Are other sites so bad in the US? I can count the number of times I've been tempted to buy with Amazon in Europe on one hand. I mean pretty much every other webshop has a search experience that is orders of magnitude better then add Geizhals to the mix and you're almost guaranteed to find the cheapest offer, in much less clicks than even trying to find something that is legit and matches the search criteria on amazon. Why do people still use it?
The search experience on Amazon is not actually that bad. It's only bad if you're paranoid or picky. I don't use Amazon to discover anything that I'm actually passionate/picky about so I personally never have this problem.
Amazon used to emply Udi Manber, who literally wrote the book on search. Yet it still doesn't offer basic search features every search engine has had for years, like using quotes for phrases, the plus sign to require a phrase to be present in the search result, or the minus sign to exclude keywords or phrases from search results. That's by design.
Amazon search is so useless that about half the time I use DuckDuckGo to search Amazon itself.
The only reason I still buy at Amazon (even though I live in Geizhals territory) is the knowledge that returns and moneyback is a nonissue, even for consumables or when things break after a year. Most retailers are ok-ish at that (some do have a really bad Geizhals rating), but Amazon is pretty much zero risk there.
For example: I recently ordered a €600 printer at a local retailer. The printer shipped in an unusable state (it refused to print and one of the paper feeds spit out a metal spring at me, not a good sign), so I sent it back. It took 6 weeks and an angry email from me for them to ship the replacement unit. With Amazon this just doesn’t happen, or at least, has never happened to me.
The return policy was the reason I started buying stuff (besides books) from Amazon in the first place. Initially it was just computer components where alternatives commonly had restocking fees and shipping costs for returns.
I think Amazon is going back to being a place where you only get certain things when you know exactly what you're looking for.
>Are other sites so bad in the US? I can count the number of times I've been tempted to buy with Amazon in Europe on one hand.
Here in Japan, Amazon is really popular, especially with expats. Other online sites are Japanese-only, so if you don't read Japanese well, Amazon is just much easier to use because it can be set for English, and will auto-translate everything that's in Japanese. The checkout process is also really simple. Japanese websites tend to have really poor UI too, and Amazon doesn't. Also, Amazon has relatively easy returns, unlike most Japanese retailers.
However, according to the grapevine things are getting worse. Instead of using reliable local shipping companies like Yamato or Sagawa, supposedly they're doing more delivery with freelance contractors and the results aren't good.
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