It was hell. To buy one item I would have to go to a physical store and search through a bunch of crappy options with little to no information about which was better. It could easily take an hour if I didn’t rush or traffic sucked.
Now, I could just wake up in the morning and get the same thing done in 5 minutes AND select a product I feel confident about based on reviews. Instead of wasting an hour of my life I could actually go live my life.
As a result, pretty much everything I buy comes through Amazon. Only things I don’t buy there are things that simply aren’t on Amazon, and getting those things is usually a pain in the ass because I have to search other websites or possibly an open store that may stock that item.
Using Amazon has made me time-rich. If I somehow couldn’t use it, I’d become something of a pauper: Unable to buy good items accurately, and spending a lot of time to find and purchase them. I do not want to return to those days.
Wow, you have just described my Amazon shopping experience, except without being absurdly (or even remotely) rich.
But seriously, I actually got caught up in Amazon’s anti-fake-review dragnet and my account cannot review anymore without possibility of appeal. Being falsely accused made me irritated just enough to boycott all Amazon services.
At first it was tough, but then I realized I spend money on good quality products now, and, because I either have to wait for shipping from other suppliers or go in-person to a store, I’ve eliminated online impulse buys. It’s actually amazing how much fake or cheap stuff there is on Amazon.
Shopping on Amazon has been painful. Just takes so long when a few years ago it seemed as if I can trust what is sold on Amazon and search is a lot more relevant that I don't have to scroll a few pages to find what I want.
Yet I still buy almost everything on Amazon, and I still go through the pains of navigating around the sponsored products. The checkout, shipping, and returns experience is why I still use Amazon - not sure how long that lasts
I’ve drastically reduced the amount of shopping I do on Amazon, mostly due to my perception that it’s become a toxic waste dump. Amazon is good at getting stuff to you quickly, but the prices are nothing special and the shopping experience is trash. It’s much more satisfying to order directly from the manufacturer (usually with free, reasonably fast shipping) and know that what you’re getting is genuine.
Amazon is great for buying products I already know I want. Prices are reasonable, shipping couldn’t be much faster (in my area), with Prime anyway. And it’s usually fairly easy to go directly to a known product (by name or model). Also their return policy can’t be beat by an online retailer (drop it off at Whole Foods/UPS, no box/shipping label needed).
Amazon is horrific for browsing or searching — anytime I don’t know what I’m looking for, and I want to have more data to inform a buying decision. Their reviews can’t be trusted, and their search results optimize Amazon and the sellers over the buyers.
I used to rely on Amazon for confidence in purchasing a good product, but that’s not been the case for 5-10 years. I have to do my research somewhere else (often Reddit) before making a purchase.
Unfortunately there are a number of products (e.g. iPhone cases) that even that’s impossible to do nowadays. But fortunately, these are usually cheaper products, so the risk is a bit lower.
I’ll still continue shopping at Amazon, once I know what I’m looking for, due to the things I mention in the first paragraph. But I no longer trust it for discovering products and informing choices there, particularly for anything meaningful.
This mirrors my sentiments exactly. Peak Amazon for me was about 3 or 4 years ago - I would order from Amazon without even thinking about it. Now, you can’t use it unless you know exactly what you want, because their search is unusable, and with the prevalence of counterfeit goods mixed in with all the legitimate stock… It’s become less of a hassle to just order from the manufacturer, if it’s anything I really care about.
I closed my account on Amazon a while back and barely ever shop there due to how they treat their employees and their general bloated business model. I now actively shop from other online sites when I'm looking for a product and will gladly pay a little extra.
The problem with Amazon is that every time I go there, I'm treated with a cluttered mess of ads and products all over the place. Whenever I search for what I want, I'm now treated with ads integrated into the product list that look exactly like a product listing, horizontal bar product listings of related/"recommended" products, and 300 (exaggeration) different spammy options for buying a product as a "subscription" or "bundled with amazon prime" at different price points when I only want to select a quantity.
Its mostly horrendous garbage now and I'm so glad I closed my account and never use it. Its helped me save a lot of money (by removing temptation) and shop in other places that don't try and up-sell me on other products.
Also, most products I can get immediately by just driving to a local store. I don't have to wait 2-4 days to get it.
I felt like I had to remember how to shop other places online as I’ve been making my switch to less Amazon. I’m so tired of finding little business cards in all my orders to review the products. I gave a bad review on a vacuum cleaner, and the seller has been contacting me every few weeks to refund me if I take it down. I sympathize with sellers because I know it’s hard to sell anything less than a five star product on there. The whole system feels so broken these days.
Amazon hooked me when they rolled out Prime and free shipping. So now any time I think of something I need, I open the app on my phone and click buy. I feel guilty but it's just so easy. It's a pain purchasing across different sites (different IDs, thinking about shipping cost, return policy/procedure). I know shipping singles items is bad for the environment and a total waste. I keep telling myself I need to get off Amazon.
Just 5 years ago, as a freshman in college, I was alternating between Amazon and eBay to find the cheapest price for textbooks. This was the first time I ordered anything off of Amazon, and it was their bread and butter; a book. Fast-forward to present day and I order almost everything off of Amazon, even if I can get it at a store nearby. Why? Because products reviews have grown to be essential in my psychology for buying, and it's very easy to wait just two days for the product to arrive at your doorstep. And I haven't used eBay in years.
This is true, which is the reason I use Amazon retail, but the experience is still dreadful: terrible, soul-crushing search experience, listings dominated by scams, cheap fakes, sponsored results, badly photoshopped images, paid reviews.
And then when you get frustrated and try Googling for a product, you get direct adverts for products which are on Amazon, pages of paid-for recommendations that link back to Amazon...
I started doing the same 1-2 years ago! Felt bad about giving Jeff Bezos so much money.
At first I thought it was gonna be an impossible effort, but since I'd take Google over Amazon any day (although also not super happily), I do a lot of the last mile (finding a good/non-shady offer for a specific product I've already decided to buy through reviews) there. And usually I find it cheaper with equally fast shipping. For stuff I commonly buy, there are really strong competitors (at least in Germany) that I buy from by going directly to their website.
Had to first realise that a lot of the stuff Amazon was at first unique for, is now pretty much a commodity. And their offering certainly hasn't improved in the last years in my eyes.
I've had it in the back of my mind for months that I need to get away from Amazon for the reasons you've listed. How have your shopping habits changed since ditching Amazon? Did you go back to more conventional stores or are there any online marketplaces that you've found to fill some (obviously nowhere near all) of the Amazon-sized hole?
Same here. Amazon used to be convenient but it slowly has turned into a stressful experience. Counterfeits, 20 listings of the same product with totally different prices, advertising, fake reviews and so on. Now I prefer eBay where at least the search function works or specialized stores with one listing per product.
Newegg went the same path like Amazon and I have stopped using them. They used to be my favorite store.
While I agree with all the issues you brought up, Amazon is still so much better than anything else that I hate having to go outside of Amazon to purchase something online.
To me the Amazon search box feels like the GPT-3 of matter. I can imagine a thing that I’m not even sure exists, I can type a description of it into the search box, and then have that object in my hands within 24 hours.
I agree with your criticisms and I hope that Amazon solves them very soon. But none of that makes me not want to use Amazon as my first stop for shopping.
I remember using amazon for the first time ~15 years ago or so, and I was shocked at how bad the search was. I couldn't believe this was the top shopping site on the web..
I did not renew my amazon.com prime membership this year and I'm about to cancel my prime credit card.
I think the covid lockdown really made me look at what I was spending money on. 95% of my orders on amazon were things I did not need within 2-3 days, heck even a week. And probably 50% of the things I bought I did not need at all. Not to mention I could have purchased them in retail stores.
While Amazon is convenient to shop, it is also dangerous. The ability to quickly look at products and buy things with the click of a button can be addicting.
Just a personal anecdote: I've been using Amazon less and less. Most of the goods I buy from them are things that I would otherwise get from a supermarket. Bulk goods mostly, and almost entirely things I'd otherwise get at my local supermarket or Walgreens.
My other purchases are from shopify sites. I trust that what I'm buying is what is advertised far more than I do with Amazon. The influx of crummy knock-off products, poorly made junk, and a lack of quality around product listings on Amazon has completely driven me away from them for things like clothing, shoes, fitness products (equipment, supplements), and anything else that I wouldn't see myself purchasing regularly or that I require a high standard of quality for.
Now, I could just wake up in the morning and get the same thing done in 5 minutes AND select a product I feel confident about based on reviews. Instead of wasting an hour of my life I could actually go live my life.
As a result, pretty much everything I buy comes through Amazon. Only things I don’t buy there are things that simply aren’t on Amazon, and getting those things is usually a pain in the ass because I have to search other websites or possibly an open store that may stock that item.
Using Amazon has made me time-rich. If I somehow couldn’t use it, I’d become something of a pauper: Unable to buy good items accurately, and spending a lot of time to find and purchase them. I do not want to return to those days.
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