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Comment by CaliforniaKarl | Hacker News Reader

If you are looking for a 'non-essential', and the item is being sold by "Amazon.com" (as opposed to an Amazon seller like u/toasterlovin), may I suggest ordering from another store? Companies like Guitar Center; Bed, Bath, and Beyond; and the like are still fulfilling online orders, even if the stores themselves are closed. Also, individuals are still selling wares through platforms like eBay and Etsy.

Please consider purchasing things from other stores, where available. Even if you have to pay for the shipping cost.

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This is the correct advice. Other major distributors in the US have been massively scaling up to receive all non-essential goods that normally would be distributed through Amazon, carrying them through their own logistics infrastructure. These goods are then being delivered through the retail channels that these distributors currently support, which may not be where you are traditionally used to buying these products online.

Source: I share a social distancing space with someone that currently is doing exactly this distribution shift for their global supply chain, moving all of Amazon's capacity to an alternate major distributor they use.

Also BestBuy is doing delivery. Just ordered something last night and got it today. Lets keep as many retail options available to ensure there is no retail single point of failure.

Or order direct from the manufacturer. We’d love that!

In general I don’t mind ordering direct philosophically, but here are the practical things that you (as a generalized direct seller) can do to make that more attractive:

1. Make it not cost more to me. I don’t care what your costs are, but I do care what mine are. If I find my way to your shop and have my wallet open, that’s the time to be cost-competitive, not to tack on a $7.95 shipping and processing fee (unless your product price is $8 less).

2. Give reasonable assurance that customer care, if needed, will be about as accommodating as A2Z.

3. Give reasonable payment options. Some people want PayPal. Others hate them. Personally, in part because of #2, I often use them.

> Make it not cost more to me.

Seriously. I just ordered an item from Amazon because white the manufacturer's price was $6 less, they wanted $45 for shipping, while Amazon's was free.

I have to wait nine days, but it isn't that urgent, and I'll wait nine days to save $39 (the item itself is only $119, so $39 is quite a lot extra).

$45 for shipping!?

Probably international. I see this kind of gap regularly when comparing buying from Amazon v.s. directly from the supplier. Internet stores are surprisingly bad (for whatever reason) at pricing international shipping competitively.

Internet stores are surprisingly bad (for whatever reason) at pricing international shipping competitively.

Small businesses are stuck with what the big shippers charge for international shipping (and shipping in general). You basically don't qualify for negotiated rates with the shippers until you are spending five figures minimum per month for shipping, and you don't qualify for good shipping rates until you're spending six figures minimum per month. We ship enough with FedEx to have a dedicated rep, and even then are international discounts are minimal (although our domestic discounts are sizable).

What's sometimes a bummer, though, ordering internationally that there's often only the option of a shipping company.

I wouldn't mind using the Post Office option and waiting a couple of weeks. But paying 40-60$ just for shipping is often the deal killer.

IMO it’s FedEx and UPS that are bad at it. I looked at shipping a few pound box from Chicago to Germany on the cheapest intl shipping option FedEx offered a few years ago (on a corporate account no less) and it was $200+ IIRC. Unless you’re doing millions per year with them, they seem to not want your business.

(Comparison is that I can ship a mountain bike across the US for $50, no big deal.)

Yup. This was on monoproce for their cheapest option. Which probably would have only come a day sooner anyway.

If you ever need bulk speaker wire, we’ve gotcha covered on all three points!

I genuinely appreciate that you’re avoiding mentioning your company name in your news.yc contributions.

In this case, I am in the market for copper speaker wire but can’t find your company name in a quick read of your comment history or a google of toasterlovin.

Would you mind sharing it? ;)

Our brand name is Next. You can find us on Amazon or at shop-next.com. I think you’d be pretty happy installing our wire in your home, office, bar, etc.

You realizing shipping price is a completely artificial construct?

Amazon doesn’t magically have power to ship things for free.

You’ve been paying more for items on Amazon because of “free shipping”.

I care about total landed price.

The seller can split it up however they want, but I’m going to look at the final total, especially when I’m comparison shopping buying “this one thing from vendor A” vs “that same thing from vendor Z”.

Then why make a bunch of noise about shipping price when you meant landed price?

Amazon has enchanted the world with their “prime” badge. Enchantments rarely end in the enchantee’s best interest.

> Amazon has enchanted the world with their “prime” badge.

I’d say it was more the 24 hour delivery, immense selection and outstanding no fuss returns policy. That has enchanted people.

None of us are happy Amazon has such a monopoly but it was won fair and square.

Amazon is actively using their data collection on sales to determine where to get into the market, putting other sellers and manufacturers out of business. This isn't what I'd call "fair". I don't believe this is illegal but it certainly seems it should be.

It's totally fair. If you can't differentiate against a retailer's house brand, you don't really deserve to be in business (I say this as a business owner that competes against Amazon's house brand).

I said “make it not cost more to me”. Seems clear enough, but my apologies if it was not.

It was plenty clear.

Amazon has insanely cheap shipping rates. I sell on Amazon and we use Amazon for fulfillment. The rates they charge us for shipping are so incredibly good. We would need to do insane volumes to achieve their rates, but they would still be more expensive because their rates include customer service and returns. It's nuts.

A nice perk for doing this is having higher confidence that the product you're getting isn't a fake knock off.

> Please consider purchasing things from other stores, where available. Even if you have to pay for the shipping cost.

You haven't given a reason for doing so.

I think he's saying he doesn't want it to become the only store. Lots of other stores are hurting.

That's because they ain't competitive. I'm only using other stores for stuff I can't find on amazon, because I'm trusting amazon to have my back if something goes wrong.

And another big online store like Target just won’t help in the case of an issue? I don’t believe that at all.

My credit card is enough assurance that a seller won’t defraud me.

I actually have found a number of products where Amazon is not price competitive with some other US stores like Target, especially considering everyone’s blind assumption that it makes sense to pay $12.99 a month to be in the Amazon club without even doing the math on how much that increases the price of each item you buy.

I always have people ask me “don’t you have Prime?” as if it’s assumed that the deal is a no-brainer. It’s totally not. You don’t need Prime to buy stuff on Amazon and people are just conditioned.

I don't have Prime, what I meant was that things with amazon are frictionless if stuff goes wrong. Also, I'm from Europe.

Personally, I'll only use Amazon as a last resort for something I can't find elsewhere (and don't feel I can do without, which is of course usually a valid option).

Amazon warehouses carry many essential items, so by taking your non-essential demand some where else you allow more logistics resources to focus on delivering essentials asap.

While it is great Amazon is available it would seem better to spend a little more money and spread it around. Think of the "shop local" movement. Until there is a benefit other than free shipping (i.e. safer deliveries and working conditions) we all need to help the economy any way we can. I don't want to live in a post-pandemic world where Amazon has more market power with fewer businesses to compete with.

The frustrating thing about this is that you don’t even have to “spend a little more” every time. I make a lot of purchases from bigger stores like Target and Home Depot, and smaller local book, speciality food, home and garden stores etc., and back when I used to compare frequently, Amazon rarely had a better price. Eventually I just stopped checking.

Because you want your item faster than 4 weeks from now?

And because it supports a small business, which is more likely to be struggling financially.

The small(er) business probably pays a fair rate of tax, funding the services society is even more dependent upon than usual.

> You haven't given a reason for doing so.

You didn't see that HN thread about Amazon Prime shipments being delayed by as long as a month? :)

I needed another monitor for my wife's work from home setup and ended up purchasing from Best Buy last week. Amazon had everything at least a week out, but I ordered Wednesday and got it Friday via Best Buy. I didn't get the exact model I would have ordered normally (from Philips), but I got a nice 4k Samsung screen.

For electronics, B&H photo is good, too! (Also I'm in NYC and they're a local company with local distribution centers)

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