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Comment by waffle_ss | Hacker News Reader

Not just environmentally but also the small cost that you are passing on to everyone else that buys from Amazon by making them handle the return. If everyone shopped at Amazon this way, they wouldn't be able to sell their goods as cheaply as they do.

Please consider using a brick and mortar store to physically compare products first. Amazon has a nice mobile app that lets you purchase an item very quickly by just scanning the barcode (using the mobile's camera).

Obviously not a big deal as a one-off, but if this is a consistent shopping habit I would really hope you reconsider it.

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How about if you use "a brick and mortar store to physically compare products first", you buy the item in the brick and mortar store. They already shipped the item, so you are not hurting the environment further by wasting energy getting another one to you. If everyone shopped at "brick and mortar stores" this way, they would close. People in your community would be fired, and you wouldn't be able to compare products personally.

Obviously not a big deal as a one-off, but if this is a consistent shopping habit I would really hope you reconsider it.

I don't actually shop that way, I take my chances based on Amazon ratings (not a hard thing as I buy mostly electronics and media). My only direct concern is that he keeps Amazon prices low for my own benefit.

I don't really see the point in artificially trying to keep business models afloat that can't compete. If anything, it's harmful to the free market. It might warm your heart a bit, but the overall benefit to society is to cast your vote (your $) for the most efficient business method.

If you use Amazon exclusively then no problem, all is good.

My only concern was that the advice artificially keeps a business model afloat (Amazon) that relies on the existence of brick-and-mortor stores. Its like people using the local hardware store for advice then buying all the parts at Wal-Mart.

What's hurting the brick and mortar store is not the "going in to compare items" part, but rather it's the "buying on Amazon instead of from the local store" part. You may as well say, "If everyone bought online instead of at the store the stores would close."

That might be true, but it might not. If he wasn't able to shop this way, he may have bought 0 bags from Amazon. Amazon would then stock and move fewer bags, reducing their volume discount and driving up the warehousing price for that SKU.

Your advice might actually raise the cost of that item. (Return) Shipping is but one variable in the huge equation that is an Amazon sale. Only Amazon knows for sure.

Good point. Certainly will reconsider this practice in the future. Thanks for pointing this out.

the small cost that you are passing on to everyone else that buys from Amazon by making them handle the return.

That's not really how pricing works. A retailer sets the price that maximizes their revenue, not based on their costs. If jason_shah stopped doing that it'd probably just mean a (very small) increase in their profit margin.

If everyone shopped at Amazon this way, they wouldn't be able to sell their goods as cheaply as they do.

That wouldn't be very smart off them. I think it's more probable that they would just limit the conditions of returns.

How do their operating costs not factor into their revenue? Are you saying that when gas prices go up, retailers just absorb the extra shipping costs and don't pass it on to consumers? I was always taught that's not the case. Genuinely curious as I only took ECON101.

Often they don't, 'though gas prices are a special case since they affect every retailer, and their margins are often razor thin as they are.

But consider Kindle vs paperback prices on Amazon for the same book. If costs were the most important thing in setting prices, the former would never be more expensive than the latter; but we see it often is, because demand sets the price, not cost.

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