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Maybe that can work but you can’t get rid of Amazon just by shopping elsewhere. It’s important to also push for anti-monopoly legislation and enforcement, and of course that labor law be properly enforced so that Amazon has to pay people better wages.
Amazon is like a marketplace. People and companies should be allowed to sell their products on the marketplace, but any one company or person shouldn´t be allowed to own the marketplace itself, and abuse that position for their own benefit, because it would be to the detriment of all. The marketplace should belong to the people, should be open to everyone.
It would seem that such a model would be able to compete easily, so I reckon in time it will come to be, if people put the work in. Sellers and buyers alike all have an incentive to cut amazon out of the deal. The only problem is buyers are lazy, so although can they can bypass Amazon now, most of them won´t. So we need the fair open-access marketplace so people can one-stop-shop in a way that’s just.
That company is more often than not Aliexpress.
Nah, I’ve boycotted scamazon since December 2020. I’m buying more things from physical shops. Second hand things like books or dvds I still get from ebay.
Nah. Amazon is quicker, no shipping fees, solid return policy and I don’t need to break out the credit card and play challenge puzzles with my bank to use it online. I’ll do my best to support local retailers on foot, but if I’m ordering online, I want quick and reliable. Sadly, that’s Amazon for now.
Oh you are paying the shipping fee. It’s only factored into the item price. That’s why sometime you can’t simply buy one item but at least two or five. They won’t send you just one.
2b. Company thinks their online store is a boutique and sell the stuff for 50% more than Amazon
Somehow it happens even more often with small businesses. My city is small and irrelevant, so when I saw a book with the history of it, I wanted to buy it. On Amazon it was sold for 15% off, on marketplace directly by the publisher + free shipping. So I went to buy it on the publisher website and… MSRP + need to pay shipping
This publisher was doing a war price against itself. A small niche book where you’re the only one to sell it. Why would you need to discount this heavily on Amazon?
Numbers:
On Amazon: 13€ + shipping paid by the seller (+customer has free returns in one month). They can’t have more than 50 cents of profit for each copy sold
On their own website: 15€+5€ shipping (+customer needs to pay 7€ to return it within 2 weeks). Healthy profit for each copy sold.
You need to be an anti-bezos activist to choose the second option, though.
Company sign contracts with Amazon saying they will not sell it for anywhere less than the Amazon price.
Order from them and it ends up being fulfilled by Amazon anywhere.
I buy local now wherever possible even if it costs a bit more, so Amazon orders have dropped right off. Weirdly the only thing I seem to struggle with is protective cases (for the brands I want) both for a phone and a switch. Their own store was more expensive than Amazon, so just had to take the hit on that one.
You can order those directly from china via the big resalers like AliExpress or temu.
You’re still giving a cut to a big Amazon like company, but even when you buy things like phone cases locally, the local shops probably just brought it from one of the big resalers anyway.
- you have issues with the product but can not reach the company or get your money back etc.
- the company has a massive data leak and your data is now openly available.
This is not to defend Amazon, but I - we - sadly are dependant on big companies. That’s what made Amazon big, service. I’d gladly pay more somewhere else but have been burned too much.
It’s a bad vs bad situation and we ants won’t solve it in a legal way.
2.a.i.) find out they don’t have an actual shop, they just send you to Amazon
Been doing this for a couple of years now. Sometimes I end up paying a bit more or have to pay for shipping but that’s better than using Amazon for me. If I can’t find it I do without.
My family mostly boycotted Amazon after their pullback from diversity initiatives, amongst other things (anti-union behavior). We spend 80% less than we used to. The drop is probably even bigger than that because we had a kid just before we started boycotting and so our spending increased significantly. We will buy from Amazon if we have no other options, but 80% of the time there are plenty of other options and often they are cheaper.
Amazon has Toddleroo products, but you can also buy them direct from the manufacturer at northstatesind.com and with the WELCOME10 coupon code it’s actually cheaper than Amazon, and you can use it more than once.
We also switched to shopping a ton more from Costco. Some products automatically get free shipping, like diaper genie refills. Costco didn’t back down from diversity initiatives so I basically said Take My Money (we already were avid Costco Warehouse shoppers).
The biggest challenge is shipping costs. I either have to order enough to meet the manufacturer’s minimum to get free shipping, or eat the shipping cost. That being said, Prime is like $180 a year? Even if I pay for shipping I think I am still saving money.
This used to be a thing but hasn’t been for quite a while now to the best of my knowledge. It’s hard to outcompete Amazon’s logistics as a small seller, their whole store business operates at less than a 3% profit margin and they have scale to drive costs down which small sellers don’t. They effectively subsidize the logistics with AWS, there’s a reason Amazon became a monopoly after all.
I cancelled Prime when dickface got elected and have not had a single issue since.
Not here at least. Most small companies spin up a Shopify front and offer much better prices. Amazon has the worst prices for literally everything.
Last time I did this I ordered from the companies website actually paid a couple dollars more and it shipped from an Amazon warehouse.
I bought a tamagotchi from ebay and it came in an amazon bag 😭😭
Yeah, I was gonna say “how many of those companies are actual full on companies and not just dropshippers using Amazon regardless of where you buy?” Cuz that’s a lot.
I try not to shop at Amazon if I can help it (especially since they make it suck for non-prime members. It’s honestly amazing…it’s like they intentionally sabotage their platform to drive you to want to buy Prime, and even more amazingly, it actually works).
More than once I’d ordered something with “fast and free” shipping from eBay, though, and it was delivered by an Amazon truck and wrapped in Prime package tape.
That’s great, in the opposite direction years I had a neighbor order a 5 gallon bucket of driveway sealer on Amazon. It shipped from a Home Depot using the Home Depot delivery service with free shipping. That one still confuses me.
I do not get the appeal of Amazon. Every time I go there to buy something its filled with knock of junk at regular prices.
- Amazon still delivered the product because they use Amazon for their own fulfillment.
Literally just had this happen.
Increasing cases of ebay and individual vendors dropshipping from amazon.
Ohh i’ll just spend an extra 5 to keep bezos out of it…
Bezos still gets his cut and some asshole just ordered it to my address for a fiver.
Plus, the product wasn’t any cheaper, and the company was so unresponsive over a defective item that I had to literally sic the BBB on them just to get a reply. It was a terrible experience leaving Amazon and some of these stores literally only sell on Amazon and nowhere else. It’s just really idealistic, though I continue to check anyway.
This is why Amazon was under investigation for antitrust by (then) FTC Chair Lina Khan. That she wasn’t able to see her case all the way through the courts will continue to annoy me for a very long time.
