
Amazon Kind of Sucks and We’ve All Just Come to Accept It - mattmaroon
http://mattmaroon.com/2015/11/10/amazon-kind-of-sucks-and-weve-all-just-come-to-accept-it/
======
lincolnq
Yes. I actually do accept this, and it's OK with me. Prime has saved me _so
much time_ \-- and, arguably more valuable, attention -- obtaining objects I
need. I literally do not care about the price difference between a $1 and a $5
roll of tape: as long as I don't need it sooner than 2 days from now, it's
comin' on amazon, because the alternative is either searching online and
actually thinking about it, or leaving my home -- and my time and attention
are worth much more than that.

~~~
peckrob
Exactly. My time has a value and it is most definitely worth more than $4. If
I need something but I don't need it _right now_ , Amazon is the answer.

Need a pack of sharpies? Yeah, they might be a few bucks cheaper at Walmart,
but then I'd have to go to Walmart. That's an hour of my time wasted driving
to the store, walking all over the place to get the sharpies, waiting in line
for 15 minutes or struggling with the annoying self checkouts that never work
right, then driving home. And I would probably end up getting a few other
things that I didn't really need because I don't want to waste the trip.

With Amazon Prime? 30 seconds max and they arrive 2 or days later. And I'm on
to my next task. I have too much going on to quibble over the difference of a
few dollars when the time savings is so dramatic.

Now, for a major purchase of a few hundred or more, I'm going to spend some
time deal hunting. But for everyday items Amazon is plenty sufficient and the
prices are usually good enough.

~~~
pgrote
... and that is if they have the Sharpies. There is no way to check the
inventory at Walmart before you go, so you are left to hope it is there. Each
time we go to Walmart there are a couple of items not on the shelf.

They are still struggling with it.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/retailwire/2015/08/23/is-
walmart...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/retailwire/2015/08/23/is-walmart-
really-fixing-its-out-of-stock-problems/)

~~~
toomuchtodo
How the hell is Walmart's inventory surfacing to consumers so bad, yet their
supply chain so efficient?

------
lmorris84
His complaint about returns is curious, not sure if it's country specific. I
returned something to Amazon a couple of weeks ago in the UK due to some
missing parts. I printed out the label, put it in the box and the next day a
delivery guy showed up, slapped his own label on the outside and took it away.
I had the refund applied 2 days later.

I've never returned anything to Amazon before so was surprised at how well it
worked.

~~~
barkingcat
The bulk of his complaint about returning is the process that you went through
as well (print label, put in box).

Amazon has legitimate deficiencies ie. killing off local stores with pricing
pressure, horrible ui, etc, but the article goes into the deep end, like the
person wants everything to be done his way without having to do any work.

~~~
c0nducktr
I really can't imagine a simpler return process. Each time I've had to return
something, I went online, stated there was a problem with the product, they
immediately shipped out a new item, and I had 30 days to return the old item.
I also didn't have to print off a return label, as that was included with the
replacement.

Being upset that you need to put a label on a box is one of the most first-
world-problems I've ever heard.

------
Stratoscope
> The UI on everything Amazon does looks like it was designed by Helen Keller.

Ugh. That is just nasty.

If you are ever tempted to write something like that, don't.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller)

~~~
logfromblammo
I think I would probably prefer a web designed in part by a blind or deafblind
person.

Less visual clutter or cute CSS or JS positioning tricks, for one. If you
think hijacking the scroll bar is bad, or hate sites that present a blank page
if scripts are off, imagine how you might feel about incomprehensible
gibberish spewing from your screen reader.

------
dark12222000
This really just seems like the author is searching for things to gripe about.
Has he tried buying most things in a major store?

His points about Amazon's UI are also missing me. The UI seems perfectly
adequate and friendly - which is not to say it's the best UI/UX experience
ever, but that is never the only business requirement.

~~~
klodolph
Have you tried shopping at B&H, for example? I have a much easier time finding
things there. Newegg is also pretty decent. I get frustrated by Amazon's UI
fairly often, by comparison.

------
exelius
Yeah, except Amazon is no longer the "everything" store. Since their spat with
Google and Apple over video streaming, many official Apple and Google products
have been pulled from Amazon (I don't know if this was Apple/Google's doing or
Amazon's).

Amazon is trying to be a merchant and a product developer at the same time.
That's not usually a marriage that ends well for either side: the product
developers will overestimate what the merchant side can do (leading to
inventory problems that just get pushed off to the merchant side), and the
merchants are pressured into stepping on supplier relationships. I can
understand with commodity items like AmazonBasics where they basically just
find the best item in a category on Alibaba, order a lot and slap an Amazon
logo on it, but their actual products like the Fire and Fire TV tread
dangerously close to a lot of the other merchandise they sell.

------
steven2012
This is the biggest load of entitled BS that I've read in a long time. Wow, OP
has to take out tape and actually tape up the return box? Would he prefer that
Amazon send someone out to his house to pick up the item and pack/ship it on
their behalf, obviously for free otherwise he would be whining that he had to
pay for the service.

He sounds like he would complain about having to WAIT IN LINE if he had to
return the item at a physical store. What a load of crock.

Yes, Amazon's prices aren't the lowest for many things. They never say they
are. Prices at Home Depot are often much, much lower for many home items, and
you definitely have to do comparison shopping. Which means continuing to sit
down, and move your mouse and clicking and typing. Not exactly coal mining and
not exactly driving around from store to store like how we did 20 years ago.

But for me, the combination of free, fast, reliable shipping and a decent
price is enough to get me buying stuff almost 3 times a week from Amazon.

------
Someone1234
Amazon.com is just ruined by third party sellers. Hard to find anything
throughout the mess, and the sellers do things like inflate their sales to
push them up the popularity rankings (now called "featured" rankings, so
Amazon can inject paid adverts). I often just search for things, pick the
department, then select "Only sold by Amazon.com" to escape the nonsense.

I'd happily use another site, but who? Target.com and Walmart.com are both
worse sites with odd offline customer service (and meh shipping policies).
NewEgg used to have better search/sort but also got third party seller ruined
(plus return issues). I hear a few peeps about this Jet.com site, but they've
extremely new and have had some issues so far.

I want a site with Amazon's amazing customer services, Amazon's shipping
polices, but with a better site design. If they're going to do filtering in
the search results then having them actually work correctly would be
appreciated (they often don't on Amazon).

~~~
mattmaroon
My experience with Jet.com has so far been great. I started using it maybe a
month ago (right after they ditched membership fees).

Their sorting actually works. Their prices are comparable to big box stores.
Their shipping is fast and free (with a minimum order, of course). It's what
Amazon used to be before it started kinda sucking.

------
saosebastiao
> The UI on everything Amazon does looks like it was designed by Helen Keller.

Amazon's UI, in my opinion, is a case study in heavily politicized UI design.
There are too many parties involved. They all want more screen real estate.
They all think their widget is already the key to Amazon's sales, and if not,
they think that if they just had a bit more screen real estate that they would
increase sales 10X. Because of the magnitude of the involvement and the stakes
at hand, proposing a major overhaul would literally create hundreds if not
thousands of internal enemies, ready to do anything and everything to take you
out.

As a result, we get Times Square with a cohesive font and color scheme.

------
gavinpc
From the "I can't quit you, therefore we can't quit you" department.

I find these love-hate posts interesting.

This is the halfhearted rant of an Amazon junkie. Here is someone who uses
Amazon so much that he keeps spare Amazon boxes in his attic. Someone who
_returns_ items to Amazon so often, that the inconvenience of plugging his
laptop into his printer drove him to buy a new printer (from Amazon, one may
assume). Someone who loves Amazon so deeply, that he cannot refrain from
praising it---and indeed exonerating it---even as he publicly whines about it.

I find these posts interesting because, although the author is a rather
extreme example, it seems to me that this love-hate bondage is quite
mainstream, not being limited to Amazon or technophiles. Never mind the first-
world indignation at Amazon's failure to meet the author's admittedly
unwarranted expectations. The emotion driving this is an ethical conflict: my
heart is saying go, but my head is saying stay, or _vice versa_. Many people
(in my estimation) have similarly mixed feelings about Facebook, Apple, and
Google, at variously increasing rates.

This conflict is born of dependency. Your negative feelings about something
you depend on (pain, shame, frustration, disappointment), strong as they may
grow, are never strong enough to overcome your sense of need, along with
whatever dopamine hit you get from using it. Despite being old enough to
remember a world without Amazon, the OP takes for granted that _someone_ has
to do Amazon's job: if not Amazon, then some hard-to-imagine competitor. But
the OP will never leave Amazon---not for another Amazon, anyway. He has love
enough for both.

So yeah, this is about the author's personal struggle with the mere idea of
freedom from Amazon. But it's just as well that the title says "we've all just
come to accept it."

------
rabidonrails
I would love to hear someone explain why their sorting fuction is so terrible.
Amazon is the only eCommerce site I've ever used that is unable to properly
sort items by price. Why is that?

------
exogen
Amazon needs to quit filling their product database with absolute garbage and
show that they actually care about the customer experience. In trying to sell
absolutely everything they've made it harder to find what you're looking for.

Yesterday I was shopping for an electrical box cover. The first result I
clicked on was categorized as a musical instrument (specifically, a timbale).
The second one I clicked on was categorized as a pair of pliers (specifically,
snap-ring pliers).

Sure, customers could misplace a few things in a physical store – but Amazon
has complete control here, and they're showing us they just don't give a shit.

I love the checkout and shipping experience on Amazon. The amount of reviews
is great (although many reviewers are clearly morons or just fake – that sucks
too). But everything leading up to making the purchase is terrible.

------
joosters
I totally agree with the search problems. Even a very specific search with a
'sort by price' will include thousands of completely unrelated, miscategorised
items. Their product database is junk.

------
gjreda
Conspiracy theory: Amazon's sorting is intentionally bad so that you have to
look through other items you might purchase, much like grocery stores organize
so that you have to work your way through them.

I don't actually believe that, but I do find myself thinking of other things
I've needed/wanted when browsing Amazon.

~~~
themetrician
In your "conspiracy theory", who is Amazon conspiring with? Themselves?

Do you know what "conspiracy" means? Do you think a "conspiracy" can be
achieved by fewer than two different parties?

~~~
loco5niner
HN wouldn't let me reply to your most recent response, so I'm replying here:

All it takes is 2 people to conspire, whether they are co-workers or not. It
fits very well with your first definition: 1. make secret plans jointly to
commit an unlawful or harmful act

------
jessriedel
Folks in this thread may be interested in CamelCamelCamel

[http://camelcamelcamel.com/](http://camelcamelcamel.com/)

They let you set Amazon price watches. The browser/email interface works
really well, with almost no mental overhead, and can save you significant
money on items with volatile prices that you don't need immediately. I use it
for collecting reference textbook, which I get at about 20% of the price if I
bought them at a fixed time. (I'm not affiliated with them or anything, I just
like it.)

------
dap
He completely nailed the problem I've had with his description of looking for
an iPad. If I know exactly what I want already (e.g., a book by title, or an
electronic device by model number), it's usually easy. (In that case, though,
I usually found what I wanted from some other source, and I purchase it
there.) If I want to actually shop -- that is, survey several models of the
same broad kind of item, there are quite often far too many to sift through,
with few useful tools for narrowing it down. Even when I know exactly what I
want, there's usually no way to filter for it.

Brick-and-mortar stores don't exactly solve this problem -- they just have far
fewer choices, and you're relying on something like curation (based on
expected sales). It's not always great, but it's generally preferable.

------
Washuu
I have contacted Amazon several times to inform them about their Javascript
that loads images from related/sponsored products. It causes Firefox to lock
up and freeze with every image request because they are doing something that
is out of the ordinary. I always tell them I would be glad to work with one of
their teams to figure out the issue, but it just goes into some bin on their
end to be forgotten about.

Basically just accept it and deal with it taking twenty seconds per page load
before the web browser is usable again.

~~~
nulltype
Does it cause Chrome to lock up?

~~~
Washuu
It does not.

------
encoderer
My wife and I moved all of our non-grocery shopping to Amazon 2 years ago.
With the Barclay's "Sallie Mae Rewards" card you earn 5% cashback on Amazon
purchases. This, stacked with their subscribe and save, has saved us money
(that we can see in Mint) but also immeasurable time. We have our virtual
quartermaster keeping us stocked and I couldn't be happier that my wife never
asks me to stop at Target anymore.

~~~
xenihn
I wish I could get that card, seems the offer is no longer available :(

Next best thing I found for my shopping habits was the Citibank one with 2%
flat on everything

~~~
encoderer
Woah, you're right. That must have happened recently.

Amazon does offer a store card with 5% cashback. I've received targeted offers
for it. Possibly you can research it and get yourself into the target group.

Chase Freedom is a 5% cashback rotating-categories card and it includes Amazon
in the current quarter. That combined with a Sapphire Preferred is a lucrative
way to earn chase reward points that are best used on travel purchases.

Discover also has an online shopping category. Both the Discover and the
Freedom have no AF so I would consider getting both of them. Discover used to
be better before they changed ShopDiscover. It was like a private FatWallet
that often had the highest payouts.

Finally, the Amex Blue Cash offers 3% cashback on a variety of department
stores. This is a great card to have for the 6% grocery discount and the
department store rebate is a bonus.

Goodluck, and sorry I advertised a card offer that's no longer available.

~~~
xenihn
Oh no problem, I actually tried to get that card a month ago, which is when I
found out it wasn't available anymore. It's definitely the best general-usage
cashback card out there, I think.

I don't like the idea of rotating rewards because it seems like I'll be driven
to spend more than I usually would on each category while it's in-season.

Didn't know about the Amex Blue Cash, 6% grocery discount is pretty big. I
might pick one up, although I need to look at how my credit could be affected,
since I JUST got the Citi Double Cash last month.

------
Alex3917
Non-used books are still cheaper on Amazon than in any bookstore though.
Sometimes only by a dollar or two, but often by ten dollars or more.

------
lujim
Amazon is ok. Kindle books on the other hand are becoming a ripoff. Just
dusted off the library card last week for the first time in years.

~~~
nfriedly
Agreed. I think it's mostly the publishers fault but it's still annoying.

BTW, most libraries have a digital lending thing now where you can get a
kindle book for free for a month or so. (And presumably renew it after that.)

And my local library's digital catalog can also find books that they don't
actually have and let me click a "recommend purchase" button. Last time I
clicked it, I got an email a few days later that the book was now available.

------
dwg
Amazon may have been cheap but now it's convenient.

Of course I would prefer that Amazon is as competitive as possible. However,
as mentioned by others, the time savings of going to a store vs. shopping
online justifies a little extra cost to me. Amazon solves a few other problems
too:

* Security: The more online stores I use, the higher my risk of identify theft. Amazon isn't perfect, but they both have more resources and more incentive (higher stakes) to protect my information than small online retailers. One tradeoff that must be balanced is that Amazon knows more about me.

Note that if Bitcoin were more widely accepted, and retailers collected less
personal information, the security offered by Amazon would be less important.

* Selection: Amazon doesn't have every product available, but it does have more selection than most retail stores. I tend to look for high value (high quality to cost ratio) products because I want things that work well and last long. It's often difficult or impossible to find the same selection at local stores.

------
xlm1717
"I think it has something to do with the fact that one item can be sold by
multiple vendors at multiple prices."

It might be confusing but this will help you get lower prices often. Amazon
also often lists used among the multiple vendors and you can save even more.

Search is half the battle, and admittedly searching for stuff like iPad can
turn up a lot of crap iPad accessories, but after that you can shop around
just on Amazon to get a really good price.

I will share one gripe though. Ever since book publishers forced Amazon to
start charging more for books, it's become a lot more expensive to buy even
eBooks, with a markup "violating the Geneva Convention." I very rarely buy
books now. The good thing is a lot of the books I would like let you try a
sample and if a book is truly outstanding I will buy it. If it's included in
Kindle Unlimited I will read it too. If neither of these options are
available, forget it.

------
dkrich
I think this is a perspective that makes sense for somebody who lives in
suburbia. I don't know that it would make sense to do your everyday shopping
online if you have to drive to the store for other items or to return things
that you bought online.

However if you live in an urban area, it's an entirely different comparison.
First of all, let's face it- taping a label to a box isn't as hard as this guy
describes. Second, to return it, you only have to find the closest UPS or
FedEx store, which, again, in an urban environment is probably closer to you
than the closest Starbucks.

That said, larger box items are almost always cheaper on Amazon than from
other retailers in my experience.

So, a more appropriate title might be _Amazon kind of sucks if you live in the
suburbs and are trying to buy groceries or items that would retail for under
three bucks._

------
Wonderdonkey
This article is for people who haven't yet figured out that different stores
sell the same things for different prices. This is the way it's always been.
Come for the thing that's cheap/on sale, spend your money on something more
expensive while you're there. Basic retail.

Also, you don't need packing tape or the original box to do a return. You go
to a UPS or FedEx store, and they handle it for you for free. Or you order
shipping supplies from FedEx, and they bring them to you for free and then
come and pick up your package from you.

This isn't any harder than returning something to a physical store, and in
fact it's still easier in many cases because you don't have to wait in line or
answer annoying questions.

------
thieving_magpie
I don't see it. Can't agree with the premise. I use their site because of how
convenient it has made my life. Give me something better and I'll switch,
otherwise I really couldn't care less about any of these complaints.

------
Domenic_S
Wow, author's return experience is nothing like mine:

1\. Process return request on Amazon.com.

2\. UPS guy knocks on my door with his own label. My guy carries tape and
tapes up the box for me, too.

3\. Done.

The trick is not throwing out the box until you know you're keeping the item!
Same as retail.

~~~
yalogin
You forgot to mention that they charge you shipping fees if the reason to
return is a simple "you changed your mind". Of course that is comparable to
the time you spend driving to the local store. But still, if you are a prime
member returns are not free shipping.

UPS stores near my house (and fedex too) all charge to tape up boxes and print
out labels.

~~~
Domenic_S
> _You forgot to mention that they charge you shipping fees if the reason to
> return is a simple "you changed your mind"_

That is true, and it can really bite you if the item is heavy (speaker stands
are my personal example - $17 to return $40 stands... I just kept them).

On the other side of the continuum though sometimes Amazon will tell you to
just destroy the item and won't make you ship it back. That's always a nice
surprise.

I don't know if it's a regional difference (suburban SV here), but my UPS guy
always shows up to my door with his own label and tape. It's REALLY
convenient.

------
bagosm
Add-on items
([https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_468520_buyaddon?nodeId=200876660\)make)
it possible to solve the first part.

Delivery drones
([http://www.amazon.com/b?node=8037720011](http://www.amazon.com/b?node=8037720011))
could make amazon better than actually going out to buy even 1 roll of tape,
and returning stuff too.

------
tmaly
I have been a Prime member since 2012. Since having a kid, my free time has
decreased, so I value being able to order something late at night and having
it show up one or two days later. Time is money. I also like their return
system. Its one system that works for everything I buy on Amazon. I don't have
to learn a whole new return system for 10 different sites or call someone up
on the phone and spend 20 minutes trying to figure out how to return
something.

------
Shank
I've found this to be true of a lot of time, but the shipping I somewhat
disagree on. I don't know any third party store that offers free two day
shipping with a prime equivalent. Maybe if I stopped buying Prime and used the
savings to upgrade delivery on sites it would be equivalent. But on things
like microwaves and refrigerators, I don't see anyone beating two day
delivery. The Amazon markup is worth it at that point, for me at least.

------
ricksplat
As somebody with big feet, who used to have to stomp from store to store
Amazon was and still is a life-saver. Filter by size and click and all
available shoes are displayed before you; no questions asked upon return if
it's not quite right. E-Bay was always that little bit more precarious. For
anybody whose ever on the long tail of anything Amazon has saved the day.

------
nfriedly
It's pretty easy to find competitors that are cheaper than amazon, but it's
not as common to find ones who will ship as quickly and still be cheaper.
(Even if you exclude prime.)

Also, why does Amazon seem to be the only site on the internet that will give
you a guaranteed delivery date and refund you the shipping cost if they miss
it?

------
Overtonwindow
I've been a customer of Amazon since 1999 and I've never had a problem with
them. They treat me better than Walmart, they cost less than the corner store,
and it's quick and easy. I'm tired of people saying I should pay more and put
up with more bullshit just to support a smaller company.

------
Pigo
I still remember the day I typed in cdnow.com and it took me to amazon.com,
sometime around 2002 I believe. That was when I started to take amazon
seriously. I wonder if they are making so much from their cloud computing
services that the retailing will become less of a concern for them.

------
ogezi
Unfortunately, there's nothing better than Amazon in the industry.

------
blisterpeanuts
Speaking as a very careful shopper, my experiences at AMZN are quite different
from the blogger's.

\- _Pricing_

Amazon has excellent prices, even after they started charging sales tax in my
state, and even after factoring in the annual Prime fee. Often the affiliate
vendors don't charge sales tax[1], and sometimes they are a couple of bucks
cheaper than the Prime price. I keep trying to find better deals elsewhere --
Ebay sometimes beats them -- but other vendors really can't compete.

\- _Selection_

Selection at Amazon is fabulous. You can find literally anything there.
Between Amazon and Ebay, they've got you covered for probably any kind of
product you could imagine.

\- _User Experience_

Well I haven't found it _that_ difficult to do things like sort by price. You
have to fast forward past the irrelevant items but many other online retailers
have the same problem with false positives and deceptive categorization. After
a while, people just get used to it and learn how to deal with it.

\- _Books_

Amazon began as a book seller, and it remains one of their core competencies.
The Kindle Paperwhite reader is an excellent product (the Fire tablets less
so). Amazon has created a first rate ecology for e-books, self-publishers, and
of course traditional printed material.

\- _Deals_

I'm a shopping junkie and I'm always looking for bargains. I do online polls
and other tasks to acquire Amazon gift cards, so I may not be the typical
shopper. But there are opportunities to knock $5 off here, $10 off there, and
really get some deals. Fill out this poll after the AnDevCon and receive a $20
gift card. Really? I'm all in! I live for this stuff.

\- _Returns_

If you want the luxury of free returns for non-defective merchandise, then
shop locally. That's what retail pricing is for -- to pay for the overhead of
10-20% return rates. If you can do your research and shop online very
carefully, you can avoid the need to return. If a product is defective, on the
other hand, Amazon has first rate service. Usually just print the label, stick
it on the box, and leave it on the porch. OK, yeah, you probably need to have
a roll of packing tape handy, and tape the box closed -- a rather trivial
effort in the grand scheme of things.

Amazon's not perfect, not by a long stretch. Once in a while, there are better
deals elsewhere. But if you shop realistically, efficiently, and try to
accumulate gift cards, you make out like a bandit.

[1] Retail sales tax is gradually being extended to online sales. I respect
the law, but I feel that I do not "owe" my state any more money than they
already get from me (which is a lot). Just because a business has a "presence"
in my state should not require them to charge sales tax on an item I ordered
over the internet that was shipped from Seattle or Texas or China.

------
n7c3c1
Can't believe this clickbait is at the top of HN. Look at the quality of
analysis this guy gives.

>Amazon "Kind of sucks" >Amazon "has a world-class distribution system"

Which is it?

> I started looking around, comparing prices, and found that this is not
> unusual. Pretty much anything Amazon sells that is also sold at your local
> big box store costs much more.

Care to provide even just one example?

> I’m too lazy to figure out which page the first one pops up on, because I
> gave up on page 12. Even if you sort by Apple as the manufacturer, you get a
> bewildering array of crap that isn’t what you’re looking for. Walk into an
> Apple store or Best Buy and you can figure it out in seconds.

Too lazy? To sort through some results?

This article reads like a Facebook post.

~~~
andylei
> Care to provide even just one example?

the tape

> Too lazy? To sort through some results?

yeah. too lazy to sort through 12 pages of results to find the lowest price,
when a computer should do it for you in 1 second

~~~
bsimpson
1s? You mean 50ms?

