Also have to factor that Amazon's customer service is fantastic.
That's the hidden cost in using something else: How is their customer service? How much hassle are they going to give me to return an item? How much does it cost me to return an item?
I only need their great customer service because of the poor quality products they are shipping. With other retailers, I don't know how good their customer service is because I almost never need to utilize them.
- Delivery time was like a week longer than they claimed.
- When it arrived it had a dead (red) pixel.
- Their customer support told me that dead pixels below a ridiculous amount (8 or so) do not qualify for a refund/replacement and told me to reach out to the manufacturer (overseas) for warranty replacement on a brand new item.
- Eventually I was able to return it under the regular "I no longer want this item" policy, but I had to pay a substantial restocking/returns fee (~20% of the price).
A quick search confirmed that this was very common with monitors and other items like GPUs have even more dissatisfaction/delayed shipping/shady practices.
Sure, I've had a couple of issues with late deliveries or broken products with Prime, but they've always corrected their error eventually. Returns and product issues are highly asymmetrical, where mostly you don't need it but when you do it's really important.
For expensive items, Amazon is 100% worth the peace of mind in case something goes wrong. For anything cheaper, I'm assuming I won't get help and I'll just have to eat the cost (which is ok, but of course not ideal). Not saying this could never happen with Amazon, but the risk seems a lot lower to me.
(I buy only from Newegg, not 3rd party folks selling on the Newegg platform).
If you get junk from Amazon, just send it back. No support needed.
When I compare this with all major retailers, this is true for everyone else. This isn't "fantastic" - it's standard.
Walmart was the one exception, where the employee didn't know Walmart's return policy.
Not long ago I ordered 4 pair of sunglasses from a small outfit online. Only 2 arrived. Support took a few days to get back to me, then asking for pics of what I got, the box, etc. I don't think that was unfair of them to ask and I provided all that, but it's a stark contrast to 'yeah here's your money back' in 5 minutes, no questions asked.
The matter was resolved with a refund when I forwarded the email threat they sent me to a couple relevant blogs/reviewers.
We've had groceries accidentally shipped to the wrong address (our shipping address is different from where we live b/c the building contracts a 3rd party to deal with packages). They either refund the order or send out a new delivery (mind you the other products are already delivered elsewhere and will eventually even make it to us... just with dead cold items), no questions asked.
It's things like this that make it much more comfortable to buy from Amazon than other places, as much as I would like to buy direct or from a smaller shop, etc.
Amazon delivers stuff to my place for "free" and very fast. They also make returning things as painless as possible since I don't even need to re-package my item when dropping off at UPS. It's easy to underestimate the hassle (from other merchants) of re-packaging your items and possibly paying for return shipping.
It's almost like the Walmart family thinks this online thing is a fad, and growth/sales spiraling downward will turn around any day now, just you wait and see!
I don't get it.
I spoke a while informally to someone who worked there. Sounded like a really smart person, and they were describing in detail how their team was writing this 'thing' from scratch, where thing is something numerous rock solid, fast, open source alternatives exist. Didn't seem like a good use of resources -at all- considering the sorry state of their web experience.
Lowes' website is a trainwreck, just Inspect Page it... for starters there's "todo" comments.
Home depot's experience is fantastic.
But if you wanna see the reigning champ of "online thing," www.mcmaster.com
It lets you put things in your cart that sell out. Putting things in your cart means nothing at all, apparently.
Not sure if the last line was meant in jest, but I -really- dig that site. All info and pics, clear pricing. Perfect.
It's also been this way for years. They were ahead of the game even back then.