Amazon, Amazon Prices & Jeff Bezos

[BladesNBarrels]

Interesting fact that has not been broadcast widely in the press, Jeff Bezos donated $200 million for charitable distribution on the same day he financed his trip to space.

He called it the Courage and Civility Award
Jeff Bezos planned to award $100 million each to Van Jones and chef Jose Andres.
The award aims to honor those who have "demonstrated courage" and tried to be a unifier in a divisive world.
"We need unifiers and not vilifiers," Bezos said. "We need people who argue hard and act hard for what they believe.
But they do that always with civility and never ad hominem attacks.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where this is too often not the case.
But we do have role models."

Bezos said that Jones and Andres were free to do "what they want" with the money.
"They can give it all to their own charity," Bezos said at a press conference after his trip to space. "Or they can share the wealth. It is up to them."

[Aloha_Shooter]

Interesting fact that has not been broadcast widely in the press, Jeff Bezos donated $200 million for charitable distribution on the same day he financed his trip to space.

He called it the Courage and Civility Award
Jeff Bezos planned to award $100 million each to Van Jones and chef Jose Andres.

<snip>

Bezos said that Jones and Andres were free to do "what they want" with the money.
"They can give it all to their own charity," Bezos said at a press conference after his trip to space. "Or they can share the wealth. It is up to them."

So the Left has been doing this decades, mixing up socio-political "non-profit" activities with charities. If you look at non-profit donations for the past 30 years, you'll see the Left elite overwhelmingly "donate" to socio-political activist organizations which have filed for 501(c)3 status (and they don't generate profits as such so they are taking advantage of tax rules legitimately) but in media they talk about this as charitable donations as if they were donating to the equivalent of churches, food banks, etc. The Right has picked up on this and started doing similar things in the last decade or so but seem to be much less successful at this accounting (maybe because their core constituency is more interested in money going to actual charitable work or maybe because the best marketers/PR people tend to be left-wing).

I've never liked Bezos or his political leaning and this "donation" is much the same -- one reason I've cut back on buying anything via Amazon in recent years. Having said that, I will still give him some applause for pushing civilian access to space forward. No one is perfect (not even me!). I've never liked Trump either but he did some good things in restarting the true American economy (as opposed to spiking Wall Street), trying to throttle down on the power of the bureaucracy, opposing the growth of the CCP, etc.

[hollohas]

... one reason I've cut back on buying anything via Amazon in recent years....

A bit off topic...I have used Amazon a ton over the years because it gave me service I couldn't get elsewhere. But it's is loosing a lot of what attracted my business. And it's not about politics for me.

1) It used to be CHEAP. Not any more. Most prices on Amazon these days are no better than anywhere else or downright inflated. Some household items on Amazon are 1/3rd the price from Target for the exact same (who also has free 2-day shipping but includes it with no annual fee).

2) Amazon used to be the fastest. Not anymore. See above. Also, they've advertised they were moving to next day or even same day shipping. However I rarely get ANYTHING in even 2-days anymore. Even items that say they will arrive in 2 days have been taking 3/4/5+ days to deliver. Their own fleet of vans doesn't appear to be helping their service.

3) It's like eBay now. Or alibaba or something. It takes forever to filter out the obvious (or not so obvious) knock-offs or oriental trading quality offshore junk items being sold by dozens of different "brands". Same crap, dozens of different vendors. It's getting harder and harder to find name brand anything on Amazon anymore and if you do it's MSRP+ and you might as well buy elsewhere. They used to have a better selection of everything, not anymore.

I was looking for some good quality well known name brand trail shoes the other day. Amazon used to be great for shoes. Finding anything in the right size or color is impossible now. They simply don't have anything. Even the dumb colors were unavailable. But if I wanted a $45 pair of knockoff unknown Chinese brand trail shoes, no problem at all. Plenty available.

Amazon has lost a TON of business from me over the last year or two.

[Irving]

A bit off topic...I have used Amazon a ton over the years because it gave me service I couldn't get elsewhere. But it's is loosing a lot of what attracted my business. And it's not about politics for me.

1) It used to be CHEAP. Not any more. Most prices on Amazon these days are no better than anywhere else or downright inflated. Some household items on Amazon are 1/3rd the price from Target for the exact same (who also has free 2-day shipping but includes it with no annual fee).

2) Amazon used to be the fastest. Not anymore. See above. Also, they've advertised they were moving to next day or even same day shipping. However I rarely get ANYTHING in even 2-days anymore. Even items that say they will arrive in 2 days have been taking 3/4/5+ days to deliver. Their own fleet of vans doesn't appear to be helping their service.

3) It's like eBay now. Or alibaba or something. It takes forever to filter out the obvious (or not so obvious) knock-offs or oriental trading quality offshore junk items being sold by dozens of different "brands". Same crap, dozens of different vendors. It's getting harder and harder to find name brand anything on Amazon anymore and if you do it's MSRP+ and you might as well buy elsewhere. They used to have a better selection of everything, not anymore.

I was looking for some good quality well known name brand trail shoes the other day. Amazon used to be great for shoes. Finding anything in the right size or color is impossible now. They simply don't have anything. Even the dumb colors were unavailable. But if I wanted a $45 pair of knockoff unknown Chinese brand trail shoes, no problem at all. Plenty available.

Amazon has lost a TON of business from me over the last year or two.

Pretty much feel the same, especially about the shoes and not being able to find name brand stuff. I once bought a pair of Vibrams, held onto them for over six months before I tried them on, and they fell apart within the first day of wear. Uncharacteristic of Vibram Five Fingers and has me wondering if I bought a knock off. Of course it was too late to return them. Oh yeah, and the price went up after every pair I bought over the years. Recently, as I posted on here, I bought a LUK flywheel for way less on Amazon. Turned out to be fake, no wonder it didn't cost as much.

[MrPrena]

I don't do Amazon after having disappointing sales experience there.

I love ebay and their service as a buyer (more love) and as a seller (little less ❤).
unfortunately I bought 2 items off of ebay and it was an Amazon listing it on ebay.

my wife recently received 100 Amazon gift code as a bday present and we will be more than happy to trade that 1:1 with ebay, Walmart, or Costco $100 card.

[arbol]

I don't do Amazon any more either. They are obviously including the cost of their "free shipping" in everything you buy.

[arbol]

It's actually satisfying, to walk into a brick and morter, local, store, and buy something for less than Amazon.

[MrPrena]

let's say this.....
I make MORE $$$$ selling books on Amazon than eBay.
That tells you that Amazon is not cheap.

I still prefer selling it on ebay over FBA FBM on Amazon platform. sick and tired of their bullshit high rate of returns.

[Sawin]

I used Amazon Smile twice today for work. Took me 30 seconds to locate and checkout each time….not kidding.
While I hear what y’all are saying, sometimes finding a USB adapter or replacement plantronics ear muffs for less than $10 a piece and shipping them to my colleagues for free is still hard to beat.

Next to nothing I buy anymore is found in a brick an mortar store… not even shooting related stuff.

[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.