It is seemingly all run by bots. They delisted my product and none of the humans knew why. It is a bot that decided that and no one could answer what the reason was.
I welcome any competition that is more friendly to sellers.
For something more serious either buy directly from the brand, or from Costco, Target, Walmart, HomeDepot, BedBath&Beyond, BestBuy, Macy's, publisher's website, some specialized hardware, electronics or hobby shops. There is still a limited number of things where Amazon beats others, but their quality went down, and hassle free return is not hassle free anymore.
On top of that, they exhibit highly unethical behavior when it comes to counterfeit books. Here is a good thread by François Chollet about his book: https://twitter.com/fchollet/status/1550930876183166976. The main takeaway is this:
Q: What is Amazon doing about it?
A: Nothing. We've notified them multiple times, nothing happened. The fraudulent sellers have been in activity for years. The issue affects ~100% of Amazon sales of the book since March or April. That's because, amazingly, since fraudsters are claiming to have inventory, Amazon has stopped carrying its own inventory for the book (i.e. it has stopped ordering new copies from the publisher).
I have some bad news for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_Bath_&_Beyond#Bankruptcy_a...
TBH I had forgotten Overstock existed until the acquisition was announced.
Yes, yes, quite odd. It’s almost as if these capitalist notions of self- correcting market forces that large businesses are so keen to sell us on are based on decrepit bullshit ideas peddled by the ones who stand to profit the most, with the goal of keeping themselves unregulated for as long as possible so they can squeeze every drop of value at the expense of everyone else. Who could have predicted that a system that not only allows but incentivises a handful of individuals to amass and control the world’s money, thus allowing them to effectively make the rules, would have negative repercussions for society?
As I finish writing this, I notice on the front page yet another article about rising income inequality. Because of course there is, because it’s only getting worse.
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2024/jan/15/worlds-fi...
Things take time in the real world, emotional blithering about capitalism notwithtanding.
Precisely. It depends on a number of factors, including the strength of the tree and of the infection. In other words, these companies are getting stronger and more ingrained all the time, and the longer that goes on the harder it will be to do anything about it.
> Things take time in the real world
Yes, let’s all keep waiting a few more decades without doing anything or criticising the system. That’ll teach them and fix the problem, it’s been working really well so far. All that self-correcting is coming any day now, I can already feel the billionaires shaking in their gold-plated astronaut boots. Maybe the Invisible Hand of the markets will steal the olive from their cocktail.
Otherwise other retailers tend to price regular items much better and you’re unlikely to get used stuff sold as new.
When the Temu version arrives, return the Amazon version.
Now you have it quick, and cheap.
I think it's not just sellers who would welcome some competition in this space.
[0]: https://github.com/amzn/selling-partner-api-docs/discussions...