> Amazon is unusable at this point, and I don’t get how they have so many customers.
At least in Germany, using Amazon is often the easiest way to buy copies of foreign-language (often, but not always English) textbooks about scientific topics.
>consumers go to aggregators because they want to, not because they are forced to.
Recently I wanted to buy 10-ish dead tree books in English and get them shipped to an eastern EU country. Going through the first 20~ DDG results of online stores exactly zero would ship them here. Also, the local bookstores would have only few books in English, mostly the 'bestseller'-type stuff.
Amazon was the only place that would have them available and would ship them here..
The UX is overwhelmingly bad, shipping usually costs more than the free shipping threshold on allegro - it just has no value proposition.
> I think its more likely that companies like that will start to successfully compete with amazon in germany. Then again amazon would probably just buy them if it was too threatening.
Why do these companies even sell out to Amazon given how much higher their potential value proposition is? Without heavy antitrust monopoly bullshit, I can't imagine Amazon competing with anything that actually tries to be an usable service.
Alas, them deciding to shut-down Book Depository means I can't purchase English/American books anymore free of customs-related taxes (I live in a Eastern European EU county), which makes me not purchasing those books at all (in many cases the taxes would end up doubling the purchase price, so it's not worth it). I'll never forgive Amazon for that.
> Amazon is filled with garbage. Full stop, no need to specify e-books.
But the problem is where else can you buy things online where this isn't a problem these days? Everywhere has become a marketplace akin to Alibaba (where people traditionally accepted the tradeoff of poor reliability in exchange for good prices when decent products were actually delivered).
>I've started to order my books through my local bookstore recently
Yeeaah, about that... Last time I ordered a book at my local book store, they just ordered it of Amazon. The guy behind the counter tried to remove the Amazon packing discreetly, but failed.
If book stores are going to be complain about how Amazon is putting them out of business, they should at least not use them as a supplier.
> Amazon stopped letting you pick your shipping service
I never knew this was an option.
Given my problems with Yodel (in the UK before I emigrated) and DHL (in Berlin, after), I basically don’t even bother trying to get stuff on Amazon any more — it’s not only faster to go to a nearby store, but given the seemingly random choice of 4 delivery depos, it can also be more convenient because two of those four are further away than whichever shops are selling the things I’d tried to buy.
> You see, the problem with Amazon Prime is that you are shipping almost entirely via the USPS. Normally, I bet, in most of the country, this doesn't bode a single issue.
Nah, we have exactly the same problem here in Germany. I think that this will be one of the biggest challenges for Amazon in the coming years and can imagine them building their own delivery service for that reason.
> And most of the items I buy are cheaper at Walmart and Target.
Even used products aren't cheaper on Amazon. Ebay's usually cheaper (and, these days, maybe more trustworthy) and for books in particular both Abebooks and Alibris are usually cheaper, even with shipping, and sometimes way cheaper—which is weird, since Abebooks is owned by Amazon. Blindly using Amazon is a great way to be ripped-off. One cannot trust their prices or products, at all. Even non-tech-savvy relatives are starting to catch on that whole categories of products ought not be purchased on Amazon, ever.
> But they are doing exactly what they have been doing successfully for the last 17 years. Why do we keep getting worried about it?
Because Amazon has real competition now that they have to pay sales tax.
All useful retailers now have online sites. Most brick-and-mortar retailers will match Amazon prices so Amazon doesn't have a structural advantage anymore now that they also have to pay sales tax. And the brick-and-mortar retailers have in-store returns and pickups--often now faster than Amazon Prime.
Amazon used to deliver somewhat reliably but fast (and sometimes faster). Now, it's a crapshoot. I will not order anything time sensitive from them anymore.
So, I'm pretty much back down to buying non-time sensitive books from Amazon. And this last round, they scattered my delivery dates for each so far that I'm rethinking that idea.
> ... because it had effectively become a “showroom” for Internet retailers—people would see books in the store and then buy them online.
Which is what all the real-life stores are facing right now. I don't claim to have the solution, but I tend to buy in stores because I enjoy to have my product today, with better service in terms of refund policies, and that I can talk with a human being face-to-face if the thing is faulty.
I live in Denmark where we have pretty good consumer protection, I suspect the difference between Amazon and a store in the US might be a lot different.
> Which speaks German to me. There is a switch for language there, but that only works for some parts of the interface, and not things like reviews, etc, which are all still in German.
It's worse than that. The Amazon interface on amazon.de is clearly a translated version of amazon.com, but the English option is a machine translation of the German amazon.de (which was originally manually translated from English). Why?
And then amazon.fr just doesn't give you an English option at all. Again, why?
>Amazon doesn't even have a polish website, as amazon.pl redirects to amazon.de
Someone at Amazon needs to understand what the single market is. amazon.eu is an institutional site when it should be their only european site. When I want to buy something on amazon I end up looking at all of UK/FR/ES/DE/IT at least. They will all happily ship to me with all sorts of combinations of item price and shipping cost. And then logistically I believe they will ship from wherever it's convenient. So they've artificially segmented the market for no reason, giving me a poorer experience in the process.
> However, it turns out if you charge higher prices and have knowledgeable employees, many people will take advantage of the employees' guidance, then go home and order the same thing on Amazon for less.
This always chapped my hide. It absolutely killed my favorite local technical bookstores.
At the moment it might be negligible but in the long run they are hurting them self. 5 years ago I and a lot of my friends ordered everything on Amazon because it was fast and we knew that we will get the correct stuff.
Nowadays I (and most of my friends) almost stopped using Amazon because it is such a hassle to find stuff which is actually sold and shipped by Amazon and not some sketchy third party seller with only 5 reviews. And even if you manage to order something directly through Amazon you might still have problems with counterfeit items and other stuff.
And the same is true for my parents and their friends. Until 1-2 years ago Amazon was _the_ place to shop online but nowadays they switched back to more traditional methods.
Due to all this shady stuff Amazon lost me as a customer (who used to spend hundreds and thousands of euros per year).
> Amazon today is a street side flea market. You really don't know what you'll get.
There are two time when I will use Amazon nowadays:
1) If there is an official store there
Anker is a good example of this. It seems like Amazon doesn't commingle inventory if there is an official store.
2) If I want something faster than Alibaba/Aliexpress
Quite often I can find the exact Chinesium equivalent on Amazon and I get the benefit of returnability if what is advertised is completely out of whack.
This has to be costing Amazon money, but, it's their funeral.
> This move will drive more traffic to Amazon, unfortunately.
No it won't, at least not from my entire country.
BD: You pay $20-$40 for a book. It gets delivered to your door (mostly, after a period so long you forget which book you even ordered). You pay a tiny fixed local import tax (around $1).
Amazon.com: You pay $20-$40 for a book + $49.95 fixed delivery fee + ~$15 for "taxes and import duties".
I have never purchased a physical item from Amazon.com because of those fees. I have ordered dozens of books from BD, aware that it's owned by Amazon, because it was at a price I'm willing to pay for a book. I will continue not buying from Amazon.com because it's way above my price range (or really anyone's) for a physical book.
At least in Germany, using Amazon is often the easiest way to buy copies of foreign-language (often, but not always English) textbooks about scientific topics.
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