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stickfigure

This becomes especially true as the price for something goes up. The manufacturer is sometimes much cheaper.

Random example I bought a few weeks ago, a dive light:

Amazon, $80: https://smile.amazon.com/DL07-Flashlight-Underwater-Recharge...

Manufacturer, $55 (free shipping too): https://wurkkos.com/products/wurkkos-dl07-mulit-color-led-fl...

I still buy a lot of items from Amazon, but at this point I always check other sources for products >$50.

I have noticed a massive uptick in sponsored listings, which are rarely what I want. The utility of basic search is dramatically worse than it was a few years ago. Can anyone recommend an adblocking browser extension that kills off sponsored listings?

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I've heard that Amazon penalizes vendors who sell their own product cheaper on their own site. So instead, they advertise the same price but offer "discount codes" that work on their own site.

Amazon can DIAF as far as I'm concerned. I've made an "Anywhere but Amazon" pledge to myself, and order elsewhere even if it's somewhat more expensive.

One thing to note is: I can't find any mention of returns/refunds on the wurkkos website, while Amazon has their standard (very liberal) return policy.

From the manufacturer's standpoint, they pay 15% referal fee to Amazon for getting them the sale. They also have a 5% coupon. Taking both of those things into account, their revenue on the sale is ~$64 compared to the ~$54 on their site. But I'd wager they're not getting very many sales on their website.

Loss leading the mom and pops into the ground is so Walmart.

I also find that I'm more confident in the manufacturer to actually ship the item properly. On several occasions I've ordered something expensive from Amazon only to have it arrived beat up and damaged. When I've returned it to Amazon and ordered again from the manufacturer it usually arrives in much better condition.

Nice example! A recent HN discussion centered on the "Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy" [0], which seems to oppose such situations. I'm not saying that "365 Outdoor Product" (the vendor listed at your Amazon link) is actually operated by Wurkkos, but why wouldn't manufacturers do something like this?

[0] https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/G5TUVJKZHU...

Dive light? Gotta support your local dive shops buddy! The big ones I check are DiveGearExpress, LeisurePro and your local dive shops. The dive shops usually don't carry a lot of different dive light brands unfortunately so I get it.

I moved to "the country" and no longer have local dive shops.

Also, I looked at the name brand dive lights. They're 3-5X more expensive and don't spec the LEDs. To a flashlight geek, these seem to be wholly inferior to the reputable chinese brands like wurkkos or sofirn.

Also also, I just threw out a set of expensive UK halogen lights. I expect to replace these new ones in a few years as LEDs continue to get more efficient. Going cheap seems to be the right choice for this kind of technology product.

> Can anyone recommend an adblocking browser extension that kills off sponsored listings?

uBlock Origin works well.

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