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Comment by sashk | Hacker News Reader

Why would I order from Target, Walmart or others and then wait unknown amount of time for delivery, when I can order anything I need on Amazon and have it in my hands in two days delivered for free, or sometimes even same day? I think Amazon spend great amount of money into delivery infrastructure and it works: I rarely shop now anywhere else, because I hate uncertainly: when I paid for something, I want it in my hands NOW. I doubt Target, Walmart or others will able to provide this. They are not ready for online shopping. Amazon is. And alliance will fail at some point in future, when all these stores will decide to deliver goods themselves to avoid middle men. So no, sorry. I don't get it!

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I can weigh in on this since I ordered some kitchen stuff and non-perishable groceries from Walmart last week. I'd looked up the prices on Amazon first and they were inflated by ~50% compared to buying locally (hypothetically if my grocery store carried them), while Walmart had the prices matching what you'd see in stores.

Prime used to be a deal, but now it seems that base prices on anything Prime eligible have had the price jacked up to cover Prime shipping, and are usually available from a "non-prime" seller for $5-10 cheaper.

If you're ordering a Prime eligible item and don't have a membership, it's always a crappy price because the fast shipping fee has been built into it, but you get slow shipping instead. And if you do have a membership, what's that $100/year going toward? Apparently not the shipping, since Prime items are consistently priced higher. I'd speculate it's funding their other ventures like Music and TV instead.

Walmart does free shipping on most orders over $35 (in some cases 2-day), no price inflation, no membership required. And as far as I know, they don't have Amazon's counterfeiting problems. I'll be checking on them in the future before I buy anything else on Amazon.

Here's an example. This is the actual item that spurred me to look at other stores: "Better Than Bouillon" vegetable broth base. For some reason my grocery store carries their chicken and beef bases, but not vegetable.

Wal-Mart - $4.64, free 2-day shipping on orders $35 and up https://www.walmart.com/ip/Better-Than-Bouillon-Premium-Seas...

Amazon - $15.99, prime eligible https://www.amazon.com/BETTER-BOUILLON-PREMIUM-SEASONED-VEGE... (only listing I can find for the exact product)

Amazon $7.80, add-on item w/ free shipping on $35+ https://www.amazon.com/Better-Than-Bouillion-Vegetable-Base/... (similar product from same brand)

I'm not sure what "Superior Touch" is compared to "Premium" but it costs 68% more and I've been using the cheaper one for years. After first looking for it on Amazon, I bought it from Wal-Mart instead.

Related story on another obscure food product - I almost got screwed by subscribe and save because I'd subscribed on a cheap product (around $7, discounted maybe $1), and the price had suddenly tripled when it came time for the next subscription order to go out. As far as I can tell there's no protection for this. You'd think it could check "Hey, you subscribed to this at $7, maybe you don't want to pay $21 for the same thing," but no.

[EDIT - checked order history, the original S&S order was at $6.90. I unfortunately don't have a definite record for the one I cancelled. It's currently available at $10.20 for a 1-pack or $8.70 for a 2-pack, because that makes sense.]

I happened to sign in and notice before it shipped out, so I canceled. And (unsurprisingly) it was still sold near the original price on the listings from every other seller. They'd just offered a minor discount to get people into a subscription and then screw them with a price increase.

I don't think the question should be "Why would you buy from Wal-Mart/Target/etc?" It should be "Why would you buy from Amazon unless you absolutely can't avoid it?"

> I don't think the question should be "Why would you buy from Wal-Mart/Target/etc?" It should be "Why would you buy from Amazon unless you absolutely can't avoid it?"

This is exactly where I'm at. Amazon just isn't competitive on many axes anymore:

1. Price: Amazon just doesn't seem to be price competitive with local stores anymore, and like you observed, sometimes the prices are jacked up unreasonably.

2. Selection: It's way easier to find specific items at specialist stores/websites. Amazon's search for long-tail items sucks.

3. Delivery: Amazon delivery is vastly inferior to USPS, etc. where I live. Why do I want to pay more to get an item delivered in to days, when I could pay less and get it now with a 30 min trip to the right shop?

Amazon deliveries here get shipped to the local post office and then use USPS for the last mile, so I haven't had problems with that. But on the rest, absolutely.

Search is terrible, items are miscategorized all the time, there are multiple listings for the same thing when they should all be grouped as multiple sellers of one product, the product info is missing or wrong, prices are sometimes totally out of whack (like my comment above where a 2-pack is cheaper than a 1-pack), you have no idea if you'll get the item you ordered or a counterfeit version, Amazon has no idea if they sent you the item you ordered or a counterfeit version, and the description/photos/actual item sometimes don't match. Pretty much anything that can be wrong with a product page frequently is.

I should cancel my Amazon Prime subscription. It's a huge selection of stuff available in one place, but that's about the only thing they have going for them.

I'll second this - Walmart is my go to for online purchases of consumable items.

Walmart does free shipping on most orders over $35 (in some cases 2-day), no price inflation, no membership required. And as far as I know, they don't have Amazon's counterfeiting problems.

Some Walmart brand name items are made specifically for Walmart, in much the same way certain items are made specifically for Massdrop. In effect, they're genuine official counterfeits, not the fly by night kind.

I wouldn't call that a counterfeit, that's just cheaper generic brand products in the same vein as grocery stores have been doing for decades.

If I know that I'm buying a "Great Value" branded product, that's fine. If I go on Amazon and spend $30 on an official Apple USB charger and get a fake one instead (still with an Apple logo though), then I've got a problem. The manufacturer of these are doing them at even lower quality/safety than the cheap brands like Anker, since they don't have to worry about damage to their own brand when it burns someone's house down.

Amazon has a huge problem with fake products being sold as name brands. Inventory from different sellers gets comingled, so you can't even avoid it by buying from a particular store.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3133627/technology-law...

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/20/birkenstock-quits-amazon-in-... [autoplay video warning]

I feel the same way as you, and the unpredictability and unreliability of AMZL has really turned me off of Amazon lately. They're constantly lying about deliveries, saying they handed a package directly to me when they left it at another building or claiming they couldn't get through the gate when they lost the package or missed the deadline.

  They're constantly lying about deliveries, saying they handed a package directly to me when they left it at another building or claiming they couldn't get through the gate when they lost the package or missed the deadline.

How is this an Amazon problem and not a delivery service (USPS, UPS, FedEx, et al.) problem?

Because I'm talking about AMZL, which is Amazon's delivery service. I haven't had these problems with USPS, UPS, or FedEx in the 3 years I've lived at this address.

Oh okay, thanks for clarify and sorry I missed that point. I suppose if Amazon is delivering it's an Amazon problem, eh? :D

I think it would be their issue anyway, as I was responding to someone saying they prefer Amazon because they have reliable delivery. Unreliable delivery that isn't their fault is still unreliable delivery.

I don't think it's there yet, but I believe the long term plan would be delivery from a Walmart/Target near you.

Walmart, at least, was moving that way. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2017/06/01/w...

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