What's your Amazon experience?

[iowabear]

Excessive Amazon Buying

Just wrestled with this.  A swimsuit I have been buying for $18 was marked down on Amazon to $6.  So I bought 6 of them, then later bought 3 more.  And I'm still tempted...

 

As long as I don't have an injury that keeps me out of the pool I will use them.  But how much is too much?  When does buying in advance cross over to hoarding?

 

 

 

[DADoES]

 
Son of my cousin's wife works at an (the?) Amazon warehouse in DFW area.

 

[vacerator]

With the Prime membership,

shipping and returns are always included, regardless. With the wardrobe prime option, you can return any item that isn't a good fit, or satisfied with quality.
Compared to other sites like Wayfair, etc., Prime is a good value for the dollar with free shipping/returns. Now you not even need print a return label. Simply take the item to a U.P.S. store with the shipping/return receipt, or the skew that you print for a return.

 

[petek]

You really do have to shop around before clicking their buy button. I was looking for a decent cordless stick vac and settled on a Black & Decker pet friendly one that was on Amazon for about $230 Cdn. I also checked Walmarts online and it was listed at about the same price so I ventured forth over to our Walmart and lo and behold it was rolled back to $130.

 

[arbilab]

<blockquote>
except that it is too easy to keep buying.

</blockquote>
As Robert Stack said in Airplane, "That's just what they'll be expecting us to do".  In that light, Amazon should pay ME $14 a month instead of the other way 'round.  Fort'ly, I have some innate resistance to compulsive acquisition.

 

[iej]

Irish perspective on Amazon in Europe.

I have ordered plenty of things on Amazon over the years and, as much as I try to avoid using it, for some obscure products it's often very likely to have them in stock.

Given the reports on how they treat their warehouse staff, I definitely have pangs of guilt ordering thought. However, I've never had any customer service issues. Anything I've ordered has come on time, without excessive packaging and they seem to increasingly just use An Post (the Irish post office). In the past they used to use all sorts of ultra cheap couriers and the experience of packages being delivered by throwing them on the porch or over the hedge wasn't unusual!

At least now that they use the post office, you get a text (from the post office) the day before delivery and it gives you options of delivery to an alternative address, post office, collection locker, neighbour etc or, if you've an An Post delivery box installed, it can be delivered to that (assuming it's not a very large package). It's basically a locked mailbox suitable for letters and packages. You just buy it, activate it online and fit it to somewhere on the front of your house / back of a gate pillar etc. The postman/woman has a master key to deliver mail and small packages and you've a key to open it. You can also place stamped mail into the box for collection and you get an email notification anytime they put anything into the box. It's actually pretty handy and can hold a good % of home shopping items.

All in all Amazon is a pretty polished service at this stage. However, we still have thriving shopping districts, that are really pleasant to shop in and I feel it's something worth preserving, so I will still definitely always try to shop locally. I'm not one of those people who orders all their Xmas shopping online.

All in all, I find Amazon pretty good, other than my ethical and carbon footprint concerns.

 

[superocd]

So far I've had a great experience with Amazon through my 12+ years of shopping with them, but I've noticed that a lot of what appears to be a lot of third-rate products showing up on their site over the past few years with funny-sounding names (e.g., "Happygood" or "Donewell") and suspiciously high reviews. I steer clear of anything like that as I've been hearing that many third-party Amazon sellers are desperately trying to break into the market and being unscrupulous to the point that they pay money or give away merchandise to random people in exchange of an artificially inflated 4- or 5-star review when the actual product quality is in all likelihood of being of 2- or 3-star quality, at best.

If it wasn't for my wife having a Prime subscription, I wouldn't have one as I don't really see the point in having one. I don't need instant gratification in getting my stuff quicker, I don't really watch TV and I don't really see myself really taking advantage of all the other things that Amazon Prime has to offer.

 

[iej]

Yeah you have to be a little careful of unheard of brands. In general I have found that issue is getting better here.

The main thing I use Amazon for is Kindle books and also a lot of more obscure academic books. It's increasingly difficult to find decent academic bookshop. Over here, there's just a handful left. I'm delighted to see Hodges Figgis which opened in 1768 (even features in James Joyce's Ulysses) and is still turning a good profit and an absolute pleasure to visit. Long may it stay that way!

Photo:
https://www.irishtimes.com/business...-hodgis-figgis-books-strong-profits-1.3810381

 

[frigilux]

I buy local whenever possible, but since I live in a tiny village with no Target/Walmart-type department store, the opportunities to order from Amazon are abundant. Have ordered from Amazon well over 100 times with only two problems I can recall:

1: I ordered a Gillette Pro Power razor and received the non-power version.
2: A griddle arrived with a broken foot.

So a big thumbs-up to Amazon from me, despite the tendency for very small items to arrive in large boxes filled with those air pillows. In fact, I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that only cardboard box manufacturers like Amazon more than I.

 

[thomasortega]

My latest amazon order

Honeywell tiny air circulator (it fits perfectly in front of the wall heater)

Amazon Echo Auto (YAY, Now I have Alexa invading my privacy also in the car)

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

An A&M Records/music website was my first online-main hangout so anytime anything was a CD reissue (mist often Japanese) Amazon wa the place to order, among a number of music marketplace networks for vinyl, as well as sometimes other CD discoveries, when I surprisingly wouldn't order or look for it off of Amazon, perhaps due to better pricing or just availability issues...

So in the chief regard to Amazon, I think the majority of my ordering-buying from it has been mostly good, which in recent times, we've passed the torch from myself being the main consumer to now my daughter, getting so much off of there throughout the year, and again, ranging from satisfactory to way above excellent, we just plainly don't know what to buy her for Christmas....

Amazon seems to have come far in going from only offering music items to photography, to as we've seen just about everything and as for certified carriers, those vans are seen just about everyepwhere, uniformed drivers, and all, as in having what's equivalent to owning its own UPS...

So, I see no reason to express any disdain in any case for them, just what's mostly praise, outside of my ordering whatever product comes off of what I use, but mostly eBay and a couple other music market networks, also to varying degrees...

-- Dave

 

[lordkenmore]

>I buy local whenever possible, but since I live in a tiny village with no Target/Walmart-type department store

I have wonder how much value there is buying local if it's at a big box store. Admittedly, they hire people locally, which helps the local people...but such stores often don't pay enough so the workers will have a lot of money to put back into the local economy. Most money presumably leaves the area. Some stores, of course, are better than others--some pay better than others.

Meanwhile, Amazon at least does offer the possibility of buying from individuals or small businesses that sell through Amazon. Of course, the money will likely leave the area (but then someone local might be selling to people across the country, too), and, of course, Amazon gets a certain cut.

 

[mrboilwash]

Like anybody else I buy a lot of things over the internet, but can gladly report there is no Amazon experience at all until now.
Why should I support another greedy company that avoids to pay taxes where profits are made, treats their employees bad, collects my data and so on?
I think they even refused to carry gay books at some time in the past. Not sure if this kind of discrimination is still going on.

Not saying I`ll never buy from Amazon because I`m always looking for a good price, but so far have always found a good alternative on an Ebay Shop or an independent online shop or sometimes even in a local retail store.
Shopping around isn`t that much of a hassle for me, it`s a lot of fun if it`s done right.
Besides that I`m not a huge fan of excessive consumerism myself I don`t understand how people could even get too lazy to compare prices and help making Amazon grow so fast.
[this post was last edited: 12/2/2019-05:20]

 

[Ultramatic]

I love it.

 

 

I've been a prime member for many years. By in large I have been happy with their service. Sometimes I've had issues with wrong orders, poor quality items but they have responded satisfactorily. Online shopping saves me a lot of time, gas and parking. They always bring my items to my door, if I am not home, they leave it with my neighbor.

 

[vacerator]

Yes, some Amazon itmes have

recently had price increases. Maybe it is temporary because they had lower price black Friday sales. We'll have to see. However, when we bought a new bbq grill from them back in early June, they put in on sale for $50 less later the seame the day we orfered it, and they refunded us the difference. My neighbor said they will also do it after it is delivered. If not, tell them you will be returning it.

 

[washerboy]

I love em!!

I shop Amazon quite a bit. I use them for personal purchasing as well as items needed to operate my office. What I like best; since my children and grandchildren are now 17 hours away on the east coast, I can shop and have the items shipped to their home at no extra cost. For something like 3-5 dollars they even provide a gift bag. I learned the lesson the hard way Christmas before last; using the postal service to ship Christmas gifts cost a small fortune. So far (knock on wood) I've never had any problems.

 

[rolls_rapide]

Amazon is fine...

... until your account is hacked... then it is more hassle than it is worth to try to fix the bloody problem.

I had an account, UK based, and it worked fine for a number of years. Then, a couple of years ago, I started receiving reviews for products I had never purchased.

I complained to Amazon via their online form, who cleared all the false reviews, and they discovered that somehow the UK Amazon had become muddled with US Amazon. But it kept happening. Then, my password kept changing. I changed it to something else, somebody changed it again. I removed all bank card details.

A day or two after this - a real shock. An email from Amazon saying they had successfully changed my email address. I hadn't done so. And the email was changed to something else entirely.

I phoned Amazon... and got put through to the Philippines! (what, no European operations, how odd) I asked for the account to be closed, she said it would take 24hrs. I asked for a confirmation email... and the silly besom sent it to the dodgy email address!

The dodgy activity was still occurring a day later. I called Amazon again... this time in the Caribbean! I insisted the account be closed immediately. I was told it would be, and then be archived in their system.

I really don't trust Amazon. I think their systems are geared towards the corporation (faceless, useless 'customer service') and the customer protection isn't what it could or should be. I am left wondering if a disgruntled employee has been fiddling about in the databases. And that dodgy email address seems to have been partly lifted from an American telephone directory.

Apparently this type of account theft has been done to other folk too.

I avoid Amazon like the plague.