Why I stopped buying from Amazon
Canceling Amazon Prime
Mid-2021. It all began with a bad delivery, or rather the Amazon employee just delivered the goods to the wrong house. The neighbor of ours is infamous for not giving the package back to the rightful owner. One of my own family members talked with an officer and learned that they cannot do anything about it. (I thought what the neighbor had done for a long time is illegal! Guess not.)
Mind you that the goods I've ordered was just a cheap ol' gaming accessory for my VR headset. Amazon was able to replace the item at zero cost. If you are wondering, when I saw the photo, it was indeed the wrong house and I'm able to report by selecting the option "incorrect house." But I'll give a pass to an extent, it was dark, and we didn't have a clear and easy to read address number on our house. So I don't won't to paint as if this is 100 percent fault on the delivery driver. We are all not perfect.
After this event, I canceled my Amazon Prime. But that didn't mean I quit buying from Amazon completely.
I did not miss the 2-day, 1-day, same-day shipping. It's odd, I don't know why but I managed to learn how to be patient. (I guess I already have the goods I needed in the end? Which is why I don't need things in a urgent matter? Nah I don't think so.)
That will not stop Amazon from trying to desperately get me back onto Amazon Prime. They'll try to bait me with 3-days to a week ... and finally a whole free month of Prime subscription. That might be the cap, I don't know if they ever dare to give 2 to 3 months of free Prime sub, who knows.
I was still able to buy goods and took advantage of free shipping as long as if I meet the requirement of 35 dollars or more. On one side, it's very annoying but on the other it might be clever if done right.
The best way for me to explain is that because the "free shipping" can be achieved by the goods needing to be 35 dollars or more, it'll require strategy. So if one does a bit of writing or putting it on the wish list, the customer can be intentional with their purchases. Instead of being impatient by buying too many single order cheap goods like what most customers do on Wish/Temu/Shien/Aliexpress etc ... the patient types can be selective on what is really needed or not. Maybe it turns out you don't need that product after all after thinking about it for a day or two?
I'll expose myself as an example. My tablet monitor could not work properly, the screen works but not the tablet part AKA my stylus would not work on the monitor. Out of pure rage, I ordered a type A to type A cable swiftly when I could look around to see if I already had one. Or find a different solution, which I believe I did, meaning that I wasted money on buying another cable.
But after my Prime is canceled, there where multiple times where I would write down what I needed, bundle it, and then buy. Maybe at least once or twice I ended up not getting the goods because it turns out I don't need it since I'm willing to think more rather than buy in-an-instant.
However, the whole "free shipping if you meet a certain requirement" is still a classic predatory practice in the end. It's still designed to make you buy more. Sure you can see the negative and positives from this like what I've explained early but it's still evil. Almost every online business does this trick.
What did the Prime Subscription offered anyway?
Perhaps the most interesting question is that other than fast shipping, what else did the subscription offer? All I remember is a video streaming service (which now has ads on it, talk about greed right there) and uhhh ... Twitch Prime.
Twitch Prime is weak honestly. All it does is provide free digital goods. Ranging from boosters on online/mobile games to maybe a free indie game? Really nothing interest me, just way too many games I refuse to play, most of them are mobile which I dislike.
Another thing that Twitch Prime provides is allowing a user to support one streamer. It's even categorised separately, meaning that both audience and streamers can see it visibly. What that means is "Twitch Prime sub" is a temporary way to support a creator awhile "Twitch sub" is permanent until the user cancel the subscription.
Other than streamers getting money from users subbing. The users in turn gets emotes that they can use in any Twitch chat ... if you care anyway. This is like Discord all over again is it?
Quitting Amazon
Around the end of 2023. What made me quit buying anything from Amazon happened to be rather interesting. It all happened from my family member getting absolutely angry. I've never seen this family member of mine getting so pissed in a very, very, long time.
What happened? It's yet another delivery gone wrong, it was delivered to our evil neighbor again.
I decided to on the behalf of my family report this issue straight to customer service on the live chat. I explained to them that this has happened way too many times. They asked for tracking ID number and apologized.
We even had the opportunity to confront with one of the delivery drivers to explain their side of the story. The GPS and the map part of the app is not 100 percent accurate sometimes ... I mean I understand odd locations such as a little house behind a big house but ... our house is in plain sight. So I don't know at this point. Our house has an upgraded address number that is easy to read by the way.
Either way, I couldn't stop watching my family member raging and I explained that I'm done. I am no longer buying anything from Amazon ever again.
Another massive reason why I quit Amazon
There has been months where I have not bought a single product from Amazon which always made me question "why should I bother paying for this subscription?"
Here is a chart to showcase how many orders I've done for the site:
(I could show more from the past but I think this is good enough.)
Amazon shopping experience got worse the more I think about it
Before Amazon started taking notes from Temu and Shien by making a sad clone with the whole "everything for a dollar or less" store ... the website is already in a bad state.
We know that almost a lot of goods are made in China, but the fact we keep seeing more cheap goods with a nonsensical brand name dominating the platform is just soulless if you think about it.
Okay I'll start backpack brand names I know I can at least trust: The North Face, JanSport, Fjällräven and maybe more. (Patagonia is well known for never being in Amazon, so I can't count that.) Now if I were to ever type in backpack in the search bar and hit enter, I'll be provided with so many cheap not-so-well-known brands that looks like they have been bought in masses from Aliexpress or Alibaba. Be prepared to see the same products but in different names. And yes, we will always see the Amazon Basics products again and again.
You know consumers will choose cheaper questionable brands than the expensive well-known brands.
Of course let's not forget the blatant stolen designs and remixed a little or even worse, a one-to-one copy but just the logo swapped.
Botted reviews are one thing, but it's downright sinister when they can outright delete reviews or rather ... not allow reviews to show up? Okay fine, I'll explain my side of the story. I've made a critical review of a certain keycaps set. It's not good and they lied about the profile style by having conflicting description on their listing. For a long time I don't see my review on there. I even provided photos to alert the consumers out there what kind of keycaps they would get.
There was also a time where Nintendo kept getting 1 star reviews because they could not find an effective way to fight the scalpers. So afterwards ... all the reviews are gone or they relisted the product again. It's bad. You can make the argument that it's all "off-topic" reviews but it's consumers voicing their feedback.
And yeah the "Amazon's Choice" is confusing. The two-day shipping will always be highlighted praying on your impatience.
So where have I been buying my stuff now-a-days?
Other than the brick and mortar stores, eBay, and Wally-mart, there are countless of online websites that are powered by Shopify (with Shop Pay.)
What is nice about these Shopify websites is the "express checkout." Once you've ordered once, they'll remember your information, and if ordered again on a different site, you'll never need to type in all that information ever again. It's convenient, but deadly.
It allows me to support brands/companies a lot more compared to buying it from Amazon. Even ten times better if it's local business. Sure, Shopify takes the cut too but it's nothing compared to Amazon. (Who knows though I could be wrong.)
The sheer force of Amazon, and how I cannot avoid it
So even after several years of not buying anything from Amazon I'm baffled on how Amazon managed to extend beyond their own website. And it's not web hosting services, no-no not that. And it's not the "Amazon Prime Day(s)" event that other competitors love to copy.
Around Black Friday I went to buy something on Tomtoc website. Tomtoc is usually known for their sling bags and that's what I've purchased. After going through the usual, I was surprised that there is no shipping option to choose from other than "place order." And that I did ... I checked the e-mail and I was shocked to learn that it'll be shipped by Amazon.
I did not expect a company being so dependent on Amazon to do so much for the delivery side of things. I rather wait an extra few days to even a week with USPS, UPS, FedEx, and even DHL-or-whatever! Sure I get the usual two-day shipping but I don't want to risk having my goods being delivered to the wrong house again. (We moved away from that house so we shouldn't be getting those issues again but I'm still not trusting them.)
Same thing happened again when I was shopping for some work boots, RockRooster. I should of caught the "2-day shipping" but I let my guard down. Again, there is no other shipping to choose.
And they keep coming back!
When I bought a stationary product on eBay and receive the product in an Amazon packaging. I was so confused that I presented this to one of my family members if they have any idea what's going on. "Sounds like you've bought it from a drop shipper." And I was like "what?"
Okay, from my understanding, I happen to buy a product that is at least one to two dollars more than if I would of bought it on Amazon. So this drop shipper bought the product on Amazon and then "gift" it to me even though it really isn't a gift. (Gift receipt is in the package if you are wondering.)
So the big question is "are they making a profit from this?" Because both Amazon and eBay has to take a cut, and not only that, there are taxes too. The whole thing confuses me honestly.
The more I look into "drop-shipping" on YouTube, the more depressing it gets. It's a job where you've become a middle-man with no inventory, with little to no support in case you have an issue with a customer. The moment you have a few one star reviews, it's over.
Anyway if you think eBay is doing anything about this, I don't think they care. Sure it's against the rules but in the end they are getting money.
Few last things to say about this.
If there is a recurring story that I keep hearing about, it's Amazon delivery drivers having to pee inside their bottles just to keep up with the tasks as-soon-as-possible. It's a story that writes itself honestly.
I'm trying to remember what one of my family members has done as a 3rd party delivery driver. All I remember is, everyone is trying to grab the good orders on the app. It's as if you'd need the same bots that online scalpers use. But I think it's a lot worse, it's just nothing to pick up. Might as well do a different service instead.
So should you quit buying from Amazon?
For me, it's easy. Sure there are only a few items I've found that it's cheaper on that website but I can easily say that I have saved a good chunk of money from not buying from Amazon (and the silly subscription.)
Honestly, write down the most important things you've kept buying from that site. Then in turn, see if you can buy it elsewhere.
And yes, "buying local" is always good but a challenge in it's own right.