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Comment by Symbiote | Hacker News Reader

How much actual stuff (as opposed to downloads) does the average person buy from Amazon, or other online retailers?

I wonder if I'm unusual in making perhaps one online physical purchase per month (not just from Amazon), but then, I don't think I've known anyone with a Prime subscription. Saving a day or two in delivery time also seems of very marginal value.

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My office has a mail shelf that overflows with Amazon packages every day (medium-size tech company). Similarly, my local news agent is now mostly an Amazon depo with a HUGE stack of Amazon parcels behind the counter awaiting collection.

I myself spent over £6000 on Amazon last year. I also use AWS at work...basically Amazon is my life.

I last purchased from Amazon in summer 2016, I think after reading about how they treated their warehouse staff, but I still use other online retailers.

I made 7 online purchases in the last 12 months. eBay got about €60, the other €rather_a_lot went to local electronics and furniture stores.

Otherwise, unless the price is unreasonable, I buy from local shops. I don't like the overwhelming choice online, and find it faster to compare things like books in a shop.

I usually don't care about the delivery time (although it is very nice when you're on a trip), the big thing is I used to wait until I had enough things to buy that I would qualify for no additional cost shipping, and with prime for most things, that's not needed. So if there's a nice movie on sale for $3, I don't spend a bunch more money to get the deal.

I think the biggest selling point for me is not just the delivery time but also the returns process. It's easy and painless to return things.

I didn't think prime affected the returns process, though?

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