Yeah, but can it leave a nice dark permanent line on, say, a carpet?
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I still go online for most consumer electronics or media, including books*.
/*Because fuck Powells. Used paperbacks should not be $5 and up. That’s fucking bullshit. And the people selling used books on Amazon or Ebay are mostly little book sellers who have shops or who work from home (excluding nearly all textbook resellers).
I have a friend who has a small bookstore that’s about 15 miles away. He says the same thing. I’ve bought a few books from him, all at list price, to support his business. The trouble with this way of thinking is that local businesses can benefit from capitalism (charge as high as possible) but I can’t (get as low a price as possible). If Amazon has a lower price, why shouldn’t I (as the buyer) get the lowest price I can?
Of course this is why Walmart (and A&P before them) managed to drive so many small businesses out of business. And with the counterfeit problem, that makes the local business have more value, sort of (but we’ll never know when, because we don’t know a priori what’s counterfeit). What’s the answer?
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What you’re not seeing is that Amazon is running the long con. When they’re the only game in town you’re not going to get any kind of low price.
Personally, much like paying taxes so I can have roads and fire trucks, I would prefer to pay an extra dollar or two here and there to make sure the businesses I like are still around. For example, I can get a frozen bagel at the grocery store for fifty cents or a fresh baked one for eighty-five. Making sure that I have a bookseller who knows what I like and is willing to chat about what’s coming out is worth the price to me.
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Good points!
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I never thought I’d say this, but Ebay is now my safe haven from Amazon.
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So my wife says.
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I really should have ordered the extra fine. And in some colour other than brown.
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Only natural, now that they’ve completely assimilated Etsy.
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#LateStageCapitalism #FreeMarketCapitalism
this is just the least of problems that occur when you make money your primary value placeholder. everyone wants to make more money and get cheaper products, very few focus on quality and durability and functionality.
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No guarantees. Hell, there are fake certified jet engine parts out there. However, to get into Best Buy, criminals would have to infiltrate the supply chain between the manufacturers, shipping companies, distributors (when used instead of direct deliveries) and Best Buy to substitute fakes for legitimate items.
In the case of Amazon it is Amazon inserting the fake goods into its own supply chain by taking the word of every dodgy 3d party company that sends it goods for fulfillment. If “Shenzhen Authenik Goodz Co” sends Amazon flash drives and says they are a particular model of Sandisk 256 GB drive, Amazon mixes them with all of the other flash drives alleged to be the same model and fulfills them out based on warehouse logistics, not based what company you are supposedly ordering from. This makes rating any seller fulfilled by Amazon utterly pointless since you can’t know if the goods you received were supplied by them or not.
The problem with that is that unlike Best Buy, or what Amazon should be doing, and buying only direct from the real manufacturer or a major distributor, small businesses looking for deals, or even to carry some items at all, may have to buy from small distributors or dodgy 3d parties. Small stores are vulnerable to counterfeit merchandise, too.
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You’re right, this will kill them.
With Wal-Mart’s long awaited prime-competitor service, they will be in a position to cut Amazon. Wal-Mart imports a lot of products themselves and does their own verification and QC. Wal-Mart will get an advantage if Amazon lets them be “the store you trust.”
Actually I’ve been bewildered by Wal-Mart’s long uptake on online shopping. They were always successful because of their massive and elegantly efficient logistics and distribution operation. I always figured they’d just say “Every store is now a distribution center and we’ll mail products from our store to your door today.” Heck they could have done Prime Now years ago by just hiring drivers to bring you stuff from the store. I think they just never realized how eager people were to pay for such things.
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While I wish Walmart success only in improving employee pay and welfare—or, alternatively, jumping off a cliff into a pit of fire—I agree that they missed a huge business opportunity here. If this trend of counterfeit dilution on Amazon keeps up, they may get a second chance.
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Maybe. However, Walmart is also known for getting brands to slit their own throats by creating special, lower quality goods just for Walmart. So, in some cases they kind of cut out the counterfeiters by counterfeiting their own brand.
I might shop Walmart if it was the only place with low prices in my geographical area - the same doesn’t apply to Walmart on-line. (I generally avoid Walmart, which I’m lucky enough to have the resources to do, not something everybody does.) So, I dunno.
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The problem with buying locally is that you often can’t find what you want locally. Hell, I was in City Lights Books the other day and couldn’t find any Philip Larkin or Alfred Jarry.
Best Buy will price match with Amazon, so for anything they sell you can get Amazon prices when they are lower. I don’t know if BB will change this policy if the counterfeit problem with Amazon grows.
Yeah, I was primed to make a “Shoupie Sales” joke, but decided most of the readers here would be too young to get it.
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Really? 
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FBA is a crock of SHEIT … goods are not fungible
Except they are so much in bed with paypal (though I haven’t checked lately) and paypal can bite me. Oh you and your wife share a card, oops banned card number. Oh you purchased gas at work instead of near home, banned card number. Fuck them.
Are you talking about a Paypal debit card? I don’t understand.
If so, I wonder if Bancorp went crazy after https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/02/the-way-for-regulators-to-hit-a-bank-where-it-hurts-a-ban-from-markets/ they spent so long not giving a shit about money laundering operations.
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No the credit union credit cards we were using at the time. They just locked my paypal account no recourse. Luckily it was empty. It has been quite a few years ago now. I have read elsewhere they do not like if you have 2 names on the same card number which got the wife into hassles as banks like to do that.
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