I am from Switzerland and we had for years a home-grown competitor called galaxus/digitec which basically did the same as amazon just much better without the cheap crap. And it is flourishing. It has fast shipping, easy return, amazing UI and competitive prices. They even included statistics on return and warranty they gathered.
To me when I started buying stuff at amazon and then a package comes 3 weeks later from china (looking like aliexpress) I was so pissed. Only if I truly know what I buy and it’s the cheapest I buy on Amazon, else no. It could be its end and a good way for a healthy competition to come in.
I have largely curtailed my Amazon shopping because of all the cheap crap. I now only buy something on Amazon if I know exactly which product I intend to buy. I don't think Amazon is existentially threatened. I still prefer Amazon's reliable shipping. But a niche has definitely opened up where having good taste makers can be a powerful product differentiator. If someone managed to combine Wire Cutter reviews with Amazon's reliable shipping, that would be a powerful product.
Surprisingly, this is one of the value propositions of Costco!
Of course, the first thing they're known for is letting you buy comically huge volumes of everyday items.
But one of the reasons that they actually have a cult following is that their corporate buyers are actually incredibly good at finding interesting items and offering them at a good price.
Browsing Costco essentially becomes a curated tour of what's new in the land of food, gadgets, etc. All backed by an extremely consumer friendly set of policies allowing returns etc, which minimizes your risk.
The problem is it’s too expensive. Every item is £10 minimum. It’s not just raisins, it’s 5.8kg of raisins. And it’s not actually cheaper than other shops because they’re just selling you premium products in bigger sizes.
Yes, I went into a Costco recently with a friend and it didn't live up to the hype of it supposedly being better value. Some things were much more expensive, especially pet food.
What is actually bad about their in store experience? I don't see how it could improved other than their awful push for self check out, but that's affecting all retailers.
I can never find anything. You have to walk every isle in the whole store. And that’s after you make it through 400 yards of parking lot expressly designed to get you run over by an F350. Then you get to the checkout (after picking the 20-minute line, of course) and learn which payment methods Costco currently is at war with; you better have something blessed. Then you get to stand in line again (this may actually be your third line of the day if card checks were queued up) with all your fellow suspected-shoplifters for some security theater receipt glance-and-mark. Finish it all off with another parking lot gauntlet, but this time fully laden.
I don’t have experience with any but my local Costco. Maybe the rest are delightful.
Consider taking an edible or some CBD before your Costco experience if this is how you’re experiencing it (ie stressful). I love my IRL Costco experience, especially the soda and hot dog at the end. Just enough chaos to be delightful, I don’t mind any of the grievances you’ve raised. Tis the cost of the bulk blessings. Checking my card and purchases along with a long checkout line? Meh. Don’t let the big box store stress you out. Grab a cart and enjoy.
I find it comical. Store staff telling people in the long line there is no line. I walk right up to the front and get in a short one every time. Is hilarious to watch.
It works because they have AWS. If the entirety of the business was only the consumer site, it's looking more and more like Wish with each passing day.
What's an alternative to Amazon? eBay is worse. Walmart.com has the same problem with third party vendors. There are few other "buy anything" webstores. I also noticed during some Christmas shopping that buying from Amazon was actually cheaper than the actual brand sites themselves, in particular, adidas shoes and a sodastream were cheaper on Amazon than on sodastream and adidas dot com. Exact same products. I don't know why.
Also, Wish takes 40 days to ship. Ebay and other sites take 4 days. If I order something from Amazon right now I'll literally have it in 4 hours. Doesn't matter for all purchases but it's so convenient.
Amazon stopped being better than eBay around 2019 and has fallen hard. The search sucks, getting a good quality item is hard, reviews are games. Yeah returns are easy, but not getting what you want and needing to return is a PITA. Returns are also just as easy on eBay and not nearly as needed.
Amazon with Prime still edges out on shipping speed but eBay is close.
eBay acquaints you more with the seller and if you are buying from a seller with "Top Rated" status you can be sure you will get a good product shipped quickly.
If Amazon can clean up bad sellers / fake reviews and fix the search they can get back to being the best.
Personally I find better prices and quicker delivery or pickup for most common goods at Walmart and for the Chinese stuff that Amazon is filled with there's Ali, Temu, etc.
When I need something more niche I prefer eBay but still search Amazon, but again, their search sucks.
I disagree. eBay isn't great, but the quality of goods feels higher than on Amazon. At least the brands are known to me and have a history. Amazon is now just a front for cheap junk from a revolving door of manufacturers who look to me like they are avoiding scrutiny.
Retailers like B&H and Best Buy have worked great for me. Additionally, it’s become much easier to buy direct as Amazon’s quality as a retailer has degraded.
I know this sounds crazy, but you can buy straight from the brand's website if they have one. If you use a credit card or PayPal you still get buyer protection.
It makes me think I’m the only person that’s never had an issue ordering things from Amazon! I have prime and sort by recommended and I’ve never had a bad experience. Is it only for particular types of items?
No, it’s everything. Can’t think of anything that wouldn’t count.
Our issues are sponsored results crowd out the first page, strange no name companies crowding out brand names, can’t sort by retailer, or any usefu sort or filter mechanism.
It’s all gamed to have you click on a sponsored result. If you buy from third party better check the condition, terms, and return policy. Oh and it might be fake or previously used.
That said, I still find it useful but only because like someone else said, every other “a to z “ company is worse. That said, Amazon is competitive at price point still but it isn’t where I go to find products organically. I find recommendations elsewhere then comparison shop. Walmart at least you can sort sold by Walmart, BB/Home Depot work fine as well. Amazon has its place but it’s not a good or enlightening experience.
> No, it’s everything. Can’t think of anything that wouldn’t count. Our issues are sponsored results crowd out the first page, strange no name companies crowding out brand names, can’t sort by retailer, or any usefu sort or filter mechanism.
If it stopped there it would be almost okay, but then the page for the brand might get you items comingled with counterfeits.
Yes, I'm surprised at the amount of negative feedback. I buy quite a bit of stuff from Amazon and have never had a bad experience so far (my account has been active since the days when Amazon sold only books, circa 1997).
Items delivered work as advertised. Reasonable delivery times (I live in Singapore). I buy from both Amazon SG and US stores.
Are there some sort of filter where US based Amazon customers get targetted with shoddy products and foreign customers less so? Genuinely curious.
It's not possible to filter out the marketplace. The marketplace is full of dropshippers with highly inconsistent delivery times. There are some things I just want to buy from Amazon directly.
Chinese fire-and-forget brands crowd out real brands. Fine if you e.g. just want cheap gloves, but a terrible experience if you want more than that.
I get the idea, but don't consider Temu or Wish exactly competitors. Having tried both, both seem to have a problem with misrepresentation - showing something that leads you to believe the product is much better or especially larger than it really is. I'm not saying that doesn't occur on Amazon, but hasn't in my shopping experiences.
Temu and Wish may have completely fine items, also, but the one experience I had with each soured me from trying again.
Twitter and Reddit showed in 2023 that there's a size you can reach after which you can ramp up the enshittification past the point once thought possible and only a small number will leave. Amazon has sucked for a long time but it has runway to keep going, it will take a generation or longer for something as big as Amazon to "end."
Indeed. Friendster and Yahoo too. Not to mention Altavista. And Myspace.
In the past 3 years, Amazon's brand went from gold to gutter trash. That's something which took 2+ decades to build up. User drain will follow.
This would be a good time to build the next Amazon, if someone has a few $B to spare. Basically, just do the same thing Amazon did through 2020, only more quickly, cheaply, and efficiently the second time around without legacy code / contracts / employees / etc.
The thing you’re missing is that the ecosystem of bad actors that has grown up with Amazon have already infested all the other online marketplaces. There is no going back to the before times.
I think one mistake is trying to be a marketplace, rather than a reseller.
If an Amazon replacement (A Inc) is shipping a 3M product, it should go directly from 3M to an A warehouse, and from there, to me. The supply chain should be trusted. I don't think A should try to be a marketplace where anyone can go in, and sell "3M" products which then get comingled.
If a vendor wants to sell on A, someone from A should, at the very least, have a conversation with them, look up their corporate registration, etc., and make sure everything is legit.
If there is a report of a scam, A should look into it every time. I think this is really where Amazon fell apart. Scammers should not get away with it. Right now, if I get scammed, those same scammers keep selling, even under the same name.
Pricing should be set not to be the lowest-cost vendor, but the lowest-cost vendor _with reasonable support_, including and especially investigating scams. The reason to look into a scam isn't to support me, but to avoid needing to support the next thousand people, and the reputation harm that comes with that. Scams and other issues should not have costs externalized to the customer. That sets internal incentives right.
Amazon did this adequately well pre-covid, and most online stores (which is not the same as marketplaces) don't have the same set of problems. Amazon has drifted from being a low-cost / high-service / good logistics competitor to Target, Walmart, etc. to being a high-cost competitor to eBay and Aliexpress.
I can’t really trust it anymore. If you don’t know what you want with outside information, you’ll be defrauded. Other retailers are not that far off on shipping so it’s only really price that’s letting them keep my custom.
"Over time, though, Amazon’s Americanness has begun to slip" - This is laughable. How much "americanness" can it be really, if the production of these things are since long time go from overseas, particularly China? If there are anything "american" in this process, it is actually Amazon's fast shipping and returning policy that somewhat differentiates. So that "slip" already happened decades ago and has nothing to do with Amazon really.
Amazon is less of a storefront and more of a logistics business. If Temu or anyone else seriously offered competition to take Amazon’s sales, I imagine they’d just pivot to offering Temu delivery.
Amazons core model is to try a million different things and see what sticks. That’s why they’re horrible at some things, and “ok” at others. They never really double down and deliver a truly amazing experience. The UI is so so. There are ads everywhere. Their electronic devices are pretty third rate toys to give to your 8 year old instead of a more expensive iPad. Even Prime Video mostly looks like shit compared to Netflix, though they do end up copying their interface.
