I wanted to get printer photo paper for my printer, a Canon. I went to Walmart, They had nothing. Went to Target, they had one pack of photo paper and it was crazy expensive, so I went to micro center. That one was just as expensive. So finally I went back to Amazon, which I was trying to avoid, and saw the price 25 to 40% lower than anywhere I had been. Literally everything that I was looking for, I could find within seconds. Not even Best buy has even close to the amount of inventory or variety, even when you’re shopping online…
Therefore, I think Amazon has a literal monopoly in the tech industry right now, you’re literally forced to buy from them, because unless you have the money and financial fortitude to protest with your wallet, you’re going to be buying from them. There’s no other choice. They have so aggressively and dominantly taken over the supply chain market that no other tech company can currently compete with them in any aspect at all. You will be paying 40 to 50% more on everything by cutting out Amazon, and no one has the money for that anymore unless you’re upper middle class or above
You were looking for office supplies: did you check an office supply store?
Definitely would have been my first choice to look also, but do you think that staples or office max is going to have something cheaper than amazon?
It depends on the paper based on some quick searching, but I can pickup the paper from staples faster than Amazon will deliver it.
This would be a great point if we were discussing how fast you can get the item and not the cost of the item.
I’m thinking op isn’t the brightest tool on the short bus. Walmart has a far better market place/e-commerce platform than shitass Amazon. Same delivery windows of 1-3 says. Can order groceries that aren’t fuckin wierd marketplace seller with a garage packed with dented pallets of Nutella, wild rice and 5hr energy drinks lol. The groceries actually come from the store or the next nearest one. They basically already had the warehouse infrastructure. The dumped billions with a fuckin B last year just on developing and expanding on drone deliveries. Plus when your order gets fucked up from Walmart… YOU TALK TO A FUCKIN PERSON WHO ISNT HALF WAY ACCROSS THE PLANET WITH 3 PRELOADED REPLIES TO FIX EVERY PROBLEM. Fuuuuuuuuuck Amazon customer service. But also unless op was looking for the holy grail of printers I will bet my annual salary that Walmart’s online store had the exact printer they were looking for or one that is an exact copy but another brand. So dramatic to write this whole post up for such a dumb reason lol.
Edit: Also no person or brand selling on Amazon is exclusively selling on Amazon. If the printer wasn’t available anywhere it’s prolly a discontinued model or a fuck up by the mfg. Such a dumb post.
So you are arguing its a duopoly?
How did Walmart become the good guy in all this shit? What the ever living fuck is going on with capitalism?
I gave up on Amazon a while ago except for very niche things, and Walmart if great. Orde groceries, they tell me to come get them, dude loads them up in my car and tells me have a good day. It’s amazing. No extra charge, nothing. Don’t have to deal with any of the people of Walmart.
It would help if you went to the right stores first. Try Office Max, Staples, Office Depot, etc.
The only things I buy off Amazon are the niche items from stores that only exist in the top largest cities in the USA. It’s difficult to find fountain pen stuff elsewhere, and most of the stores have a front on Amazon.
I don’t know why people buy everyday stuff on Amazon. It’s usually more expensive and you have to wait for it.
My old roommate bought a single roll of aluminum foil from amazon one time and I still think about it.
Hell even Costco probably has photo paper
I am fortunate to live in a country where amazon is not strong and we have aggregated search engines that over all the small shops, compete against Amazon on selection and cost, often beating it. I hope it stays this way.
That’s cool. EU?
Yes, Czechia. We can order from Amazon.de, but it’s not usually much better than the other options, and returns and support are much worse.
I put some of the blame on retailers as well. Retail stores just don’t want to carry inventory anymore, especially tech-focused ones with many of those just turning into glorified showrooms. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard some version of: “Sorry, we don’t have that in stock but we can bring it in for you.”
We needed a short length of garden hose here for the house so I went to two hardware stores and one garden centre looking for one. Nothing. Not even in their dedicated gardening sections. I had to order it off Amazon. A goddamn garden hose.
Amazon has done a lot of damage for sure but retail is suffering from several self-inflicted wounds too. Home Depot, for example, is a multi-billion dollar corporation and even they have a weaker retail presence now. That’s not Amazon’s fault.
They don’t want to carry inventory because Amazon doesn’t. The prices are higher because vendors are contractually obligated to sell on Amazon at their lowest price. So retailers, with a need to have a physical presence and having to buy at more or less the same price a product is available for on Amazon, get fucked. Their only hope is vendors who make a “different” product to sell at other outlets. An example of what I mean is, Poppi soda sells for $20/12 pack on Amazon. They sell a 15 pack at Costco for the same price. Because it’s a “different” product they are not in breach of contract.
Harbor Freight.
When you absolutely need something to work presicely once between the day you buy it and the day you’re late for jury duty.
I’ve gotten some surprisingly long lasting gems there, but you can never be sure. Like you said, I’ve also gotten a number “single use” tools from Harbor Freight. Overall though, it’s almost always been worth it.
Most homeowners don’t need better than HF. If you start getting into more sophisticated equipment their quality can be really problematic but for all the basic stuff a homeowner needs: hammer and pliers, HF is one-stop.
From there you have to be careful, but gems can be found. I’ve been using their 120V 2HP dust collector in my wood shop for years now and it is an insane value for a decent machine.
Check your local mom and pop hardware store if you have one! I had to get a feeder hose this summer as well, and the only place I found it was a local family owned hardware store.
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Having worked at a Target like this, I can assure you there is still a lack of inventory on top of these stores being extremely short staffed. Target in particular completely eliminated their storeroom staff a few years ago and just doubled the work load of the floor staff. Both the floor and the storeroom were absolute nightmares to navigate because there were not enough people to actually organize and stock.
Go on Facebook and ask your local buy nothing group. Check thrift stores line the habitat for humanity restore. Farm and home store like fleet farm/ farm and fleet. Plenty of ways to get ahold of something like that without buying new.
That requires Facebook
I’ll stick to not buying things instead
There’s always dumpster diving
He said he didn’t want to use Facebook.
I wonder how much investment it drives in Facebook to be a user who registered under an assumed name on a VPN with an ad blocker enabled.
Unfortunately, probably some.
I feel you. Fortunately, in my area there’s a very popular classifieds section at one of the local newspapers, so I can stick to my guns avoiding Facebook.
So check local newspaper classifieds, Craigslist, and maybe your local library (you never know if they organize swaps).
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That’s not Amazon’s fault.
That’s mostly the fault of consumers who buy from Amazon (and other e-tailors).
There’s quite a few retail stores that don’t keep inventory, even for common things. Staples comes to mind, where it feels like half their damn office items aren’t in stock, so you need to wait for them to have it brought in.
The problem is that those same retail stores can’t compete with Amazon’s shipping speed. It becomes a case of:
- I want to buy a thing, I need it fast, so I guess I’ll check my local retails stores
- My local retail stores don’t have it in stock, but I can order it and it’ll be there in 4-5 days
- I can just buy it off of Amazon at a comparable price, and have it tomorrow
It’s alright if they don’t want to carry inventory, but they need to have the shipping speeds to compete, otherwise there’s no reason for the consumer not to just buy it off of Amazon directly.
The problem with this “econ101” thinking is that it insists that the whole system runs on the choices of actors in a deterministic system.
Yes, the system isn’t perfectly deterministic, but on average and over a long-enough time period, it pretty much is. People are going to act irrationally, but generally people will be irrational roughly equally on either side of “rational.”
In this case, the market is probably big enough that if a big retailer doesn’t stock something, it’s because the average person has decided that buying it elsewhere (i.e. Amazon) or not buying it at all (i.e. longer is fine) is preferable to buying it at the local store. It’s not the local retailer’s fault that it’s unprofitable to stock that item, it’s a mix of consumers and online competition making that product unprofitable to stock.
That said, you’ll probably have a better shot if you go to specialized stores. In this case, look at farming and plumbing supply stores, since they’re more likely to service those customers who really need that short hose today to complete a project. Your regular home improvement stores (e.g. Lowe’s and Home Depot) cater to homeowners more than contractors (so having a little of everything is better than lots of something), whereas the specialist stores cater to contractors and small business owners.
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Totally agree!
Looks like you’ve been hard at work blocking since people actually agree with you now
Amazon has very good deals OR very bad ones. I find Microcenter often equal to or even better than Amazon in most tech stuff.
Your experience is exactly why you shouldn’t make sweeping judgement on one data point.
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Photo paper isn’t really tech. It’s a supply.
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It’s a low volume niche item.
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People that are buying it are less likely to care about cost (older) or want it right now. So Microcenter feels they can charge more. (IMO)
Was about to say, the last few times I have bought something, Amazon was actually the more expensive choice. Once we looked at them to buy some grocery type products and they were just absolutely horribly expensive compared to any local grocer.
Funny you mention grocery type items. That’s where I first noticed how bad Amazon can price gouge. Sometimes 3-4 times what the price should be.
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Remember that time like 10 years ago, when some local news station was doing a story about Amazon having all the best tech deals, and then the one co-host butts in and says “You know why they have a monopoly, right? RIGHT??? SHE KNOWS WHAT I’M TALKIN ABOUT!!!”
And everybody was giving blank looks, like “Uh…no? What ARE you talking about?”
And he’s like “Because they sell all the sex toys, and deliver it right to your house! Ladies? Right??? IT’S CONVIENENT!!!”
And everybody just had their mouth open in shock like “WTF ARE YOU DOING???”
and then he goes on and on about dildos, as his cohost continually tries to move on, but he keeps talking about dildos. And she’s looking like she wants to strangle him.
Never saw that but that is hilarious.
Lolllll found it. https://youtu.be/cZ0qpPTH1ow?si=b17mHt0cXsDWK1O_
Not as bad as promised. I mean he has a point.
That look on her face is priceless.
I do remember that. It’s not often you get to witness workplace sexual harassment broadcast live on air.
No, but I enjoyed your retelling.
You should watch news bloopers on youtube. There’s so many classics.
“…I so pale…” *You’re on!" Immediately goes into news reporter mode as her cohost giggles
Also, a woman talking to the weatherman: “How bout that 69, huh? I know you’re excited about the no rain, but how bout that 69???” Rest of the news crew stonewalls.
Or the woman doing an on-location report about a guy who grills hamburgers for his resteraunt.
“Now, can I try one of these?”
"Absolutely. I would LOVE to see my meat in your mouth!
“NOT THE FIRST TIME I’VE HEARD THAT!!!”
There was the cohost who was in a grape smashing competition to make wine, and she yelled “WAIT!!!” and then started stomping extra fast herself. Basically cheating. And then she slipped and fell face first off an 8 foot drop right onto her face. And she starts groaning in pain.
And he was right!
Here in Germany there are still plenty of independent online retailers and they’re competitive with Amazon. I always try to avoid buying from Amazon and for tech products that’s usually no problem.
Same in Spain. I don’t even have an Amazon account, btw.
Let me guess, the EU actually put laws in place to ”remediate that problem” like a ”functioning government”.
Here in Italy practically no one is as quick as Amazon tho
So? What’s the deal in waiting a couple of days?
Exactly. I convinced my wife that we really don’t need everything to arrive in 0-2 days, it’s totally fine if things take 3-5 days. So I cancelled our Prime sub, and it’s been absolutely fine. In fact, we spend a bit less due to that minimum order size. We still usually get things in 2-3 days if we go w/ Amazon (we’re right next to a hub), but we’ve been buying from more retailers now that we plan for longer delivery times.
Sometimes I need stuff faster.
And usually it’s more than a couple of days. For example I always order PC parts from other stores, and some of them take over two weeks to deliver. Of course that’s not an urgent purchase… Usually.
I’m also in Spain, and only use Amazon for things i genuinely cannot find elsewhere, which happens to be like once a year
Netherlands here and as well we have so many local shops that outbeat Amazon that it isn’t even fair. There is a very small chance I buy something of Amazon, think the only time I did was for a replacement item for a Dyson.
I think “beat out” may have been what you meant. And in this example I would probably just say they “beat” Amazon.
How dare you expose my mobile typing and/or my not-native language speaker! /s
Do you have some good examples? I recently moved there, and want to avoid Amazon, when possible
In more general terms, you can look up the item at e.g. Idealo.de or other product comparison sites and then decide where to buy. Amazon is most often not the cheapest, even including additional delivery cost
I like to order tech stuff from mindfactory.de
I’m surprised there’s so few mentions of AWS in this thread. It’s a huge profit centre for the company and a large portion of the internet is now running off of it. AWS is basically the internet’s landlord now, and the profits generated from being the most popular cloud service provider globally are probably why they can afford to invest so heavily into their logistics infrastructure and retail that people are more familiar with.
AWS generates more than 50% of Amazon’s profit. Their retail side is peanuts, by comparison.
The retail side of their operations serves as basically a really big customer of AWS services.
The retail side is also just a huge ad for Amazon as a company. It’s what everyday consumers know even if it doesn’t provide a huge amount of profit. It creates name recognition.
I went to a conference this weekend, and it slowly dawned on me how every single one of the vendors was selling their app hosted on AWS. That’s all it is. Just different flavors of AWS.
Even if you dont interact with AWS directly, every business needs business services - you can bet that no matter what you’re buying or who you’re buying it from, some of your money is going directly to AWS marketplace.
Not to mention a lot of eggs in one basket. They’ve built in a lot more redundancies now yeah, but all it takes is a hit to AWS and a shitload of the internet is just DOA. Yeah you can argue about protections and data centers or whatever, but still. It’s one big nest in control of one company, no matter how well they guard it, it’s still a risk, technical, ethical, or whatever.
One shit update is all it takes, just ask CrowdStrike and Microsoft
Amazon’s pricing I not deterministic. You were likely tracked and information collected to know this was a key item for you. Amazon will market loss leaders to you in an attempt to get you to default to buying on Amazon.
As a former Buyer for a chain of retail stores, the loss leader is effective marketing. I sell you a popular item at or below my typical cost because statistically, a large percentage of customers are making a special trip to my store to buy that product and will make additional purchases at margin. On the wholesale Buying side, these are tools to get past bulk buying tier discounts for seasonal ordering with smaller scale retail.
Amazon is using a convoluted front end system of overlapping product categories and a supposed multi seller listings (despite collectivized logistics and warehousing) on the website you see. This is how they perform price fixing where you do not see honest or straight forward determinism. When you repurchase that same item later without making comparisons, the seller will shuffle so that a higher price is presented.
If you have a well isolated network where device history for social media and internet browsing is totally partitioned from e-commerce you’ll likely see even more of the scam. If you see anyone online show the search results and pricing on Amazon, then try to replicate those search results and product price on a device that is totally partitioned from your viewing of the item/price elsewhere, you’re likely to find it is not possible. If you then go back to the original device and do the same, you’ll magically find the same product and lower price. It is a scam market. This is why they are collecting and paying for all that data about you. We are in an age when automated individual targeting and manipulation is possible and happening. This is why data mining stalkerware is insidious. Scam markets are only the tip of the iceberg and what can be uncovered if you go looking for it. Anyone that has done database or logistics management should have major red flags flying when looking at how Amazon’s website is setup. The front end is absolutely untenable garbage for effective logistics. The only reason it is convoluted and search results are terrible is because it is a price fixing scam. The logistical efficiency proves that there is no connection between the front and back end of the site.
oh so basically the entire shitpost about walmart or whatever it was having “dynamic pricing” is literally already real…
ok.
How much does it say these beans cost?
How does CamelCamelCamel display a price history if the price is different for everyone? Perhaps it’s inaccurate for some (Just hasn’t been for me the handful of times I’ve “had“ to use Amazon.)
And Amazon doesn’t price discriminate if they put something on a nationwide sale? So the bloggers can advertise that AirPods are at their lowest price ever?
reporting on their bad biz practices
They definitely get accused of other unsavory stuff:
Amazon “tricks” customers into buying Fire TVs with false sales prices: Lawsuit
If you see anyone online show the search results and pricing on Amazon, then try to replicate those search results and product price on a device that is totally partitioned from your viewing of the item/price elsewhere, you’re likely to find it is not possible. If you then go back to the original device and do the same, you’ll magically find the same product and lower price.
I noticed this on Walmarts website when asking chat GPT to find items for me. I was wondering why it was happening. Some of the price differences were extreme too.
Thanks for this. I’ve only used Amazon a few times and was always baffled at the train wreck of its chaotic layout / ux. I had to buy something there once and it was such a process it was like being asked to leave the store before paying. Thought at the time it must be down to legacy and new features being showhorned around ancient web1.0 history, its success being its burden with customers having to learn how to use the thing. Price fixing scam is what I will think of it now, while continuing to avoid it.
chaotic layout / ux
Maybe it’s stockholm syndrome or something, but I find it absolutely fine. My general rule of thumb is to look past the first page of results, since that’s where a lot of the sponsored listings are, and then look at several listings before deciding. As long as you’re aware that the first page or so of results are generally sponsored (i.e. ads), it’s not too hard to find a decent product. And since it’s online, it’s pretty easy to compare w/ other retailers (I’ll often look at eBay, Newegg, and a couple others depending on the type of product before pulling the trigger).
That said, I’m definitely not your typical consumer (I rarely buy things on impulse), so it’s hard for me to understand the impact of their “price fixing” nonsense.
Nah, the layout is absolutely horrible. Especially when you check a box in the filters and other options disappear because Jeff forbid you want to look for motherboards by Asus, Gigabyte, and Asrock but ignore other brands.
Are you talking about the immediate refresh thing? Because yes, that is frustrating.
I don’t know if it happens in browser but sometimes on their app other options disappear if you choose one from the filter.
If I start looking for shoes, and check Adidas under brands filter then the page refreshes and I don’t see any other brands’ names.
Maybe it’s stockholm syndrome or something, but I find it absolutely fine.
no it’s absolutely horrid. HOWEVER in your defense, so are like 95% of all websites, ever made, it’s not a unique problem.
Yup, the modern web kinda sucks. But once you learn to navigate it, it’s usable. Mostly.
Yeh people learn and it becomes normal which is fine. Ebay is as bizarre to me. Not hate, more a morbid fascination that things so maze-like to navigate can also be successful. Could be semi cultural as well. I’ve noticed this being the way in other US platforms with a similar legacy. I’ve also being (attempting to) subvert tracking for quite a while so maybe that’s working and its less useful as a result lol. I’m lucky in a sense that their corporation isn’t so strong where I live so theres more choice (ironically I may actually have less choice). Its annoying when they have the monopoly on a given product, but it’s also possible just to go without the shiny thing.
Ebay
Yeah, it’s a bit odd, but again, once you get used to it, it’s fine. My general rules of thumb:
- narrow by category - avoids the worst of the spam
- only include “buy it now” listings (unless you really want auctions)
- sort by price (including shipping)
- skip the cheapest listing and look for the first “cluster” of listings
- be careful with sellers with a small number of reviews; low reviews aren’t a deal-breaker, they just have a higher chance of BS
I do that each time, and I haven’t had any problems so far.
Did 39 people really believe this enough to upvote this? This is easily proven false. Amazon is convoluted because it’s old as heck and they hire subpar engineers. Like me. I used to work on the team that made the search page. It sucks because most of us were fresh out of college and had never made a website in our lives.
you mean it gives huge discounts to random people because of an error? i would think amazon would want to fix that ASAP
You’ve never done ecommerce logistics. You do not get Amazon’s efficiency from such a garbage system, or the worlds richest man. I have no doubt there are dubious practices to give plausible deniability. The thing is too large and too successful for this to be the big picture. The collectivized warehousing invalidates the front end system and mechanics entirely.
You’ve never done ecommerce logistics
I literally have. Go climb up a tree.
Great post. Thank you for this insight!
Amazon has a healthcare company now too…
…and they own twitch.
Wait til you find out about AWS and how half the internet runs on it.
I tried blocking anything Amazon in my adguard home instance…holy shit that broke a lot of sites, I had to unblock it to have functional internet.
You tried three in person places and then went straight to Amazon? Why not trying to buy directly from the manufacturer? You clearly didn’t try at all. Ignoring the fact that there are still plenty of other retail stores, you didn’t even try the online shops of any of your retail stores.
I frequently buy stuff online from Target because they also do free shipping, it usually arrives in 2-3 days, and they have somewhat frequent deals. So I’ll get a similar or lower price vs Amazon and still get it relatively quickly. Oh, and I can check inventory of my local stores if I really need something same-day. That way I don’t have to drive around all that much, I’ll just order for same-day pickup and grab whatever it is on the way home from work (and I pass like 3 Targets on the way home).
So I almost never need to buy regular things from Amazon. Between Costco, Costco.com, Target, Home Depot, and eBay, most of my bases are covered. For the rest, I search a bit before going back to Amazon.
I used to spend several thousand dollars at Amazon every year, and now it’s a few hundred. I’m not “boycotting” them or anything, I just prefer other retailers because I don’t those alternatives to disappear.
It’s hard to compete when you’re basically a warehouse and your market is the literal population of the internet.
Yeah, microcenter, even if it’s the only computer/electronics store for 100 miles, can still only hold so much, and they only reach people in/around their city at most. It’s not like people are crossing state lines to get to a computer store… Unless you live on the border of your state, I suppose.
Amazon has, at the very least, dozens of warehouses across the country that can deliver whatever it is you want with remarkable efficiency because postal/parcel services have been systematically improving over the past 50+ years.
I’m not saying I’m a fan of Amazon, but bluntly, is it really surprising, in the slightest, that Amazon can out price everyone else?
It’s not just the tech industry, it’s most industries. They have tons of inventory of everything.
So the way it’s ruining those markets is by making more goods available at lower prices?
It’s about how they do it. They achieve this not only by being incredibly efficient through exploiting thier employees, but also by systematically destroying competition, and using thier marketplace to unfairly favor thier own products.
It’s techno-feudalism, here’s a great presentation/interview about it:
I think it’s worth noting that this is the effect of the free market behaving as designed, however no one has risen up to challenge Amazon enough along the way. So many retailers ignored e-commerce in the early days and went on with business as usual. Fast forward 20 years and Amazon has eaten into their market shares. A large retailer like WalMart absolutely has the ability to challenge Amazon by investing in the user experience and warehousing/delivery infrastructure. But often the old heads at these companies ignore improving the user experience in favor of making cuts. Amazon didn’t happen overnight. It’s been a steady growth in their business model over decades and the user experience is key to what made them so popular. It takes seconds to find what you want, for often times cheaper than the competition and in many cases the shipping is lower and faster.
What would be difficult is for a start up company with little capital to try and take on these behemoths. Perhaps a coalition of large companies like Target, Best Buy, B&N, Kohl’s, etc. grouping together to create a large distribution network and app platform with a good user experience could compete.
Just a thought.
AWS is a whole other can of worms.
Amazon is a place where you have to deal with fake items and getting fraudulent returns shipped to you as new. Your reward for this is maybe a 5% discount.
