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Comment by pas | Hacker News Reader

> unless you know exactly what you're already looking for.

I know what I'm looking for, but most of the products are impossible to evaluate, because there is just not enough info/data. Low res bad stock photos, terse description, no full technical specs, etc.

And many Amazon sellers don't sell anywhere else, they don't even have a real website, so ... good luck deciding based on that.

And since Amazon become so big, they set the bar for quality. So now the same shit is everywhere. (Plus there's the high-end overpriced but also not perfect segment too.)

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> no full technical specs

Blows my mind that this is an actual issue. It just doesn't make sense that _this_ would be an issue, yet it totally is. Oftentimes you don't even know for sure what's included with a product and you have to sift thru the comments (reviews & Q&As) to figure out if what you think is included is indeed included as there is no clear indication in the listing. Very low quality in this regard. eBay, OTOH, is very specific because sellers vying for your attention want to make sure you know exactly what you're buying.

If eBay offered something which tightly integrated 2-Day Delivery, they could become a legit competitor on the non-media services side.

Exactly. On eBay contacting the seller to ask for more specs is completely okay. I don't even know if it's possible on Amazon. And I don't even care, the listings are so bad, scammy looking, it just discourages asking, after all why wouldn't they just send back a nonsense answer.

I feel like you just entirely explained the situation. There is still a "high-end overpriced" segment for all kinds of industries. Sometimes luxury goods, but sometimes just mid-tier goods sold by companies that still follow the high-margin traditional retail model. With an MSRP price that leaves enough room for inefficient, high-touch stores to take a hefty margin as a middleman.

But even someone who actively dislikes Amazon such as yourself would still rather get the lowest price and access to the largest selection, even if it means begrudgingly putting up with a worse experience.

I try to simply don't buy things. Eg I want a new laptop for some time, but none seem like a good fit. The whole USB3 ecosystem is crazy, there are bad, ugly, expensive or all of the above ones only.

I don't know why Amazon has a "lowest price" reputation on HN. Everything on Amazon is overpriced. The only reason why I still use it is that people give me Amazon gift cards instead of cash. I use geizhals.de to find products and Amazon is rarely shown as the cheapest seller. The price difference isn't insignificant. Depending on the product you can expect to pay 15% more on Amazon and that's what I tell people giving me those amazon cards.

In Spain and I just ordered a small sofa. I wanted to not use Amazon, but going to the company directly did cost a reasonable amount more.

So don't buy from shit listings just on price and always check if you can buy it direct from the lister on their own web site.

That's what I used to do, but the problem is that alternative sources are simply getting harder to find. So I just defer purchases nowadays until gadgets get better, polished, more reviews pile up, etc.

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