Amazon, Amazon Prices & Jeff Bezos

Probably at least 50% or more of ALL of my purchases, including food, is done online now. Amazon isn't what it used to be in terms of pricing, that's for sure. But the service, at least in my experience, is pretty hard to beat. Sometimes I honestly don't know how retailers on Amazon are making money. If you think Amazon is a pain in the ass, try going to WalMart on a Sat. Amazon is still my go-to for now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bailey Guns

If you think Amazon is a pain in the ass, try going to WalMart on a Sat. Amazon is still my go-to for now.

---

Fair point.

On that note, I once bought something on Amazon that shipped to me direct from Walmart. No shit. The Amazon seller simply got my Amazon order, turned around and ordered the item from Walmart and shipped it direct to me. Had I just purchased it myself from Walmart's website I would have paid half the price as Amazon.

What aggravates me about brick and mortar is availability. Across the board... auto parts, computer parts, you name it, it seems like all the retail stores just stock the cheapest lowball crap they can get their hands on. And it's never cheap.

That said I do intentionally shop a lot of brick and mortar. Many of my tools etc are from the local shops, even if I could've saved $2 from online orders. The parts, however, are not.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hollohas

We tried to sell some stuff on Amazon for a while. Stuff you see labeled as "fulfilled by Amazon". All new products. Like things we bought on sale at Costco that would sell on Amazon for much, much more. Amazon charges seller fees for EVERYTHING. Tons of fees. But even after they nickel and dimed us to death, we still calculated that we'd make a decent profit. That was until Amazon wanted us to ship the product to their warehouses all over kingdom come. One by one and we paid for shipping.

Let's say we had 40 of the same item to sell. If we shipped them split between 2 or 3 warehouses, we'd still be in good shape. But oh no, Amazon made us ship them to like 35 warehouses. Something we paid $10 for that would sell on Amazon for $35, we'd end up making like $1 profit. And that's only if it sold quickly. If it didn't and sat in their warehouse for any period of time, the fees would keep coming. Basically it's consignment with a rental fee for shelf space. Way, way, way too much work for 10% or less profit.

And that's the problem Amazon has created. They turned into more of a fulfilment/consignment center than an actual wholesaler like they were when they started. If they still purchased product wholesale like they did originally, they have such huge buying power that their prices would still be lower than everyone. However they are just selling stuff purchased by tens of thousands of smaller sellers with no buying power and who pay a higher cost. All the actual sellers have to mark stuff WAY up to make any money after all of the Amazon fees. It's just a totally different business now than it used to be. And I think people are going to wise up to it.

I finally got my wife to stop clicking "buy now" on Amazon and actually start price checking things again. Once she did she was stunned by how much Amazon was raping us on price.

---

Retail/Price arbitrage is extremely saturated market.

I have approx 2 EXTREMELY SLOW MOVERS. They are Disney toys (bought ~$.05each ,retails 13.99), and hand sanitizer (3.99 each retail, but bought it for penny ea). I am selling 3 toys per month, and selling about 40-50 sanitizer per mo.
I ma sitting on so many unpopular Disney toys that I might need to give that away for Halloween present.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bailey Guns

Probably at least 50% or more of ALL of my purchases, including food, is done online now. Amazon isn't what it used to be in terms of pricing, that's for sure. But the service, at least in my experience, is pretty hard to beat. Sometimes I honestly don't know how retailers on Amazon are making money. If you think Amazon is a pain in the ass, try going to WalMart on a Sat. Amazon is still my go-to for now.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hollohas

Fair point.

On that note, I once bought something on Amazon that shipped to me direct from Walmart. No shit. The Amazon seller simply got my Amazon order, turned around and ordered the item from Walmart and shipped it direct to me. Had I just purchased it myself from Walmart's website I would have paid half the price as Amazon.

---

I've bought a number of items online at Walmart.com for less than Amazon and had them either shipped directly to my house or to my local store for pickup. Pickup has been painless since they put in a semi-automated kiosk -- rarely have to deal much with the weekend crowds because the kiosk is outside the cash registeres. Just scan or enter your pickup code and wait for the package(s) to be delivered pneumatically or by cart from an employee then take it out to your car. In some cases, you can even arrange for curbside pickup now -- they offer that for my prescriptions.

I actually do a fair amount of online shopping at Walmart, Sam's and Costco. I also order most things online for local store pickup when I can do that rather than go inside and have to spend time looking. I like buying at the BX when I can...not always the best prices, but on higher end items the tax savings usually makes things cheaper.

Moved the Amazon/Bezos talk out of the Richard Branson/Blue Origin thread (also edited that thread title since it's now about both Branson's Virgin Galactic & Bezos Blue Origin launches) - these posts deserve their own thread.

This isn't even current -
https://youtu.be/_3VFmmqFCoM

Not financing Amazon or the penis shaped rocket.

A few very unique things i can only get on Amazon really. But otherwise I avoid it all costs. They use a lot of money towards woke agenda. They have a long history of business practice that is pretty unethical. They would have meetings with products, services, companies acting interested then walk away but steal the thing once they knew enough. They do comingled inventory so even if you buy a vendor that should be trusted you still very well can get a knock off. Like 2nd only to Google/FBfor bullshit political machinations.