My neighborhood stores have huge markups and bad customer service. I don't love Amazon but they are a better alternative for most things.
I'm sure most people here don't remember when power strips and HDMI cables were $40 and coin batteries were like $15 each pre inflation because stores wanted to make money on them. We could only read, listen to, and watch what our local stores decided to stock and most things didn't have reviews. If we needed a new power adapter for that one device with a special shaped connector, too bad. It's literally impossible to buy it.
Depends on the area. Where I live I’ve never had a package stolen, Amazon or otherwise.
Sucks that my packages keep getting stolen
And that's why in other countries, delivery services aren't allowed to drop a package at the door unless you've explicitely told them to do so
Not true here in Sweden, tho. I work in parcel delivery and I'm instructed to leave at the door (or next to the mailbox if it doesn't fit), at least if it's Class A or Express. Class B get one delivery attempt and then sent to service point if unsuccessful.
Although I don't do all types of parcels.
For me Amazon delivers to my doorstep, listens and acts on complaints if undelivered or product is faulty, arrange replacement for free, allow me to use stuffs for a month and then return no questions asked, and is way more cost effective.
Say whatever about their business practices, they beat local stores in every possible way and it's not even close.
For me as a customer, local stores doesn't make any possible sense.
I used to go to a local book store, until they stopped stocking any new science fiction. Then they went out of business and I was forced to buy books at Amazon as there was no other book store to go to.
I get pretty much all my books from myanonymous, mobilise and the library
IMO it's not really reasonable to blame the consumer for the shitification of Amazon. The only things that could have stopped this would have been more rigorous regulatory action against Amazon's mergers and anticompetitive practices years ago.
Successful businesses tend towards monopoly and once they're close to that position it's almost impossible for individual consumers to do anything about it.
USPS has lost a dozen or so of my checks and packages but I have never had any of the hundreds of packages delivered stolen.
never in my life had a package stolen, where is this happening? I hear about it constantly but in all my homes in many areas and being incredibly lazy about getting them from the porch...???
Happened to me once. I told Amazon that the package was missing and they sent me a new one, not a single question asked. Granted, it was only a headset for 50 bucks, but still.
I'm in the middle of downtown in a small city shops are heavily weighed towards convenience or kick nacks. EG 2 different gift stores and no hardware store. Lots of convenience stores and two specialty markets but only one grocery store and that at least double the cost and 1/100th the selection of the chain stores with the floor space of 7-11.
Looking back small shops always had shitty prices and selection
Online shopping used to mean lower prices and a bit of a wait.
Nowadays it's: more expensive because of shipping, delivery not doing their job or even stealing your shit, which leads to you having to pick it up at a place further from your house than the store that sells it.
Over here they are supposed to deliver it to you in person but half the time (if not more) they'll just leave a "you weren't home note" even though you took the day off and then drop it off at a pickup point.
Downside is that i can't stop online shopping because the stores never carry what i need.
I don't know about everywhere, but in many places the last point is kinda irrelevant since the Amazon lockers exist. I think there is one at most QuikTrips, even.
My anxiety ridden ass loves Amazon. My house is in a private enough area that I've never had a package stolen, but I live near a distribution center, so I can often get same-day delivery.
Where I live we almost only have mom and pops shops. So I support them as much as I can, but yea it's hard to get stuff without Amazon , electronic parts and other more specific stuff. Yea Amazon is evil, but just a symptom of a sick system. It's not hard to see why they are successful. I would use a similar system in a socialist society
amazon should be brought under the ownership and control of the working class and used as a logistics system
