At this point, are there any educated consumers still use Amazon for critical things unless there is no alternative?
My dad is as cheap as they get, even he doesn’t buy that stuff from Amazon.
My dad is as cheap as they get, even he doesn’t buy that stuff from Amazon.
I do tend to buy from brand stores and not aggregators or unknown sellers (I’ve been an aggregator for sneakers, but I drop-shipped via the brands directly; I’m more than familiar with SellerCentral).
And my argument isn’t that no one has these issues, but I’m pushing back on the “who even buys on Amazon anymore?” retort.
One thing I've noticed is that you don't really know where its coming from on Amazon. It will say its fulfilled by Amazon themselves, or the manufacturer, but when the package comes it is often actually from some shady 3rd party that was never mentioned. A few times I've had broken, damaged, or dirty items that were obvious returns resold as new. Sometimes in janky homemade style packaging like an eBay item.
I do, and my experience is nearly like yours - in opposite to what many people claim about the US Amazon (amazon.com).
When I visit my elderly mom after several months, I can't quite understand how she's purchased all sorts of bunk from everywhere, not just Amazon. From church MLM sales, to random youtube ads that take her to a store front. While the things she has purchased isn't an absolute scam, they tend to either be low quality or far overpriced for the purchased price.
I do think that there is both a tech privilege that our cohort shares in both high compensation and a better tuned intuition as we tend to be the creators of many products and have a good smell test when it comes to how the sauce is made. The high comp allows for us to purchase the high quality, brand-name version of many products. While understanding the sauce behind a lot of stuff informs my internal heuristics of price, pictures, marketing, 1,3, and 4 star reviews.
I do get the impression that those that are scammed on Amazon tend to be the cohort that is looking for esoteric goods, bleeding edge folks, or just the generally non-privileged folks that will gamble on a $7 Amazon item rather than a $100 version of the thing.