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Step 6: Product comes shipped in an Amazon box using Amazon couriers :facepalm:
At least you tried
happened to me a few times too 😅 I guess it’s not worth for a company to have multiple different shipping procedures if most of their orders are via Amazon anyway
If Amazon’s algorithms detect that a seller is offering the same item cheaper elsewhere (including on the seller’s own e-commerce site, then Amazon will immediately strip the listing of the “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now” buttons. The algorithm will also hide or suppress the listing from search results. And for repeated or severe violations (especially related to price-gouging), Amazon may suspend or terminate selling privileges completely for sellers selling cheaper off site. And they call this “Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy”. F- Amazon.
This is one of the main reasons why many indie shops are doing so many coupons these days. Price obfuscation is not only a marketing strategy but also a genuine safety one.
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A few sources around, here’s one from https://news.law.fordham.edu/jcfl/2024/03/13/understanding-amazons-alleged-anticompetitive-practice:
the FTC claims Amazon punishes third-party sellers for offering lower prices on other websites.[2]
Select Competitor – Featured Offer Disqualification (SC-FOD).[6] SC-FOD is an algorithm that prevents a seller from “winning the Buy Box” if it finds that the seller sells that product for less on a Select Competitor’s website.[7]
References for 2, 6, 7:
[2] Complaint at 85, FTC v. Amazon, W.D. Wash. Case No. 2:23-cv-01495-JHC (Nov. 2, 2023).
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Ugh. Fuck Amazon
While I support the intent, I’ve personally found that:
- Half the time the company either doesn’t exist off Amazon or uses Amazon for their order fulfillment.
- See #1
- Price frequently ends up being mostly the same. I’m not sure if this is due to something that Amazon forces on companies, so they may have no choice.
- Shipping ends up being expensive and is definitely not in 2 days, more like 6-10.
- Spot on and perhaps still worth it for this reason alone.
I just try to buy what I can locally and avoid the larger companies that are all pretty disgusting. While Bezos is definitely the richest and most evil, make no mistake that the other companies would be in his place in a heartbeat if they could.
Yeah, I was going to say the advice in the meme in kind of dumb. I can order the same product on Amazon or the website of the product, but on Amazon returns are super easy, shipping is overnight, and I am not dealing with some weird 3rd party payment system.
Now if the product is made locally at a small business, and is similarly priced, then absolutely, that’s my preferred way to do things.
Yes, I don’t ever shop with Amazon, but they use their massive anti-competitive scale to be the most convenient option.
I simply reject that convenience, because fuck Amazon. Fuck billionaires. Fuck executives. And fuck shills.
I’ll just pay $10 more and wait an extra week for my toaster. This is nothing compared to shopping in the 90s.
Or - as a Canadian - they DO have an online store but it doesn’t ship here :-(
Stop using Google as a verb. “Search” company name.
- If you stay in/get into the habit of searching for products using google, inflation will just keep happening and amazon will give them a kickback. (Google charge for the higher search results).
- They save and use your data, you are effectively an unpaid employee of google (it is how google ‘work’ - they also are the reason you are often paying more. The best way to do it is
- Find a cool product (if it happens to be on amazon, so be it).
- Search the name of that company on Duckduckgo, or qwant or many other non data collecting engines that don’t have a kickback agreement with seller, or just a lower rate.
- 10% (or any) code is the reason they are selling product higher. Some people buy at the higher price (presumably most) so why would they care if people find the 10% discount code (advertisement on search engines) to get the product for the normal price?
- Company avoids paying both amazon and google, - it’s not really “losing a 25% margin” unless you believe that they don’t pass the fees on to the customer (YOU).
- You avoid giving money to all the c**ts but more importantly, you pay the proper item value, or you help competition grow.
The old way (2007ish - 2026) is the shit way.
Genericize the word google so their trademark becomes useless. Google everything on duckduckgo
not going to work sadly
I want something like amazon as a public utility. But much better, Amazon is such shit as a website today. And with 0% take from producer. And make online banking and free instant wire transfer as easy as using paypal, but without paying a rent to plutocrats. Two factor authentication using phone is a plague.
I dont think people realize how easy this would be if we actually made our politicians do their jobs. If we did this 5 years ago, think of the infrastructure we could have funded with the proceeds. Screw a giant worthless penis space ship, we could have funded schools to a crazy degree or made health care work.
We could do this with most major websites tbh, i was thinking “nationalize social media” like a decade ago
Just make it non-profit, all proceeds are to be used only to pay the workers well and make the service better. Otherwise you get political wrangling what it’s used for or pressure to make more profit. Just print more money lol.
Sadly, I offen see stuff being more expensive on the company website…
Me too! Why is that?
Is Amazon’s shipping/ distribution system that much better?
Does Amazon require sellers, as a condition of listing on Amazon, to always have their cheapest price listed on Amazon?
I do note that, especially lately, I find a lot of stuff significantly cheaper on Ebay that Amazon.
Does Amazon require sellers, as a condition of listing on Amazon, to always have their cheapest price listed on Amazon?
I think, that is true… and should be forbidden.
Tried that, the company fulfills web orders with Amazon.
Now I just buy local.
Step 6: Company is a US only company, and Im not in the US so it’d be a lot more money due to increased shipping fees, later shipping times, and import fees.
yea, I bought a mouse a few months ago, and the company only sells to EU countries via their website, for us in the UK they only sell via Amazon
Yes and no. Some are actually not reachable outside Amazon. Some tell you they only work over Amazon. Some offer only Paypal as payment method, which I don’t use. Some only offer some Chinese payment methods that I’m not going to use, either. Or their non-Amazon shop is only available in Chinese. And some have suspicious online presences where i think it is good to have Amazon in between, in case they do something fishy.
I’m the opposite. If they don’t offer PayPal or another common payment option I’ll usually not use it. So many sites have terrible security and I don’t feel like having my cc info stolen because it wasn’t properly handled.
Especially for a one time purchase not something I’d get monthly
I’ve done shipping for a company that sold direct and through partners, and a lot of times they actually make a better margin with Amazon just because of shipping costs. Amazon makes it so much cheaper to ship that even though they take a bigger margin it still saves the company money. Free shipping is a lie, it just means the company eats it and averages it into the price.
The disappearnce of brick-and-mortar stores is one the biggest catastrophes caused by Big Tech. The ‘free to return if dissatisfied’ option creates higher prices for everything you’d have avoided purchasing at the store, along with the added environmental costs of two wasted trips, and the product possibly being disposed-of.
The brick-and-mortar loss also means that consumers of necessities have far fewer options to buy locally.
They usually offer free shipping if you buy past a certain minimum as well, with a handful offering free shipping on everything.
Amazon already exploits it at a lower floor of $35 so they can price everything at 34.99 to get you to buy more stuff.
half of you wouldn’t have survived the pre-internet world, “oh no i have to shop locally??”
Got that backwards. These sites killed local businesses and even local specialty chains. No amount of “consumer choice” is going to fix this because like 80% of the business is driven by other businesses.
Yelling at like your local mid size companies for buying things off amazon would do a lot more good than just yelling at random people on the digital street.
I miss shopping locally.
Specially in the mall.
Hot day, in the middle of summer? Go to the mall. soak up the air conditioning, wander through the stores checking out the cool shit, grab lunch in the food court, maybe grab a movie after wards, hit up a few more stores, maybe grab a show if one was happening somewhere, then go home for dinner.
Malls always depressed me tbh. Everything just felt off.
Usually its the enormous parking lots outside malls that depress me. Its weird because the majority of malls I’ve been to are essentially like five strip malls backed into each other with a really nice indoor hallway connecting them so you get that taste of what its like to have things within walkable distance and without cars everywhere until you head back outside.
They are monuments to consumption, and there is no ethical consumption.
Nationalize Amazon.
Mark the employees government employees with appropriate benefits. Use the unreasonable profits to fund UBI
Haven’t used Amazon for the last three years. There are plenty of other online shops in my country. Unlike Amazon, they are not flooded with cheap noname trash, but have a well curated inventory.
I highly recommend https://shop.app/ which is Shopify’s aggregator for all shopify powered e-commerce sites and in some areas like Europe shopify is the dominant platform for small companies. Obviously it’s no ideal to replace one corporation with another but it’s pretty good for supporting small businesses a bit more with zero effort.
