Annoying when it’s a new release. Infuriating when it’s a 50 year old, long out of print book.
Sadly, the local used bookstore tries hard to stock books only in "like new" condition. This removes the best "tell" for if the book is good or not - if it looks well-used, it's probably a great book.
The first arrived with the spine totally destroyed (some pages literally hanging on my a thread) and the second was shipped in such a large box that it came open during shipping, and every single page had a massive hard crease at varying angles.
Amazon handled it far as refunds, but it still took over a month, and that’s now 2 less copies of that book in existence, and it’s not exactly common.
This is a book that goes for $100+ even well used
Useful because it (brief, but extant) coverage of nations like Brazil, Spain, and Greece, which don’t tend to get much coverage.
I have many, too, including the set "History of United States Naval Operations in World War II" by Morison.
Norman Friedman is excellent, very engineering heavy.
As to your example, buying printer paper online, this invariable leads to my box of printer paper being smashed by Amazon's delivery people (probably b/c they are paid like crap), and I have to return it - costing more than an hour + my frustration. So instead, I can drop by Walmart, pick up eggs and milk - and squeeze my tomatoes to make sure they aren't mush - look at my lettuce to check for slime, pick up a box of printer paper and drop off my return/exchange.
Also, Target, Office Depot, Home Depot, Lowe's and Costco have great customer service compared to Amazon too. Walmart just has 3rd party sellers that other store don't offer - so Walmart is getting more of my online orders lately.