What if Amazon's Sellers Decided They Didn't Need Amazon? (fool.com) 104
"Companies are finally getting really good at selling directly to consumers, forcing them to question Amazon's value to them," writes a columnist at the Motley Fool:
Rather than one single powerhouse, the threat to Amazon comes in the form of hundreds of smaller e-commerce venues that can each take a tiny, collective stab at online shopping's 800-pound gorilla. Within the past year, according to brand PR firm Diffusion, 2 out of every 5 Americans made a purchase directly from the brand or manufacturer, bypassing middlemen like Walmart or Amazon in the process...
The frequency of direct-to-consumer (DTC) purchases expected in the foreseeable future also fell from the year-ago version of the survey. Still, this mode of discretionary spending is on the rise in conjunction with the raw number of DTC options. Yes, any discussion about the threat the DTC option poses to Amazon must point out how athletic apparel brand Nike has already severed a fairly short-lived relationship with the world's largest e-commerce platform so it can focus on its own retail sales effort. The decision will (if it hasn't already) embolden other brands to make a similar decision to handle their own e-commerce affairs. It's not just other major brands that might soon mull making their own way that could prove disruptive, though. It's the hundreds of DTC brands never affiliated with Amazon in the first place that are still finding their way...
It's not an existential threat to Amazon, to be clear. Diffusion's survey indicates that direct-to-consumer shopping will grow 20% over the course of the next five years...not exactly a show stopper given that less than 10% of the nation's retail industry is now driven by DTC shopping... The tepid growth estimate for DTC, however, may be rooted in a history that ignores how much direct-to-consumer brands have figured out in just the past few months and perhaps during 2019's busy shopping season in particular. As it turns out, they've finally learned consumers really are responsive to brands they trust and connect with. As Loren Padelford, general manager of Shopify Plus, put it: "Consumers are coming back to [retailers] and saying, 'We want to shop directly from the makers....'"
The exact scope or speed of the threat to Amazon still isn't clear, and to the extent it can be measured, it's also still in flux. One thing is certain, though: Neither consumers nor brands need Amazon as much as they used to. They've only just begun to figure it out. The crux of this paradigm shift is ahead.
The frequency of direct-to-consumer (DTC) purchases expected in the foreseeable future also fell from the year-ago version of the survey. Still, this mode of discretionary spending is on the rise in conjunction with the raw number of DTC options. Yes, any discussion about the threat the DTC option poses to Amazon must point out how athletic apparel brand Nike has already severed a fairly short-lived relationship with the world's largest e-commerce platform so it can focus on its own retail sales effort. The decision will (if it hasn't already) embolden other brands to make a similar decision to handle their own e-commerce affairs. It's not just other major brands that might soon mull making their own way that could prove disruptive, though. It's the hundreds of DTC brands never affiliated with Amazon in the first place that are still finding their way...
It's not an existential threat to Amazon, to be clear. Diffusion's survey indicates that direct-to-consumer shopping will grow 20% over the course of the next five years...not exactly a show stopper given that less than 10% of the nation's retail industry is now driven by DTC shopping... The tepid growth estimate for DTC, however, may be rooted in a history that ignores how much direct-to-consumer brands have figured out in just the past few months and perhaps during 2019's busy shopping season in particular. As it turns out, they've finally learned consumers really are responsive to brands they trust and connect with. As Loren Padelford, general manager of Shopify Plus, put it: "Consumers are coming back to [retailers] and saying, 'We want to shop directly from the makers....'"
The exact scope or speed of the threat to Amazon still isn't clear, and to the extent it can be measured, it's also still in flux. One thing is certain, though: Neither consumers nor brands need Amazon as much as they used to. They've only just begun to figure it out. The crux of this paradigm shift is ahead.
No thanks (Score:4, Insightful)
It's bad enough Walmart, Target and Amazon have all my info. Now you want me to create accounts, accept email and share financial info with each manufacturer... I'll pass.
Re: No thanks (Score:2)
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The article also ignores that many of the DTC sellers sell their products at list price because they contractually precluded from competing with their retail customers on price.
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> It is not really worse when you buy directly
It often is. They have "shallower pockets", i.e., they lack the "deep pockets" to absorb lawsuits and respond to legitimate customer complaints. And they have _no_ reason to help clean up any mess from their third party vendors. Amazon has some history of acting against bad or fraudulent vendors to help consumers recover stolen money or lost orders.
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DTC sellers don't deal with third party vendors. They sell their own product.
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Yes much more companies would have information about you, but they would have much less information than Walmart, Target or Amazon.
Walmart, Target, and Amazon are all well-known companies based in America.
If I buy from some little known company, I need to spend considerable effort to verify that they aren't scammers operating from Romania, or that they skimp on security, or that their products and customer service are substandard.
On Amazon, I can see a direct comparison of similar products from other companies, they already have my CC info, returns are easy, and Prime shipping is free.
In the 1990s, most e-commerce was direct. Amazon c
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If I buy from some little known company, I need to spend considerable effort to verify that they aren't scammers operating from Romania, or that they skimp on security, or that their products and customer service are substandard.
Amazon allegedly cooperated with the NSA to fudge with hardware ordered by Tor developers by installing a keylogger. One can only imagine how many cases like this go without being discovered.
They have an extremely secretive work culture, not even their employees are fully aware of the things going on there. When they get hacked (if it hasn't happened yet), they would never announce it.
Prime shipping is free.
Amazon Prime costs $120, it's not exactly free. It's a clever scheme to make you buy in Amazon more, because once you t
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Do you actually have any evidence of this or are you just repeating a rumor?
Re: No thanks (Score:1)
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I wonder if a non-profit Amazon alternative would be possible. Just a market place, ethically run.
Re:No thanks (Score:5, Interesting)
*ahem* Romanian here. You're a decade behind the news. I place between 10 and 15 orders a month, buying various items (both digital and physical) from all over the world, including Romania (obviously). I rarely buy from Amazon because they have no presence in Romania, and I am forced to go to Amazon UK, IT or DE. Another reason I rarely buy things from Amazon is the flood of shady third party (middlemen) vendors I see on the platform. As a direct result, I had bought "new" books from Amazon and received used books. The P&P was way more than it could have been, were I to buy books locally, from the largest in-country online book retailer.
During the past couple years, I have used Aliexpress to buy a plethora of items which were otherwise unavailable both on Amazon or within country. There were a couple occurrences of delayed shipping, and I disputed those purchases, got my money back no question asked. One of the packages actually arrived afterwards and I agreed with the vendor to make a "ghost" purchase of the same product as the simplest way for them to be paid for the product they sent.
My cards' security is strong enough for me to have no problem purchasing stuff online from small shops, most of which use PayPal or reputable CC processors, which means my card details are never available to the vendor. The only attempt to scam me came from an US-based Usenet service provider, a few months ago, when I was checking whether Usenet was worth it. I had created a 30-day trial account and set up monthly subscription after the trial period would have expired. Two days into my 30-day trial period, the company attempted to withdraw a full year worth of subscription from my card, lucky for me I was using a virtual Revolut card and Revolut flagged the transaction as suspicious and blocked the transfer. I deleted the virtual card and created another. But even if the transaction wouldn't have been blocked, I didn't have enough funds on the virtual card because I use it for online shopping and transfer to it only the amount I need to use.
Your problem is not whether X company turns out to be a scammer, but improper use of payment methods and disastrous card security. Fix those and you won't have a problem.
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Exactly this. As a customer I have no problem buying from pretty much any company which uses a CC processor.
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It's bad enough Walmart, Target and Amazon have all my info. Now you want me to create accounts, accept email and share financial info with each manufacturer... I'll pass.
If those three have your data then everyone else already does too.
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It's bad enough Walmart, Target and Amazon have all my info. Now you want me to create accounts, accept email and share financial info with each manufacturer... I'll pass.
Very true, as one of the few people who take privacy and security serious these days. I totally agree. Granted security and privacy is always a balancing act with convenience as well. But I'd much rather just shop in one place and have access to (almost) everything. Only one company has my info instead of dozens of them and it's much more convient to me shop in one place instead of 50.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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If only there was some sort of payment system in place that the HTML1.1 web page could send you to for card processing...
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This is a non-issue. Very little articles are returned. And if you need to return articles too often then there is an issue with the way you are buying. The biggest advantage of e.g. Amazon is the search capability to get some hints what kind of article can solve your need.
Many, many people think that the biggest advantage of Amazon is that you can buy stuff, play with it for a day then return it after you get bored with it.
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Many, many people think that the biggest advantage of Amazon is that you can buy stuff, play with it for a day then return it after you get bored with it.
Amazon bans customers with excessive returns [usatoday.com].
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I return items via Amazon frequently, but not excessively. Amazon's return policy, and free, fast shipping, is why I pay the "Amazon tax" for everything I purchase online. Amazon knows how to reduce purchase friction better than most other online sellers.
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Many, many people think that the biggest advantage of Amazon is that you can buy stuff, play with it for a day then return it after you get bored with it.
Well, those will need to continue to stick with amazon. But it cannot be too many since all those returns would increase Amazon's prices a lot. And that does not seem to be the case. I typically just find what fills my need first. Then I'll do another search where I can get it cheapest, soonest or whatever is my priority at the time. I do not care at all whether it is a big or a small seller. So far it worked very well for me.
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Interactions with people over retail and quick service food and beverage tell you all you need to know about a person. And humanity. Aptitude is falling.
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I recently bought a brand new Galaxy phone on ebay. It worked, but it had terrible reception. It wouldn't work in my home or office, only outside. The seller was reluctant to take it back, they wanted me to take it to a repair shop and said they'd pay me back. I wanted to return it, and they let me. It was through ebay, so they didn't really have a choice. I ordered another phone of the EXACT SAME KIND from somebody else and it works great! I feel kind of ba
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Basically, any pain point we have on the marketplace there is a good chance it was because of a shitty seller. Us having to bend over backwards on returns is likely due to sellers who wouldn't accept returns at all. Especially when the buyer was in the right, as you were.
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If only there was some sort of payment system in place that the HTML1.1 web page could send you to for card processing...
Doesn't matter. I almost never buy from direct sellers if I can possibly find it at one of the places that already has my info on file (e.g. Amazon).
What the article (and many of the commenters here) don't seem to grasp is that Amazon has mastered the frictionless sale and scaled it to massive proportions. No direct seller can possibly replicate that, except for the narrow range of products they sell.
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What the article (and many of the commenters here) don't seem to grasp is that Amazon has mastered the frictionless sale and scaled it to massive proportions.
...which results in a giant pool of "vendors", each offering the same thing they most likely don't even own. See this article for some fun reading: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TE... [cnn.com]
Whenever I go to Amazon, I feel lost. Who do I buy from? Do they ship to my country? Do they charge a huge amount for P&P? Are they actually going to send the item to me in time? Most times, I don't like the answers.
With that being said, the last thing I ordered from Amazon.com were our wedding rings, which arrived quickly an
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Whenever I go to Amazon, I feel lost. Who do I buy from? Do they ship to my country? Do they charge a huge amount for P&P? Are they actually going to send the item to me in time? Most times, I don't like the answers.
I don't wonder any of those things. I buy stuff on Prime, so I already know the answer to all of those questions.
Countries where Amazon does not offer Prime (Score:2)
Whenever I go to Amazon, I feel lost. Who do I buy from? Do they ship to my country?
I don't wonder any of those things. I buy stuff on Prime, so I already know the answer to all of those questions.
As of July 2019, Amazon Prime was available in USA, Canada, Mexico, Britain, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Japan, China, Singapore, India, Australia, and UAE. In this post [slashdot.org], war4peace states that they live in Romania, which is not on that list. What do you recommend for residents of countries where Amazon does not offer Prime?
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I don't wonder any of those things. I buy stuff on Prime, so I already know the answer to all of those questions.
Good for you. What would the rest of the world, which does not have access to Prime, do about that?
Re: its what amazon represents, not just its offer (Score:1)
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I find that giving my credit card info to many retailers is more risky than just one- Amazon. For one thing, I expect that Amazon is very careful with secure data- imagine the publicity cost of a failure. Other companies seem to have other priorities and a limited budget for security.
An alternative for those who want to shop at many retailers might be the Apple credit card. Your data may be more secure.
Re: its what amazon represents, not just its offer (Score:1)
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The issue, IMO, isn't with someone (Amazon) providing distribution services to lots of smaller companies. This makes sense; peanut farmers are presumably good at growing peanuts (though the US farm aid may show that to be rather less true), and distribution companies are good at taking raw product and distributing it to consumers. The issue is that one company, Amazon, is taking over the distribution+sales business. A lack of competition is unhealthy for a free market. If the peanut farmer doesn't have
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A peanut farm in Virginia with a 14 year old website and a cheap HTML1.1 form for credit card information does not inspire confidence or trust. the farmer doesnt have time or knowledge or cash to pump into marketing, design, or infosec. What Amazon represents and offers sellers is a chance to securely conduct business with trust and a method for resolution of dispute in a civil manner. Amazon is to e-commerce as a shopping mall is to a roadside stand.
Yes, exactly.
Sure, a roadside stand could take off, outperform some mall store or big box store for some narrow product range, etc. (in which case it almost certainly wouldn't stay a roadside stand). But it doesn't happen often.
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Re: its what amazon represents, not just its offer (Score:1)
Amazon is very profitable (Score:3)
But over all money can be made on Amazon so sellers put up with it.
Just my 2 cents
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because they skim the top 8 - 15% off each invoice total as their share.
Compared to the cost to a small company of running its own e-commerce site, shipping, sales, and marketing, that is a bargain.
Isn't the point of Amazon they handle logistics? (Score:3)
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You also have to love the return policies. Amazon just says keep it. and they credit the sales in whole out of the sellers account. total loss to seller. Amazon is looking like a total reasonable entity
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it is just such a pain at times
Just my 2 cents
I guess it depends on the product (Score:2)
INFURIATING (Score:1, Interesting)
If you see a product on Amazon, and it has EXACTLY THE SAME DESCRIPTION on eBay, then you're dealing with an Amazon Drop-Shipper, and the world's richest man gets to laugh all the way to the bank.
In a perfect world, all the Amazon Drop-Shippers on eBay would be lined up against a wa
Ebay sucks now (Score:2)
I get what you're trying to do and laud you for it. But the fact of the matter is Ebay has become a cesspool of people using the same MLM model (i.e. buy product from various wholesalers and then resell on Ebay). Out of every 10 sellers there may be 1 or 2 legit small merchants. I try to seek them out too, but they get swallowed by all the astroturf.
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buy product from various wholesalers and then resell
This is also what grocery stores do.
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If you search an I-phone, you'll get 100+ results. At first glance it looks like you have a lot of choice. However upon further review what you have is a handful of vendors with multiple listings of the same stuff that ends at different times. If you dig even deeper you'd find that this handful of suppliers most likely all ordered from the same refurbishers. Two or three sellers may be selling their own used I-phone or one they acquired through some other means.
If you've ever seen those "make money sell
Amazon is stealing NEW PRODUCT IDEAS!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Bezos sits back and watches which vendors are moving product the most successfully, and then asks himself whether he can reverse engineer the products which they are moving [typically by going to the Chinese/Vietnamese/Malaysian factories and signing deals for an Amazon logo to be slapped on the products instead].
MORAL OF THE STORY: Never allow anyone [not even your own Mother-In-Law] to learn the secrets of
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I bought a ignitor resistor for my stove from Walmart online. The same part from the same supplier's website was a little cheaper, but the Walmart price was with free shipping which made it cheaper, bottom line.
I don't get it.
Re: Isn't the point of Amazon they handle logistic (Score:1)
eCommerce Systems are becoming a commodity (Score:5, Insightful)
It's standard these days to get your online shop like you get your E-Mail account from a provider. Add in standardised payment systems and authentification, perhaps specialised fullfilment services and you don't need Amazon.
A big reason people use Amazon to sell things is because they do fulfilment. But the problem is, that Amazon, taking 14% of all your income, knows your numbers better than you, because they also know your competitions numbers. As soon as you have a winner product, Amazon will copy it and place its entry above yours and your out. Even the dimest of e-shop vendors are catching on to this fact and are moving away from Amazon.
I wouldn't use Amazon at all for anything e-commerce.
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It's standard these days to get your online shop like you get your E-Mail account from a provider. Add in standardised payment systems and authentification, perhaps specialised fullfilment services and you don't need Amazon.
What about shipping? There's no way a mom+pop store can match Amazon's shipping rates.
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They don't have to match Amazon's shipping rates - they have to match Amazon's shipping rates AND the 10-15% Amazon commission AND the price of shipping product to Amazon FBA in the first place. For my own product (best selling model), that would be the $6 that Amazon charges us for 2 day Amazon Prime delivery, plus the $36 in fees/commissions, plus $0.40 for my shipping to their FBA. So if I can overnight a small, 5" x 7" x 1.5" box to you for under $42.40 - it's the same cost to me. And I do.
The ONLY r
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If you don't receive your product, just contact us directly - like how you placed your order in the first place. And we'll ship a second, and start the shipping claim ourselves. It's just as easy as with Amazon. We're not on-phone 24/7, but e-mail and chat are close to that.
As far as International, we have dealers covering all of the EU, all of Asia, all of Central/South America, and Australia. So you can use them.
And of course, as I mentioned every time, we also sell on Amazon for those who insist on i
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As an employee at a company where most of my income is thanks to Amazon, it scares me. One false negative feedback could be the end.
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Re: eCommerce Systems are becoming a commodity (Score:1)
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Yeah, I bought a kitchen electrical item from the website of a UK shop on Thursday. They sell via Amazon, and on Amazon they charge the same low price that everybody else charges, which is 10-15% lower than the higher street price.
On their own site the same item was another 25% off. Delivery was two days, not one, but still 'free' to me.
I do buy a lot from Amazon but it's always sensible to explore options.
Amazon are partly doing it to themselves (Score:3)
I don't know about other shoppers, but when I'm browsing for an item and don't have a specific brand in mind, amazon can be a nightmare; and it's because they can't be bothered to enforce the filters. Try looking for (say) a 2 TB internal SATA SSD, lowest price first, and see how many pages of crap show up first; lots of it not even SSD, never mind being 2TB or SATA.
So, to make any real progress, you have to pick a brand or two, and if I'm going to do that, I might as well shop at the brand site.
Amazon could do themselves a big favor and maybe discourage a little bit of the direct shopping if they actually made it possible to find the item you're looking for and not 30 pages of unrelated garbage.
(ebay is just as bad but that's a different topic, I guess.)
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Your 2TB SATA example is literally what I went through last week trying to pick some drives for an external enclosure. I left and went to newegg and actually got what I wanted. I'm not sure I'd go to https://www.westerndigital.com... [westerndigital.com] to buy a drive.
I can definitely see better niche sites with better ways to search for that type of product. Searching for computer components is different from shopping for clothing which is different than shopping for cleaning supplies.
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The exposure that all those other things get far exceeds the downside of your annoyances. Amazon advertising is the real advantage. Store front ends have been around for ages. Leave Amazon and give up all those eyes. There's a reason that salesmen make tons of money compared to the engineers of the actual product. Getting people interested to buy is what matters in the end.
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That's the story that marketeers and salesmen always tell themselves, but I think it's false. First, if I'm looking for a 2 TB SSD, I'm hardly going to have the slightest interest in a drive cage. And second, on the rare occasions that I need a drive cage and remember that I saw it on Amazon, I make darn sure I don't buy from the vendor who spammed the 2 TB listing.
It's gotten to where I don't even bother looking at Amazon any more unless a) I know exactly what I want, and b) I can't find it anywhere else
what if /. wasn't paid to post clickbait anti-amaz (Score:2)
Will the customers follow? (Score:3)
Customers give Amazon the network effect. Instead of having to trawl the entire internet to find a dozen versions of a product to choose from, Amazon brings it all together. That is a powerful proposition and is one that a collection of small retailers acting independently cannot match. Even if people were willing to pass on their payment details to some potential fly-by-night they've never done business with before.
We are all told that the best place to open a restaurant is near to another restaurant. The same applies to internet selling. If you want customers, you have to be where the customers go. At present, that is the BIG internet names.
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Small, niche sellers can do it if they're smart. One of my clients sells carburetor parts and he's crazy busy.
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For my own product (best selling item has an MSRP of $300 - and we sell a lot of them), Amazon takes about $42 per unit, between shipping costs to the FBA/to customer, and Amazon's commission. I do quite a bit with $42 of marketing budget per unit sold, direct. Right now, we do the majority of our revenue direct, International dealers in 2nd place and Amazon taking up 3rd.
Don't overlook what you can do with 10-15% of your revenue dedicated to marketing; you can do a really good, targeted marketing campaig
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We need dealership laws (Score:2)
Obviously because it's illegal to buy cars directly from Ford, we need laws to ensure that people can't buy shoes directly from Nike. /s
Shopify (Score:2)
Shopify helps small businesses to set up their own shop. However like every other player they also take a percentage cut of sales That made them another multi-billion dollar company:
https://finance.yahoo.com/quot... [yahoo.com]
Here the main issue is trust. Even on established sites like Monoprice, I use Amazon and PayPal to pay for things, and do not give my credit card details. Giving my address is bad enough (getting too many catalogs after purchases), giving them my credit card information would be worse. Even good
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Ability to Get What I Wanted (Score:2)
I bought a Ryzen 3000-based computer this holiday season, and ended up getting it direct from the system builder (CyberpowerPC). Amazon, Best Buy, etc. didn't have the configuration I wanted, so I went direct to their site and selected the parts. The whole process from website to delivery was smooth.
I see the ability to get exactly what I wanted as a good reason to go direct. Off-the-shelf stuff like an external hard drive, a third party buying in bulk can probably get a better deal. Then its just looki
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To be fair Cyberpower's niche is that 'what you want' market, not the 'here is something we think most people want' one.
I've had a couple of their PCs in the UK and it's nice that they're still in business; that's a tough market, with a lot of casualties, and they offer good value and quality.
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Poor, poor Amazon (Score:1)
would come crashing down in flames if they did that. I mean, itâ(TM)s not like they became a titanic behemoth of a cloud computing business, or anything...
I'm confused... (Score:2)
Isn't the primary value of Amazon the fact that you can find a dozen varieties of just about anything on there with user ratings?
Amazon is a tool, albeit not one above all suspicion, that lets me search for a product I don't even necessarily know the name of and then dig down to the variety that best fits my needs.
How do I get that from millions of small e-commerce sites? Google? Don't make me laugh. That thing has gotten so bad at delivering matches to my searches I might just as well use Bing. It's not th
Amazon are scum (Score:2)
I would love Amazon to go to the wall (complete with firing squad) but it's not likely to happen any day soon.
The last time I bought directly from a seller.. (Score:2)
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USPS
USPS Priority Mail Express
UPS
UPS Ground (Based on origin and destination. Whatever is calculated is what is guaranteed)
UPS 3 Day Select
UPS 2nd Day Air
UPS Next Day
FedEx
FedEx Express Saver (3 day)
FedEx 2 Day
FedEx Priority Overnight
You might have some recourse with
I buy direct because of fakes on Amazon (Score:2)
There is usually little advantage to buying name brands on Amazon, and a big potential disadvantage. Amazon has turned a blind eye to counterfeit products being sold as name brands on their site.
Opportunity for Distributed Open Shopping (Score:2)
The EBAY/Amazon reputation system needs to be distributed via some open protocols. So that reputation can be verified across sites. The consumer logs into to a master site of their choice, which then communicates with independent sales sites.
Much like the way a distributed social media could work.
Google, of course, wants to be the global search agent for independent sites, as it largely is. But reputation is more difficult. I want to have some confidence that I am not dealing with a scam site.
A trusted
Amazon is basically acting as an insurance company (Score:2)
Craigslist or eBay or any upstart could offer you the same thing if they were willing to guarantee sales. Just as
eBay Money Back Guarantee (Score:2)
Craigslist or eBay or any upstart could offer you the same thing if they were willing to guarantee sales.
Something like the eBay Money Back Guarantee [ebay.com]?
Research before you click (Score:2)
On most bigger ticket items, I always check manufacturers and/or third-party websites as well as Amazon or Walmart. Especially critical when looking for replacement parts for appliances, new computer hardware or peripherals, hard to find or specific hobby or craft supplies, etc.
Ordering replacement parts from the manufacturer (or from the local jobber) means I get the part I need while avoiding the risk of possibly getting stuck with a "fake". FWIW: Last printer was almost 20 percent che
This just in (Score:2)
A certain J Bezos ordered the iconic Alfred Neuman t-shirt with the familiar expression What, me worry? emblazoned underneath.
Avoiding Amazon for certain things (Score:2)
China destroyed my all inclusive shopping on Amazon. I really used to buy just about everything on Amazon. After getting destroyed by low quality socks, hats, blankets, Chinese sized clothing, and the like... I now mostly just buy known brands from old fashioned store websites. Or I go to physical stores. Some things you just have to try on or touch or verify the material type and thickness.
I hope retailers survive the Amazon times... I'm sure other people will slowly get to the point of backing off of Amaz
Sure, but... (Score:1)
The smaller sellers won't be leaving soon (Score:2)
Amazon is what "America Online" was to the WWW (Score:1)
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The other thing I don't need is for them to send me emails every other day saying "Hey, you wanna buy ANOTHER trailer hitch for your Focus?" No, I do NOT, thanks for asking.
Amazon reputation (Score:2)
I sold thru Amazon, but quit over discounts (Score:1)
I used to sell through Amazon but stopped over a pricing dispute. They agreed in 2000 to sell only at list price but then in 2005 I discovered they had begun discounting.
My volume was small, the most I ever sold in a month was 28. I sold to Amazon at a 55% discount (that is, they paid me 45% of list price), but I also paid for shipping. Amazon would order products from me, rarely more than 2 at a time, to be shipped to different warehouses around the country. With such small orders (I think I once got fou