That's a lot of orders. It seems like many people are buying a lot of things and I'm just gobsmacked that you can come up with so many things to buy! I mean, I order groceries once a week online, but what are the _things_ that people buy? I buy things maybe three times a year in total (excluding things that are necessary for the household, like glue and leather oil).

Why would you exclude things necessary for the household? As a random datapoint, my most recent Amazon orders include cutting board oil, new bedsheets, winter tires, a couple of long sleeved shirts, a new cookbook, an ice scraper, a sewing machine and an air filter for my truck. That's all in the last month and all of those things are pretty basic things in my mind.

Other than the air filter, all of those things will last a person for years. I second GP's question. What exactly is everybody buying?

It's all over the map. 88 orders this year so far for one person. Some trivial things I'd probably have searched in the grocery store for normally, e.g. toothpicks. Though now I'm sort of "Why would I bother searching?" But also office gear. Stuff I'd have picked up at the pharmacy. Pandemic entertainment options. Etc.

I buy a number of personal products somewhat regularly. Things like deodorant, beard oil, toothbrush heads, etc. There are also things like pet treats and with one click it's pretty easy for people to purchase four or five things as they go through their day.

I have three children and a high throughout of some items. If you don’t have kids you will learn this one day.

This month: DisplayPort cable, blu tack, coffee, Mac mini, apple magic touchpad, blanket, 2 kindle books, laser toner, face masks, fleece, bulldog clips, replacement calculator for one that was stolen at school, 2 replacement lightning cables for family, cards against humanity, roller skates, two revision guides, glue sticks, thermometer, toilet paper, wallpaper repair kit, envelopes

A lot of this stuff would have traditionally come from retail outlets.

We can also do our grocery shopping via amazon here although that’s a shit show so I won’t be bothering with that until they’ve ironed out the kinks.

I have been wondering that. I've placed 12 orders this year and half of those were very cheap kindle books.

I have hated most in store retail experiences my entire life. The staff are low paid and hate their jobs. They are forced to create uncomfortable interactions with shoppers. The big box stores like Macy’s are often dirty and smell bad.

Aside from trying on clothes, I don’t know why anyone would shop in a store.

Now that low paid workers are away from eye sight

The's a lot driving this change. Shipping costs, shipping speed, selection, membership and retail's refusal to adapt to change. Ecommerce, and not just Amazon, has in many ways become a better experience. Will be interesting to see how retail adapts because at the core, selling something for more than you paid for it is really what business is.

Similar trend here -

2020 - 181

2019 - 124

2018 - 116

2017 - 93

2016 - 62

European here for perspective. During this time I've lived in four different countries, all without Amazon warehouses:

2020: 6

2019: 4

2018: 1

2017: 0

2016: 2

2015: 8

2014: 3

2013: 14

2012: 12

If I lived in US/UK/DE/IT or wherever they do have warehouses the numbers would probably look different.

Getting stuff shipped from Germany or the UK takes for even, and packages from amazon.co.uk frequently goes missing. Shipping cost are reasonable, given that it’s across borders, but you can get it cheaper by buying “locally”.

I’m down to just buying books on Amazon, because no one else really sells books anymore, at least not the books I want. For everything else there are better and cheaper local webshops.

Amazon is a mess, you can’t easily find what you want, filtering sucks and 25% of the stuff you want doesn’t ship to your country anyway. Oh, and they treat their warehouse staff terribly, so I minimize what I buy from Amazon.

I live in the UK.

2012: 19

2013: 28

2014: 61

2015: 27

2016: 41

2017: 64

2018: 22

2019: 2

2020: 0

There are alternatives. I'd rather use them.

Same here...

2012 - 1

2013 - 7

2014 - 109 (mostly free ebook)

2015 - 18

2016 - 76 (more disposable income + moved to a house)

2017 - 116

2018 - 214

2019 - 243

2020 - 212