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Comment by mjamesaustin | Hacker News Reader

Even better, buy direct from the manufacturer instead of Amazon. I've found most of the time you get the same price and free shipping without giving Jeff Bezos a dime.

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I've had bad experiances trying this:

- Return experience is TERRIBLE. I'm not kidding, with Amazon you've got one click to a QR code and a UPS store dropoff. Some of these mfgs you are jumping hoops for a week plus! And then have to box, buy a label, often pay for shipping and more. IF you can even get in touch with someone.

- Shipping experience is TERRIBLE. How does FedEx stay in business? I'm serious - the express port of their name is a joke. Stuff will randomly get stuck in a warehouse for a week. I've had their call center tell me that for SURE it will be delivered x date (because the online tool shows that date) but the package is still out of state at 9PM. So they'd need to get it in state, then to distribution center and then to a truck to my house by midnight - surprise surprise that didn't happen.

- I've gotten used products from the mfg? Do they get amazon returns back and then try to ship direct with those? How does this work that the new product is under the amazon.com seller and the mfg has the USED?

- You get on more mailing lists going direct. ULINE and friends now ship me these huge catalogs following tiny tiny purchases. Catalogs are still a thing!

I recently bought a camping tent from Naturehike, a budget but respected Chinese brand. I ordered on their website and, long story short, my parcel got stuck at a warehouse for weeks, presumably lost. They said they can't refund me before they retrieve the tent and "inspect the package", as if I somehow went to a warehouse in a different country, found it there, and damaged it.

It took me well over a month of back and forth to get a refund, and only after I repeatedly threatened them with a chargeback. I ordered the exact same tent on Amazon and had it the next day. As a bonus, it was now discounted on Amazon but not on the manufacturer's website.

I only order from Amazon a handful of times a year when I can't find an item elsewhere, but manufacturers are really doing their best to push me towards it.

Yeah, Amazon has disadvantages (counterfeits, fake reviews, more expensive) but its advantages (insane shipping speed/cost, strong return policy) are nearly impossible for competitors to compete with. The manufacturer is not going to offer same day delivery and no-questions-asked returns.

It's not unusual for many manufacturers to have an online store that is backed by AMZN anyway.

It is also often more expensive than Amazon, which is I think is largely due to Anazon's anti-competetive, and possibly illegal "most favored nation" terms, but as a consumer it does discourage avoiding Amazon (which is why Amazon has those terms).

Every time I do that I get frustrated:

- shipping sometimes goes to from day(s) to weeks

- suddenly their ads start going to email

- please review us emails

I'd rather bezos get his cut.

I bought a weed whacker directly from the maker about 5 years ago, and since then have received literal tons of their catalogues in my tiny mailbox. They send > 80% of all the mail I receive. I've regretted it ever since. Now I feel like I need to keep my address a secret unless there's a good reason not to. Amazon has had it since the last century and has never abused it.

I'd buy more from such if it was easy to hide my personal info from them.

> Now I feel like I need to keep my address a secret unless there's a good reason not to.

No business gets my real phone number, and the email I provide is companyname@mydomain.com. The minute I start receiving unsolicited email, I revoke the alias and spam will bounce.

Can't you get a few thousand dollars by suing them for spamming you?

Not for physical mail.

Yeeeeey for living in a country where physical mail is prohibitively expensive. A standard letter, 2 - 5 business days, costs $3.50.

In US, USPS (government snail mail) literally has program that allows you to send^W spam marketing mail: https://www.usps.com/business/every-door-direct-mail.htm

Do they make it up on volume or is postal workers just incredibly cheap?

They're forced to deliver it at a loss and then yelled at by congress when they fail to turn a profit. The system just works.

This. Amazon has the best checkout and delivery system in the world, and that alone is worth a few extra dollars. The excess crap gets caught in the appropriate filters and I just end up with my item in a box.

> This. Amazon has the best checkout and delivery system in the world, and that alone is worth a few extra dollars.

IIRC amazon yeets you out of their marketplace if you sell items cheaper than on amazon.com. Which you can work around by giving our coupon on your website, but that results in email/sms spam.

Amazons checkout is terrible though. Maybe it's better if you're in the US, but here you're not told the actual price, after currency conversion and shipping costs until the very last minute. Their shipping is awful, because it doesn't integrate with anything, so you can select a pickup point, and shipping is often weeks rather than next day.

That hasn't been my experience. They are rarely cheaper, especially once you include the shipping fee. And the shipping experience is lackluster most of the time, and downright frustrating a lot of the time.

I have tried desperately to do this and come up short about 75-80% of the time. I tried for years to buy local also and got screwed over every time I tried. Things just aren't like they used to be where people gave a shit about quality and service.

What do you mean? Where is the percentage of "75-80%" coming from? Local service is great, and I'm happy to pay a little extra to see my neighbors employed.

They were talking about buying directly from the manufacturer (presumably to be delivered) instead of Amazon (definitely to be delivered).

You're talking about buying from a local shop. Unless that local shop is also the manufacturer, then that's a whole different discussion. :)

Well yeah, but GP also writes about local shops and complains about quality and service...

I often find things are more expensive on the manufacturer's site than they are on Amazon or Ebay. I assume because they know you are ding price comparisons on marketplaces.

Sometimes I try to do this, and they fulfill through their Amazon store anyway.

My biggest issue here is delivery date certainty. So often the manufacturer will list "2-5 day delivery" or similar. But no way to tell which side of the country they ship from.

I often try to do this, but it's rarely cheaper, and occasionally much worse. I recently bought a beach tent directly from the manufacturer, and when it showed up, it had a big Amazon sticker on it, and didn't actually have the product inside; it was clearly something Amazon had returned to them. Meanwhile, they haven't responded to e-mails and there's no way to return it, so, uh, I just got scammed.

I keep doing it anyway, but it's certainly not because it's a better or cheaper experience.

amazon shipping speed, return policies, and customer support are simply too good.

And do the same for knockoffs as well.

If you see something that looks like obvious dropshipping, chances are you can find it for a fraction of the price without the middleman on Temu, AliExpress or DHGate.

I'd rather not spread out personal info like credit cards to more parties than necessary while Amazon has excellent and consistent customer support.

I was the same way and got tired of it so I keep a layer in front of my life just like I do on the web with multiple identities, emails, VPNs, etc.

I pay $100 per year for a private mailbox near my apartment, registered under an LLC with a registered agent (not in my name and in another state) where I get deliveries in that name. that llc uses a fintech bank where I can spin up as many debit/credit cards as I want, I rotate them just like api keys. I also keep a twilio phone number that only receives texts with a webhook that goes to my discord. any sort of loyalty card etc goes under that number. I can enable phone calls if I need to, and of course a 2nd/3rd email account attached to this.

> Amazon has excellent and consistent customer support

We've been dealing with different Amazons. Also, credit cards in my experience are built to deal with that stuff. Have you encountered protection issues by using your credit card? The only chargeback I've initiated was against Amazon and my credit card company handled it swimmingly.

Every time I talk to them I ask for a gift card for compensation for whatever problem and they give it to me.

agree - amazon is awful, I'll never purchase an item from them worth more than $100 again. stolen iphones, broken computer equipment, cheap products in expensive boxes. they want you to file a police report and spend so many hours project managing and dealing with their AI customer support / the ticket it makes it not worth it

Most of the time you’re giving that info to stripe or Shopify. But also credit cards are protected - you can dispute charges - so it’s not a huge risk IMO

Credit cards are pretty locked down, you can't connect to that network without a verified identity to be sued when unauthorized charges are made.

Many CC let you generate one time use CC numbers if you’re actually concerned about manufactures information security.

I feel like a better solution would have been anonymized/single use card numbers.

Do you know why it is the same price on the manufacturer website?

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