This is coming from someone who used to buy from Amazon over everyone else because it was so darn convenient.
After seeing all the horror stories and having friends receive counterfeit or obviously defective, returned, and resold as new items; I just can't trust them anymore. Especially for things that go in or on my body. Or my pets for that matter.
Never thought I'd see the day where I was choosing Harbor Freight for quality.
I basically only buy books from Amazon now, and even there I don’t think they make print-on-demand obvious enough, and I won’t buy print-on-demand if the book is otherwise available because I’ve gotten too many bad printings.
The last time I posted about it here people defended Amazon because of their return policies. Well, the printing errors aren’t always immediately obvious. One reference book o purchased was missing a page but had a duplicate of the previous page. When printing errors are obvious, I feel like either Amazon is trying to see if I’ll complain or they’re trying to get me to do their QC.
And even if they don’t make me return the bad one... waiting another day or two isn’t great. I’d rather wait three days knowing I have to wait three days than wait one day, have to contact Amazon, and wait one more day.
I have a kindle, and I love it, and I buy books for it. I have Prime mostly because when I was buying a lot it made sense and now I sometimes watch Prime Video. But anything else is just too much work to read through fake reviews and worry about counterfeits or used goods masquerading as new.
I suppose that category also includes safety critical items. Like batteries intended for weapon lights, or offroad recovery gear.
I have never had experiences like that with Amazon, but I have read stories on the internet. I believe Amazon making it easier to leave negative feedback than eBay is one reason this kind of nonsense is less common on Amazon.
Now I buy directly from Walmart if something's available there, because I have more confidence that their usual price controls are at work.
In fact, most of those beans are probably being drop-shipped from Wal Mart.
For items that Amazon is selling first-party, you can bet that they know exactly what all of the other major retailers are selling for, and they’ll be within pennies of their price, if not beating it.
The alternatives that more and more people seems to be preferring is specialty sites focusing on just one or two product categories or the manufacturer making it easier to buy directly from them.
I don't dismiss any of the concerns regarding Amazon and authenticity and quality. But I have yet to have it affect me after hundreds of purchases for many thousands of dollars.
Maybe it's just the kinds of things I buy. Maybe I don't notice the occasional knock off. Maybe I'm just naturally good at avoiding dark corners.
As a result I haven't changed my behaviour at all.
There is one product I've bought that I'm reasonably confident is a counterfeit based solely on the build quality, and unfortunately it's a Leviton GFCI plug [1]. Not exactly something I want to risk to inferior quality control.
You could lose your global entry / TSA precheck privileges.
[0] https://www.racked.com/2018/1/8/16849298/amazon-counterfeits...
That’s likely. Many of the knock-offs are very convincing, especially if you don’t compare them side by side with the original.
Nowadays, most companies sell directly to consumers, shipping is fast enough and you generally get a genuine, updated and properly stored item.
I usually make the following choice:
For the item I want, is there a brand I trust, eg that designs and produces a high quality item, if possible locally? For example, I know some companies for speakers, kitchenwares and appliances that produce here in the EU (and I know people working there). I buy from them directly, since I care about not getting a fake.
Or, is every product just a rebranding of the same thing from one or two factories in China anyway? If so, I go to amazon and buy one of the dozen identical trashware versions and accept that it will break. This bounds my willingness to spend.
This strategy works for me. Only choosing Amazon as seller of last resort has reduced my issues with products to zero.
Two weeks later I got an email from bladehq that they had been exploited and my credit card was now known to hackers.
So, fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t.
I bought a TV light strip doodad for $20. What arrived was an empty box. It shipped from the US, but they wanted me to ship it back to China. PayPal could not have cared less. They agreed I needed to send it back to China. I escalated very far up their chain. Nothing.
Apparently this is a common scam and PayPal does zero to help.
Jetpens for stationary. Technical books can be bought directly from the publishers. Microcenter for computer parts. Uline and Office Depot for office items.
Amazon has benefits from big brands who can police their stuff better than small brands. But smaller brands all seem to be complaining about Amazon these days, so I do try to buy direct I'd possible.
Unlike generic customer service, they used to solve problems.
Now they simply go through the motions of appearing to solve problems.
It’s really evident when a company’s customer service priorities change in this direction.
What problem were they unable to resolve?
I contacted Live Chat and they said:
* "I will add rush delivery notes for you"
* "we will do the rest for you with a rush delivery"
Then it was the Friday before Mother's Day and I got a notification the item will be delivered some time the following week.
I contacted Amazon Live Chat again:
* We never promised you a specific delivery date.
That's completely true, Amazon.
Turns out "I will add rush delivery notes for you" and "we will do a rush delivery" is a meaningless customer service thing you can say like, "your call is important to us".
This doesn't require taking any action to expedite the order or, failing that, telling the customer who is asking you about delivery for Mother's Day that they need to order a different product if they expect it to arrive in time.
So basically Amazon Customer Service is now no better or worse than any generic chat bot you can use to accomplish (or fail to accomplish) the same thing.
It's my own fault: if an item had no delivery date the week before Mother's Day, I should have canceled earlier.
On Amazon, I can see the seller's name at a glance and I can tell if it's the official seller. Buying it via Prime means I get free shipping and it often comes in the mail literally the next day (since I live in a major city with Amazon warehouses).
If something is wrong, I know I can just drop the package off at the UPS Store down the street to return it and the refund immediately shows up in my Amazon account without any hassle.
Buying directly from the manufacturer's web site, on the other hand, is a huge hassle. I have to create an account, enter my address and shipping info, and add my payment info (great, now my credit card info is stored in yet another place that could potentially be hacked), and the pay for the item. This whole checkout process is unique for every vendor web site, and when the item is shipped, I'm lucky if it arrives within two weeks, much less next day. Returning the item (if something is wrong with it) is also a huge hassle, and many third party vendors won't cover the return shipping costs, and may only replace the item for an identical one.
I've never once encountered a fraudulent product when ordering directly from an official manufacturer on Amazon Prime. That only ever happens when I buy from third party sellers or buy used products.
Also the majority of brands don't even sell directly, only through retailers like Amazon, Wal-Mart, or Target anyways.
I used to still use Amazon for research and reviews but now reviews are useless.
Now my biggest reason to visit Amazon is for price comparison and price history via camelcamcelcamel extension.
I also find Amazon prices with free shipping almost always end up being a tad higher than other places when you add in their shipping costs. ie item is $8, shipping is $4 at some competitor, where it will be $13 with free shipping at Amazon.
It's gotten to the point my wife and I pretty sure we are cancelling Prime and no longer shopping at Amazon.
Its now rare that I buy anything on Amazon that costs over $100 and I always cross shop for those things. Amazon is good at commodity items but not much else. If I'm buying a name brand product over $100 I won't buy it on Amazon because its most likely fake or has no warranty.
I really do not appreciate that Amazon has become Aliexpress in the last few years.
The video streaming service is the only thing keeping my Prime subscription active, and I'm hoping to drop it before the renewal date in July this year.
Not to mention that Chinese knock-off manufacturing has only gotten better over the last 5 years. Take a look at the Benchmade knife comparisons on youtube.
Sometimes this is because I simply can’t find what I want. More often, this is because the biggest benefit I gained from Amazon, namely the next day or two day shipping via Prime does not seem to be as common anymore.
Can't say I have the same experience from other ecommerce websites, brand ones or aggregated ones like BB or Newegg.
- Incredibly slow shipping
- Painful return processes
- 3rd party customer service that has no power to do anything
The fact that companies are paying / making me pay retail for logistics is the dumbest thing ever. The whole value of a "store" (i.e. a place that holds stuff) is the logistics and customer service. If you just want to be a manufacturer that's totally fine power to ya but then get your products to distributors and stores.
I simply don't trust Amazon for certain purchases. I feel like it's actually made me trust brands more instead of commoditized products.