I wanted to get printer photo paper for my printer, a Canon. I went to Walmart, They had nothing. Went to Target, they had one pack of photo paper and it was crazy expensive, so I went to micro center. That one was just as expensive. So finally I went back to Amazon, which I was trying to avoid, and saw the price 25 to 40% lower than anywhere I had been. Literally everything that I was looking for, I could find within seconds. Not even Best buy has even close to the amount of inventory or variety, even when you’re shopping online…
Therefore, I think Amazon has a literal monopoly in the tech industry right now, you’re literally forced to buy from them, because unless you have the money and financial fortitude to protest with your wallet, you’re going to be buying from them. There’s no other choice. They have so aggressively and dominantly taken over the supply chain market that no other tech company can currently compete with them in any aspect at all. You will be paying 40 to 50% more on everything by cutting out Amazon, and no one has the money for that anymore unless you’re upper middle class or above
I put some of the blame on retailers as well. Retail stores just don’t want to carry inventory anymore, especially tech-focused ones with many of those just turning into glorified showrooms. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard some version of: “Sorry, we don’t have that in stock but we can bring it in for you.”
We needed a short length of garden hose here for the house so I went to two hardware stores and one garden centre looking for one. Nothing. Not even in their dedicated gardening sections. I had to order it off Amazon. A goddamn garden hose.
Amazon has done a lot of damage for sure but retail is suffering from several self-inflicted wounds too. Home Depot, for example, is a multi-billion dollar corporation and even they have a weaker retail presence now. That’s not Amazon’s fault.
Harbor Freight.
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Having worked at a Target like this, I can assure you there is still a lack of inventory on top of these stores being extremely short staffed. Target in particular completely eliminated their storeroom staff a few years ago and just doubled the work load of the floor staff. Both the floor and the storeroom were absolute nightmares to navigate because there were not enough people to actually organize and stock.
Go on Facebook and ask your local buy nothing group. Check thrift stores line the habitat for humanity restore. Farm and home store like fleet farm/ farm and fleet. Plenty of ways to get ahold of something like that without buying new.
Check your local mom and pop hardware store if you have one! I had to get a feeder hose this summer as well, and the only place I found it was a local family owned hardware store.
Totally agree!
Looks like you’ve been hard at work blocking since people actually agree with you now
Here in Germany there are still plenty of independent online retailers and they’re competitive with Amazon. I always try to avoid buying from Amazon and for tech products that’s usually no problem.
Same in Spain. I don’t even have an Amazon account, btw.
I’m also in Spain, and only use Amazon for things i genuinely cannot find elsewhere, which happens to be like once a year
Netherlands here and as well we have so many local shops that outbeat Amazon that it isn’t even fair. There is a very small chance I buy something of Amazon, think the only time I did was for a replacement item for a Dyson.
I think “beat out” may have been what you meant. And in this example I would probably just say they “beat” Amazon.
How dare you expose my mobile typing and/or my not-native language speaker! /s
Please name an actual good store that can compete with Amazon. Now, I’m lucky my local book store has a digital front where I can order but when it has to be something more general, Amazon remains the only address where the majority of orders didn’t range between faulty and actual horror stories so far.
Do you have some good examples? I recently moved there, and want to avoid Amazon, when possible
In more general terms, you can look up the item at e.g. Idealo.de or other product comparison sites and then decide where to buy. Amazon is most often not the cheapest, even including additional delivery cost
Amazon has very good deals OR very bad ones. I find Microcenter often equal to or even better than Amazon in most tech stuff.
Your experience is exactly why you shouldn’t make sweeping judgement on one data point.
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Photo paper isn’t really tech. It’s a supply.
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It’s a low volume niche item.
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People that are buying it are less likely to care about cost (older) or want it right now. So Microcenter feels they can charge more. (IMO)
Was about to say, the last few times I have bought something, Amazon was actually the more expensive choice. Once we looked at them to buy some grocery type products and they were just absolutely horribly expensive compared to any local grocer.
Funny you mention grocery type items. That’s where I first noticed how bad Amazon can price gouge. Sometimes 3-4 times what the price should be.
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Amazon’s pricing I not deterministic. You were likely tracked and information collected to know this was a key item for you. Amazon will market loss leaders to you in an attempt to get you to default to buying on Amazon.
As a former Buyer for a chain of retail stores, the loss leader is effective marketing. I sell you a popular item at or below my typical cost because statistically, a large percentage of customers are making a special trip to my store to buy that product and will make additional purchases at margin. On the wholesale Buying side, these are tools to get past bulk buying tier discounts for seasonal ordering with smaller scale retail.
Amazon is using a convoluted front end system of overlapping product categories and a supposed multi seller listings (despite collectivized logistics and warehousing) on the website you see. This is how they perform price fixing where you do not see honest or straight forward determinism. When you repurchase that same item later without making comparisons, the seller will shuffle so that a higher price is presented.
If you have a well isolated network where device history for social media and internet browsing is totally partitioned from e-commerce you’ll likely see even more of the scam. If you see anyone online show the search results and pricing on Amazon, then try to replicate those search results and product price on a device that is totally partitioned from your viewing of the item/price elsewhere, you’re likely to find it is not possible. If you then go back to the original device and do the same, you’ll magically find the same product and lower price. It is a scam market. This is why they are collecting and paying for all that data about you. We are in an age when automated individual targeting and manipulation is possible and happening. This is why data mining stalkerware is insidious. Scam markets are only the tip of the iceberg and what can be uncovered if you go looking for it. Anyone that has done database or logistics management should have major red flags flying when looking at how Amazon’s website is setup. The front end is absolutely untenable garbage for effective logistics. The only reason it is convoluted and search results are terrible is because it is a price fixing scam. The logistical efficiency proves that there is no connection between the front and back end of the site.
How much does it say these beans cost?
How does CamelCamelCamel display a price history if the price is different for everyone? Perhaps it’s inaccurate for some (Just hasn’t been for me the handful of times I’ve “had“ to use Amazon.)
And Amazon doesn’t price discriminate if they put something on a nationwide sale? So the bloggers can advertise that AirPods are at their lowest price ever?
reporting on their bad biz practices
They definitely get accused of other unsavory stuff:
Amazon “tricks” customers into buying Fire TVs with false sales prices: Lawsuit
Thanks for this. I’ve only used Amazon a few times and was always baffled at the train wreck of its chaotic layout / ux. I had to buy something there once and it was such a process it was like being asked to leave the store before paying. Thought at the time it must be down to legacy and new features being showhorned around ancient web1.0 history, its success being its burden with customers having to learn how to use the thing. Price fixing scam is what I will think of it now, while continuing to avoid it.
chaotic layout / ux
Maybe it’s stockholm syndrome or something, but I find it absolutely fine. My general rule of thumb is to look past the first page of results, since that’s where a lot of the sponsored listings are, and then look at several listings before deciding. As long as you’re aware that the first page or so of results are generally sponsored (i.e. ads), it’s not too hard to find a decent product. And since it’s online, it’s pretty easy to compare w/ other retailers (I’ll often look at eBay, Newegg, and a couple others depending on the type of product before pulling the trigger).
That said, I’m definitely not your typical consumer (I rarely buy things on impulse), so it’s hard for me to understand the impact of their “price fixing” nonsense.
Maybe it’s stockholm syndrome or something, but I find it absolutely fine.
no it’s absolutely horrid. HOWEVER in your defense, so are like 95% of all websites, ever made, it’s not a unique problem.
Yup, the modern web kinda sucks. But once you learn to navigate it, it’s usable. Mostly.
yeah, i was thinking the other day, about how much money we’ve spent developing the technology to put a floating window over a web page, just so it can display you an ad.
Aside from that web browsers are starting to become a secondary operating system, and i hate it, it’s stupid.
Nah, the layout is absolutely horrible. Especially when you check a box in the filters and other options disappear because Jeff forbid you want to look for motherboards by Asus, Gigabyte, and Asrock but ignore other brands.
Are you talking about the immediate refresh thing? Because yes, that is frustrating.
I don’t know if it happens in browser but sometimes on their app other options disappear if you choose one from the filter.
If I start looking for shoes, and check Adidas under brands filter then the page refreshes and I don’t see any other brands’ names.
Yeh people learn and it becomes normal which is fine. Ebay is as bizarre to me. Not hate, more a morbid fascination that things so maze-like to navigate can also be successful. Could be semi cultural as well. I’ve noticed this being the way in other US platforms with a similar legacy. I’ve also being (attempting to) subvert tracking for quite a while so maybe that’s working and its less useful as a result lol. I’m lucky in a sense that their corporation isn’t so strong where I live so theres more choice (ironically I may actually have less choice). Its annoying when they have the monopoly on a given product, but it’s also possible just to go without the shiny thing.
Ebay
Yeah, it’s a bit odd, but again, once you get used to it, it’s fine. My general rules of thumb:
- narrow by category - avoids the worst of the spam
- only include “buy it now” listings (unless you really want auctions)
- sort by price (including shipping)
- skip the cheapest listing and look for the first “cluster” of listings
- be careful with sellers with a small number of reviews; low reviews aren’t a deal-breaker, they just have a higher chance of BS
I do that each time, and I haven’t had any problems so far.
oh so basically the entire shitpost about walmart or whatever it was having “dynamic pricing” is literally already real…
ok.
Great post. Thank you for this insight!
It would help if you went to the right stores first. Try Office Max, Staples, Office Depot, etc.
Hell even Costco probably has photo paper
I am fortunate to live in a country where amazon is not strong and we have aggregated search engines that over all the small shops, compete against Amazon on selection and cost, often beating it. I hope it stays this way.
That’s cool. EU?
Yes, Czechia. We can order from Amazon.de, but it’s not usually much better than the other options, and returns and support are much worse.
Remember that time like 10 years ago, when some local news station was doing a story about Amazon having all the best tech deals, and then the one co-host butts in and says “You know why they have a monopoly, right? RIGHT??? SHE KNOWS WHAT I’M TALKIN ABOUT!!!”
And everybody was giving blank looks, like “Uh…no? What ARE you talking about?”
And he’s like “Because they sell all the sex toys, and deliver it right to your house! Ladies? Right??? IT’S CONVIENENT!!!”
And everybody just had their mouth open in shock like “WTF ARE YOU DOING???”
and then he goes on and on about dildos, as his cohost continually tries to move on, but he keeps talking about dildos. And she’s looking like she wants to strangle him.
No, but I enjoyed your retelling.
You should watch news bloopers on youtube. There’s so many classics.
“…I so pale…” *You’re on!" Immediately goes into news reporter mode as her cohost giggles
Also, a woman talking to the weatherman: “How bout that 69, huh? I know you’re excited about the no rain, but how bout that 69???” Rest of the news crew stonewalls.
Or the woman doing an on-location report about a guy who grills hamburgers for his resteraunt.
“Now, can I try one of these?”
"Absolutely. I would LOVE to see my meat in your mouth!
“NOT THE FIRST TIME I’VE HEARD THAT!!!”
There was the cohost who was in a grape smashing competition to make wine, and she yelled “WAIT!!!” and then started stomping extra fast herself. Basically cheating. And then she slipped and fell face first off an 8 foot drop right onto her face. And she starts groaning in pain.
Never saw that but that is hilarious.
And he was right!
You were looking for office supplies: did you check an office supply store?
Definitely would have been my first choice to look also, but do you think that staples or office max is going to have something cheaper than amazon?
It depends on the paper based on some quick searching, but I can pickup the paper from staples faster than Amazon will deliver it.
This would be a great point if we were discussing how fast you can get the item and not the cost of the item.
I’m thinking op isn’t the brightest tool on the short bus. Walmart has a far better market place/e-commerce platform than shitass Amazon. Same delivery windows of 1-3 says. Can order groceries that aren’t fuckin wierd marketplace seller with a garage packed with dented pallets of Nutella, wild rice and 5hr energy drinks lol. The groceries actually come from the store or the next nearest one. They basically already had the warehouse infrastructure. The dumped billions with a fuckin B last year just on developing and expanding on drone deliveries. Plus when your order gets fucked up from Walmart… YOU TALK TO A FUCKIN PERSON WHO ISNT HALF WAY ACCROSS THE PLANET WITH 3 PRELOADED REPLIES TO FIX EVERY PROBLEM. Fuuuuuuuuuck Amazon customer service. But also unless op was looking for the holy grail of printers I will bet my annual salary that Walmart’s online store had the exact printer they were looking for or one that is an exact copy but another brand. So dramatic to write this whole post up for such a dumb reason lol.
Edit: Also no person or brand selling on Amazon is exclusively selling on Amazon. If the printer wasn’t available anywhere it’s prolly a discontinued model or a fuck up by the mfg. Such a dumb post.
So you are arguing its a duopoly?
Amazon has a healthcare company now too…
…and they own twitch.
Wait til you find out about AWS and how half the internet runs on it.
Not just tech, all over the product spectrum. They started by selling books.
A large problem is payment system and accounts. I hate going to a new shop and create a new account, a new password, bla bla bla. I hate it. And wiring with online banking is still a pain the ass, you have to enter some password into your shitty phone keyboard and then wait for an SMS… paypal and amazon payment make shopping convenient.
So part of the problem is banks who have been sleeping on the job for decades. At least here in Europe. You finally can wire money so it arrives immediately from your bank account at a shop! (without having to waste some tax on a payment provider either). But 2 factor authentication is still a pita. Where is my online bank with easy to use FIDO2?
There are now alternative popping up because amazon has become so enshittified (high prices for many smaller items and reviews etc). And of course I’m a fan of aliexpress but shipping from China is stupid too.
We definitely need to avoid a monopoly by a corporation like amazon.
Books have always been a tool for power.
Guess even in our times that’s true.And then amazon, a book seller, bought IMDB and eventually burned down the discussion section - which contained so much “secondary literature” about films. I’ll never forgive them for that.
I always forget about that. Makes me sad.
I’m completely unfamiliar with this, can you elaborate?
IMDB used to be independent and have a pretty amazing forum for movies. Like people would have lots of debate and discussion and insight. I loved going there after watching a movie. It was sort of “secondary literature” and nothing like this existed before. Then they just decided to delete countless contributions and shut it down. Instead of paying for moderation for the few trolls.
Of course there are plenty of other movie forums, some even copies the old posts and there is r/movies, but it’s much more fractured now. There are certain network effects for social media that need to reach a critical size.
Y’all havemt even broached Amazon Web Services market share.
Microcenter price matches amazon, you could’ve bought it for the same price at microcenter. Also, you can try ebay, I’ve been buying more stuff from ebay and the experience is pretty good.
1/2 the time on eBay (for new stuff) it’s someone sending a gift package from Amazon and pocketing the difference.
I’ll say one problem is that for a number of items, there’s a technicality in the supply chain that exempts stuff from the price match. I don’t know about Microcenter, but have seen it in other contexts.
For example “Oh, Amazon is selling a 120 pack, but we only carry 125 packs, so it’s not equivalent”. Or in the most egregious, “You have the price for model number 762LAZ, but we stock 762LWM”, and you search and find out those two model numbers are absolutely identical, but “AZ” models come in a box with an Amazon logo printed on it.
Micro center does that? Because I asked them about that and they said they will only do it for certain items. That’s really strange honestly. I would also feel a little bit bad about it, because Amazon is clearly trying a loss leader strategy to mark down the product prices to ridiculous levels, I’m sure that would not help local small businesses if I can’t afford it, so I wouldn’t want to exploit that
Ive had different stores & managers give me different policies. One told me the items needed to be shipped and sold from Amazon. Another told me it was only for items that weren’t on sale. Another told me I couldn’t price match a part that was in a bundle purchase. But yes, they respect price match to almost every major competitor.
Best Buy does some price matching as well.
Same with most brick and mortar retailers. When in doubt, ask, and they’ll probably say yes, they just need to confirm the price on their own device (so you’re not manipulating images or whatever on your phone).
It’s not just the tech industry, it’s most industries. They have tons of inventory of everything.
Do you mean you went to walmart and target physically, and then directly to amazons website, and no other online shop? There are a ton of competing online stores with similar or better prices than Amazon, often stores specializing in the product you’re buying. Instead of looking up amazon specifically, look up the item youre looking for
Exactly. For tech stuff, B&H Photo and Newegg are generally pretty good, and there are still niche sites within that depending on what you’re looking for (e.g. keyboards and mice have multiple high quality vendors). At the very least, it’s worth using the “shopping” feature on your search engine (I use DuckDuckGo and check their “shopping” tab to get a feel for which vendors sell a given thing).
I’ve been buying a ton of stuff recently on eBay because I usually don’t mind buying used if it’s something more expensive (i.e. cell phone, console games, etc), just be aware that they have different standards than other retailers (e.g. if it’s a refurb phone, you could get an aftermarket screen). But as long as you read the listing carefully, it’s usually all spelled out.
Can’t trust NewEgg anymore. They got bought by a chinese company and their support and experience have gone completely to trash.
That’s fair. However, I’ve never had to interact with their support, or Amazon’s for that matter, so it honestly isn’t something I care strongly about.
That’s fine. Before I knew about the buyout, I wounder up with several broken or defective items, and finally had to reverse charges on a laptop power supply, because they were so bad to deal with.
Newegg has started selling shit products since last couple years.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8xNAti0AnfyrhbiKreMAL30MLGfTMqrN
Right. I remember their interview w/ Newegg, and it seemed like they handled it really well, and the utter lack of new negative videos by GN seems to indicate that they’ve made some positive changes (or maybe GN forgot to follow up?).
That said, I haven’t bought anything from them for 2-3 years, so I don’t have any recent experience. I hope they’ve improved, because they used to be my go-to electronics retailer.
I canceled prime a year ago as I can no longer support the monopoly and destruction to everyone else
Wait, your Canon printer needs a specific type of photo paper, not just generic photo paper that’s been around for inkjet printers for a very long time now? Have printers really become that enshittified?
Canon printers specifically are designed to take Canon specific photo paper. Even the drivers on your Windows PC are programmed to understand what those photo papers are, and you have to match up to them. If you use some generic paper, the prints will never come out right.
Canon printers specifically are designed to take Canon specific photo paper.
OP, this is what you should be complaining about.
