Amazon did not fool me. There was a brief period, nearly a decade ago, when the there was a recession and Amazon was expanding beyond books when Amazon was great for long tail items both due to availability and price. I used it to purchase a twenty-two foot pressure washer wand and a heater coil for the dryer and replacement GE water filter cartridges and ink cartridges for the Designjet 750C and a sun roof seal for the Montero Sport. I used Amazon as an alternative to buying retail or from an SEO optimized website. I always comparison shopped.

These days, the only time I don't comparison shop agianst Amazon is when I know that there isn't likely to be a better deal...and the sum total of that is pretty much going to Amazon for my a digital download of TurboTax every April. I don't have Prime but it still ships immediately. Generally, if I am making a long tail purchase, I start with eBay due to its better transparency, straight forward search, and less misalignment between its economic interests and mine. For electronics, I'll probably just buy from NewEgg because of how bad Amazon's search sucks and because it's free shipping is freer as in "beer" than Prime's $99...which of course applies to Prime items but not not-Prime items and to me, it's not worth the brain cells personally and the five minutes economically to figure out which is the best value SSD...and if I want it fast, there's a Best Buy up the road...and a Walmart.

In fairness, I find returning anything to be a hassle but since I have a brother in law who returns annuals to Home Depot at the end of spring, I know some people arrange their lives around it. Anyway, if something really sucks, I can chargeback.