different, but since it isn't an option you can't really imagine how.

That isn't to say you would want it over the alternatives if you had it. I personally almost never use amazon. I know people who get something delivered every few days. Different people are different.

The point is that there are plenty of people that stuff get delivered every few days. There are local alternatives. Just because Amazon doesn't exist, doesn't mean that you can't order things online. At least in the Netherlands almost all shops offer next day delivery. We have some vendors that offer same delivery. None of them are Amazon.

If Amazon _did_ turn up, would it have an effect? Probably. Would it be game and/or life changing? Unlikely, since these capabilities are already available in here.

You are correct that we are not used to getting everything from the same vendor. But it is absolutely common for people to order stuff online. Our "high streets" are just as empty as those in the rest of the world.

Well, I live in a country with only crappy Amazon (Ireland) but I moved here from a country with great Amazon (US). I find myself wishing we had Amazon even though I have a lot of problems with them - 8 years ago they inexplicably barred me from selling on marketplace before I'd ever sold a single thing; with no recourse. I _think_ it's because the person who had my apartment before me was shady, but apparently I'm banned for life.

And yet I have not found a convenient online store that has even close to as much as Amazon and is competitively priced. If I want to buy a monitor what is there? All the domestic dealers are beyond awful, and I can use overclockers (a UK site) but the shipping is high and soon I may have to pay tariffs too. I go to German, Spanish sites too now and then but even if they have what I want it's generally overpriced and shipping is quite expensive. I also need to go to 6 different places if I want 6 different things, so I can't combine shipping. If the EU wants greater union it might be worth making it as cheap to ship something from Dublin to Tallinn as from Boston to San Diego.

Though tbf I have been moving towards using more ebay, or dealextreme when I can (and am ok with waiting 6 weeks).

To be fair, the EU can't change geography. We're a sparsely populated island off another island off the main bulk of the continent.

They already paid big chunks of the bills for Ireland's roads, ports and airports. Asking them to subsidise everyone's postal costs too is a bit much.

I use the German Amazon for pretty much all my online shopping. Everything's on there, free shipping included.

Not everything is on the German Amazon. Some things are only on the US/Spain/Italy one. Or it is sometimes on that one, sometimes not.

Amazon often does NOT tell you the shipping costs until just before you make the order. This while any other price comparison site allows you to compare prices including shipping (e.g. Tweakers.net pricewatch). I don't understand why people use Amazon. From my colleagues only foreigners use Amazon. Dutch colleagues often use sites which might be foreign, but at least appear more Dutch.

German Amazon uses machine translation for appearing to be Dutch. Original language is German. Another bit which makes the experience annoying.

Lastly, most Dutch sites offer really easy returns. Amazon is more of a hassle.

I'm curious for Netherlands- what are the common places to acquire computer parts and living room furniture. When I visited Amsterdam and traveled to the surround areas, I personally never found many physical stores that there an equivalent to Best Buy for a furniture warehouse.

for the Netherlands, check out tweakers.net[1] for your computer parts (they have an extensive price guide that will show you which webshop has the best prices and delivery speed). If you need them in a pinch, MediaMarkt/Saturn usually has what you need at a premium.

for living room furniture... Most of it is from IKEA

[1]: https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/#highlightCat:14

Thank you. I've been building a startup in California and have been dreaming of moving it to Amsterdam. Been learning Dutch over the last year and been trying to find the best information on the most effective way to migrate over. :)

Check out DAFT....

Google the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty. It makes it trivial for American entrepreneurs to move to NL

I just moved here to the Netherlands, message me on keybase if you have any questions.

Amazon does not have an Irish store either. Amazon.ie redirects to the UK store where all prices are in GBP, though they happily deliver to Ireland.

They happily deliver maybe a third of their inventory. It's really frustrating to get to checkout to find out I have to use addresspal or parcel motel.

if your default address is in ireland, then you don't need to get to checkout to know that the product can't be delivered to you

I always see in the product page an info saying "THIS SELLER DOES NOT DELIVER TO IRELAND"

If I order from Webhallen and similar I usually get next day deliveries (I live in Stockholm), but not even Amazon will be able to next-day-deliver to all corners of Sweden. I can't imagine Amazon does that in the US either?

I also don't miss any products, or envy the prices when comparing smaller stores to Amazon.de or uk.

The us amazon seems like a place where you can get anything, quickly and cheaply. The uk/de stores seems like they have limited selection not as good prices (even accounting for tax and currency differences). I get the feeling that Amazon US is this vast logistical network that makes super cheap and super fast shopping available. And at the same time amazon.uk/de seem like regular online warehouses offering no real price or delivery time benefit over the next store. Does that sound right?

Almost. In the US amazon has invested so much in logistics to pull that off that they are no longer the low price supplier all the time. However because of selection I know I can go to Amazon and find what I'm looking for, and the price is close enough to the best possible price that it isn't worth price shopping.

When I know of someplace else to get something I'll go there instead and normally get a better price. Amazon might get it a day sooner, which is rarely worth it (if I want it sooner I'll pay extra for next day delivery which most places will offer.

> The us amazon seems like a place where you can get anything, quickly and cheaply.

And its a very rude awakening whenever you actually try ordering something from a non-Amazon place that isn't trying to compete with them.

Suddenly you're waiting 2-3 days for "processing", then another week for something to arrive, after having paid $20+ for shipping.

> next day deliveries

Swedish mail service is generally next day delivery for pretty much everything within Sweden. That's not so with the US postal service (expect 2-3 days for most things) so that right there is already a key difference.

Japanese delivery services are generally next day too, and Amazon doesn't even seem to know about it. There are so many times when it told me something would be delivered in more than 2 days (in a particularly ridiculous case, it was telling me 7 days) that were actually delivered on the next day.

So yeah, in some countries, the delivery speed is not a factor making Amazon more attractive.

I wish Norwegian post was like Swedish one. We are lucky if the stuff we order gets delivered same week! Also delivery to door is more expensive and they have stopped delivering post every day that’s part of the problem. All due to privatization ans cost cutting strategy.

I didn't want to say anything because I've learned that I'm rarely the norm but I agree with you about same day delivery.

I've ordered stuff from Amazon to Sweden sometimes because their selection is so much bigger and I don't mind waiting several weeks for it to arrive.

Well you should know that we often order from China these days and with zero shipping cost it might take a month to arrive.

Doesn't matter, I'll wait.

But something tells me this attitude is far from the norm among people.

Also living in Sweden here - article misses two huge points.

Same day delivery? Not a big deal. The fact that PostNord won’t deliver packages to my doorstep is though. Having to go to ICA to pick stuff up is a complete pain in the ass sometimes, especially if the package is bigger and I can’t carry it with me on my bike.

Article doesn’t really mention the new tax on stuff imported from China either - that basically killed the crap Chinese knockoff market for things like 10kr cords and the like. If Amazon didn’t find Sweden appealing before they find it even less appealing now.

The China tax bothers me as well. For some electronics parts I cannot find a Swedish online shop selling the product in question. Maybe I find one shop selling it, at an unreasonable price. Instead, I resorted to shipping stuff to my parents in Germany and either fetching it on my next visit or having them send it to me. Yes, shipping cost from Germany to Sweden plus the Aliexpress-price is still cheaper than anything else.

I somehow resent China-shopping getting popular or even mainstream amongst average Joe and Jane (using Wish and the likes). I can see how that prompted this initiative.

> The fact that PostNord won’t deliver packages to my doorstep is though. Having to go to ICA to pick stuff up is a complete pain in the ass sometimes

For me that was actually a plus, since FedEx etc would always leave a "sorry you weren't home" notice even when I was home and waiting all day even afraid to go to the bathroom because they were too lazy to figure out the intercom. But I lived in a city where the Posten (at that time) pickup point was basically just right downstairs.

There are quite a few online retailers that offer same-day deliver if you pay for it, through Best or other couriers other than PostNord (or traditional post couriers).

From the top of my head I've bought in Elgiganten, Webhallen, Caliroots and SNS with those.

Also, it's quite easy if you live in Stockholm to pay online and pick it up in person, I do that quite often with Webhallen as I have a store close to my office and also to my apartment.

Never felt the need for same-day on anything though, it's just a small convenience to quench my delivery anxiety for stuff I'd really like to have right now but waiting a day or two (I don't even recall any delivery taking longer than that) is completely ok.

>But when they talk about lack of same-day delivery

Which is fairly possible these days with Best and whatnot, pretty sure Inet and Webhallen offers same-day delivery with them!

Thank you. I had a healthy skepticism about this, it feels almost like a piece designed to manufacture desire in its readers for next day delivery which is a "expected thing in the US (it isn't, it varies based on which seller on Amazon it is). One could imagine an Amazon rep calling the author up and suggesting this might be an interesting story...for reasons.

Having just moved back to Denmark after a few years in the states, I'll admit I miss Amazon... The small webshops feels sketchy, and I never know when something is going to arrive..

I did a lot more online shopping in the US, because delivery was better, the experience was better, sorry to say it but from a consumer point of view Amazon does an amazing job.

Today, I feel like there's many products I can't get hold off... Or it takes too long to order online, so I find a store :(

> Is this, or next-day, available for every single product, or just a selection of products?

Same-day is available for a subset of products if you order early enough in the day. Next-day is available for almost everything (for a premium). Two day is the default and also available for almost everything.

My house in the US has an amazon store less than 5 miles away and I still can't get same day delivery!

It was impossible to get most of what I was used to at a competitive price when living in Sweden. I paid, for example, about $70 USD in tariffs in order to retrieve the light bulbs I ordered online from post office. Your package is basically government property until you pay the taxes on it which are rarely specified at the time of purchase.

I missed Amazon when I lived in Sweden. The issue is not the value Amazon brought us from their excessive competition. It is the relationship with government that should be illegal. Americans pay taxes and those tax dollars go to support Amazon's workers with food stamps, welfare, etc - this is not capitalism, but the socialistic policies that have been growing for nearly a century now. Also, if the government cannot defend the people against The Washington Post's propaganda, then it is not doing its job. It is treason to support other governments and foreign entities above one's own government - which the Post and others very often do. If the US was a free market for the people, then the government would have raided Bezos' home & business a long time ago... But I don't blame him - this is the type of behavior we are promoting without enforcing separation between government & private entities.

> but having to wait a day or two on average is nothing I've personally felt any existential dread about.

I used to think the same thing but ever since I got used to amazon's overnight delivery its a completely different ballgame. Eg: Diswashing liquid almost over -> order it on amazon.

Dishwashing liquid almost empty -> take another off the shelf, consider reordering, never worry about paying higher shipping, a subscription, or it being "late" if it takes gasp three days.

> take another off the shelf

yea you can obviously save money by being organised, going to stores, cutting coupons ect.

Different people have priorties in life though.

Right, because sorting by cheapest price per count and buying in bulk can be equated with the time involved in clipping coupons.

I live in a tiny studio. I don't buy in bulk.