Is This How Amazon Ends?
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
To me when I started buying stuff at amazon and then a package comes 3 weeks later from china (looking like aliexpress) I was so pissed. Only if I truly know what I buy and it’s the cheapest I buy on Amazon, else no. It could be its end and a good way for a healthy competition to come in.
Of course, the first thing they're known for is letting you buy comically huge volumes of everyday items.
But one of the reasons that they actually have a cult following is that their corporate buyers are actually incredibly good at finding interesting items and offering them at a good price.
Browsing Costco essentially becomes a curated tour of what's new in the land of food, gadgets, etc. All backed by an extremely consumer friendly set of policies allowing returns etc, which minimizes your risk.
I don’t have experience with any but my local Costco. Maybe the rest are delightful.
Also, Wish takes 40 days to ship. Ebay and other sites take 4 days. If I order something from Amazon right now I'll literally have it in 4 hours. Doesn't matter for all purchases but it's so convenient.
Amazon with Prime still edges out on shipping speed but eBay is close.
eBay acquaints you more with the seller and if you are buying from a seller with "Top Rated" status you can be sure you will get a good product shipped quickly.
If Amazon can clean up bad sellers / fake reviews and fix the search they can get back to being the best.
Personally I find better prices and quicker delivery or pickup for most common goods at Walmart and for the Chinese stuff that Amazon is filled with there's Ali, Temu, etc.
When I need something more niche I prefer eBay but still search Amazon, but again, their search sucks.
Because Amazon does not let you sell your product cheaper elsewhere.
It’s all gamed to have you click on a sponsored result. If you buy from third party better check the condition, terms, and return policy. Oh and it might be fake or previously used.
That said, I still find it useful but only because like someone else said, every other “a to z “ company is worse. That said, Amazon is competitive at price point still but it isn’t where I go to find products organically. I find recommendations elsewhere then comparison shop. Walmart at least you can sort sold by Walmart, BB/Home Depot work fine as well. Amazon has its place but it’s not a good or enlightening experience.
If it stopped there it would be almost okay, but then the page for the brand might get you items comingled with counterfeits.
Items delivered work as advertised. Reasonable delivery times (I live in Singapore). I buy from both Amazon SG and US stores.
Are there some sort of filter where US based Amazon customers get targetted with shoddy products and foreign customers less so? Genuinely curious.
Amazon in Germany has two problems in my eyes:
It's not possible to filter out the marketplace. The marketplace is full of dropshippers with highly inconsistent delivery times. There are some things I just want to buy from Amazon directly.
Chinese fire-and-forget brands crowd out real brands. Fine if you e.g. just want cheap gloves, but a terrible experience if you want more than that.
Temu and Wish may have completely fine items, also, but the one experience I had with each soured me from trying again.
In the past 3 years, Amazon's brand went from gold to gutter trash. That's something which took 2+ decades to build up. User drain will follow.
This would be a good time to build the next Amazon, if someone has a few $B to spare. Basically, just do the same thing Amazon did through 2020, only more quickly, cheaply, and efficiently the second time around without legacy code / contracts / employees / etc.
If an Amazon replacement (A Inc) is shipping a 3M product, it should go directly from 3M to an A warehouse, and from there, to me. The supply chain should be trusted. I don't think A should try to be a marketplace where anyone can go in, and sell "3M" products which then get comingled.
If a vendor wants to sell on A, someone from A should, at the very least, have a conversation with them, look up their corporate registration, etc., and make sure everything is legit.
If there is a report of a scam, A should look into it every time. I think this is really where Amazon fell apart. Scammers should not get away with it. Right now, if I get scammed, those same scammers keep selling, even under the same name.
Pricing should be set not to be the lowest-cost vendor, but the lowest-cost vendor _with reasonable support_, including and especially investigating scams. The reason to look into a scam isn't to support me, but to avoid needing to support the next thousand people, and the reputation harm that comes with that. Scams and other issues should not have costs externalized to the customer. That sets internal incentives right.
Amazon did this adequately well pre-covid, and most online stores (which is not the same as marketplaces) don't have the same set of problems. Amazon has drifted from being a low-cost / high-service / good logistics competitor to Target, Walmart, etc. to being a high-cost competitor to eBay and Aliexpress.
It takes 1-2 days to get products from Amazon.
Temu has a 90 day return policy.
And Temu is generally cheaper.
Amazons core model is to try a million different things and see what sticks. That’s why they’re horrible at some things, and “ok” at others. They never really double down and deliver a truly amazing experience. The UI is so so. There are ads everywhere. Their electronic devices are pretty third rate toys to give to your 8 year old instead of a more expensive iPad. Even Prime Video mostly looks like shit compared to Netflix, though they do end up copying their interface.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/12/ameri...