Yes, at this point I'm considering cancelling my Prime subscription since I noticed that for many product categories I frequently buy (audio equipment, HIFI, biking gear, clothing, hardware) Amazon is a subpar option.
- Product exploration, curation and comparison is a huge problem at Amazon. Unless I know exactly what I want, I don't even bother searching on Amazon. This issue extends to the quality of the product selection - I think the marketplace approach is a mistake. If I wanted to browse a sea of cheap low quality items from dubious sellers, I'd check eBay.
- The selection for niche categories is limited and the listings are terrible to browse. Particularly clothing is bad: The same item is scattered over countless listings, featuring inconsistent attributes/options
- Pricing is competetive, but rarely exceptional. These days things are priced very similarly between different stores.
- return policies aren't issue here in the EU. There's a mandatory 14-day return window. Sure, 30 days are even better and Amazon handles them flawlessly, but it's basically a non-issue at any store for me.
That said, I still very much enjoy their reliable next-day delivery enabled by Prime. This is what makes me come back to Amazon again and again - after doing my product research elsewhere, of course.
- Product exploration, curation and comparison is a huge problem at Amazon. Unless I know exactly what I want, I don't even bother searching on Amazon. This issue extends to the quality of the product selection - I think the marketplace approach is a mistake. If I wanted to browse a sea of cheap low quality items from dubious sellers, I'd check eBay.
- The selection for niche categories is limited and the listings are terrible to browse. Particularly clothing is bad: The same item is scattered over countless listings, featuring inconsistent attributes/options
- Pricing is competetive, but rarely exceptional. These days things are priced very similarly between different stores.
- return policies aren't issue here in the EU. There's a mandatory 14-day return window. Sure, 30 days are even better and Amazon handles them flawlessly, but it's basically a non-issue at any store for me.
That said, I still very much enjoy their reliable next-day delivery enabled by Prime. This is what makes me come back to Amazon again and again - after doing my product research elsewhere, of course.