Get rid of stores, all I want is Amazon

I am a big fan of Amazon, it has revolutionized my life. I get all of the detractors, but a shopping trip today convinced me that brick and mortar stores are going the way of VHS and 35mm Film.

Case in point, I bought an external hard drive that sucked (Avoid Seagate, who approved this ransomware POS) from the Staples across the street. When I go in to return it, the manager greets me at the door and directs me to the checkout for the return. He then walks away and goes to the back of the store and leaves me with a guy who has 12 minutes of training on the register. All returns require manager approval, of course, so we wait while the line of pissed-off customers grows and grows. 7 minutes later, the manager reappears and casually enters a code and walks off. WTF?

I go to Office Max to get a Western Digital Drive (much better) and of course, they are not on the shelf. But there is also no way to get the item you want to the register so they can grab it from the cage. I had to rip the display sign off the shelf! Wait 5 minutes to find out that it is not in stock, but can be here in 3 days. I pick a different model, which is special order only, 3-5 days. WTF? I ask to have whatever one they actually can put their hands on and suffer 5 minutes of asking to join their club and get their card and donate to Jerry's Kids and on and on.

Neither store had the basic white envelopes that I wanted either. So I remain committed to Amazon and look forward to turning all stores into autocross lots. (or greenspaces, I guess that's good too)

I'm with you. returns are incredibly easy. To the point it's easy to abuse.

I hate dealing with parking lots full of idiots just so I can walk in to a store full of idiots (customers mainly).

I can wait 2 days for just about everything.

In reply to pinchvalve:

I don't even bother anymore with brick and mortar retailers. I'll use the local store stock locators if I need something right away then choose 'pick up in store' because I'm so tired of the drudgery of dealing with retail outlets. Otherwise everything except groceries and immediate things I need from the hardware store are ordered and shipped.

Hell I use Sam's Club's 'Scan & Go' app to scan my own groceries on my phone now because waiting in line is literally the worst part of a shopping trip with my toddler and an 8 month old.

The0retical wrote: Hell I used Sam's Club's 'Scan & Go' app to scan my own groceries on my phone now because waiting in line is literally the worst part of a shopping trip with my toddler and an 8 month old.

My daughter is fan of their click and pick. You order on-line, just drive up and they load you up.

Interesting.. I relinquished all store buying a while ago when I worked at Amazon... what I found is that the ease of buying from Amazon increased my buying to a silly level... So, I'm now coming full circle and contemplating getting rid of prime.. I already pay for one buying club, Costco.. I don't need two.. and going back to stores for most things. It helps me have the "do I really need it" conversation in my head. It's too easy to think.. I really need a new way to hang a canoe in my garage so I buy it from Amazon and it's here in two days only to have it sit on my floor for 4 weeks as I find time to actually hang it.

Some interesting stuff.. http://trends.e-strategyblog.com/2014/06/19/amazon-prime-spending-vs-non-prime-customers-chart/19743

Also.. if you look at pricing, Amazon isn't the cheapest anymore and is getting crowded with junk like Ebay was in 2006-2007ish?

Still love the company, great customer service.. With the $25 order minimum now on two day shipping.. I think Prime as lost its cache for me.

Not me. I hate ordering things online and will drive two hours away to find something I can't find locally before I will order anything online.

I go both ways. Some things I just need to fondle in the store to see if whatever hair brained plan I had will work. But Amazon is great for known items.

I will agree it makes shopping tooo easy.

Safeway had delivery where I lived in CA. It was really nice, and free if you scheduled two days in advance. Even delivered alcohol if I remember right.

Don't drink and grocery shop though, it's almost as bad as eBay.

I'm all for anything that limits my dealing with the general public. I'm even looking into buying metal online, because except for really big pieces, the shipping is cheaper than borrowing or renting a truck and paying for gas. The prices actually being better than local is just a bonus.

My wife just got Prime and I've found myself asking this very same question . . . .

and with Brandless, why even shop for groceries anymore?

Fueled by Caffeine wrote: Still love the company, great customer service.. With the $25 order minimum now on two day shipping.. I think Prime as lost its cache for me.

What's this now? I just order something via Prime Two-Day for $6.

Or do you mean that you can get Two-Day shipping without Prime if you order $25 or more?

I've never ordered 2x4s online. Can't imagine it would be pleasent.

pheller wrote:

Fueled by Caffeine wrote: Still love the company, great customer service.. With the $25 order minimum now on two day shipping.. I think Prime as lost its cache for me.

What's this now? I just order something via Prime Two-Day for $6. Or do you mean that you can get Two-Day shipping without Prime if you order $25 or more?

I wondered the same thing. Looks like the latter is correct - you can now get free shipping from Amazon on orders over $25 without prime. Prime is still free shipping on all Prime items no matter the price. (Except "add-on" and "pantry" items, which I think is a mistake diluting the Prime brand, but that's an unrelated rant.)

java230 wrote: I go both ways.

Giggity

Unless the item of clothing is mostly identical, I don't like clothes shopping. Thankfully, many clothing lines have clean up their act WRT build quality. Same for shoes.

For some items, there's no real need for a real store- see Radio Shack.

On the other hand, there is a need for seeing/hearing the product- see Best Buy.

I would never buy groceries on line. Especially produce. Or plants.

In other words, it depends. (which I would only buy on line if it comes to that)

Wal Mart offers grocery pick up service, and I find that I spend WAY less now. When I go to the store, I am a total sucker for in-store merchandising. I have bought men's shampoo because it looked so cool (I shave my head).

I'm just wondering who is going to topple Amazon now that they seem to have reached price equilibrium with everyone else (actually Best Buy is dramatically cheaper for computers now) and their shipping expediency has fallen way off.

Walmart is directly competing with Amazon online and is the reason the free shipping level dropped from $45 back down to $25.

It's not 2 day shipping, but if you live near a distribution center, it might as well be (depending on what you order)

Spent an hour running around my burgh this afternoon. I only live minutes away from A-A, A-Z, O'Reilys, Lowe's, HD, HF, TSC, Sheetz, Staples, beer and grocery stores etc but I hated it. Traffic sucks in the afternoon, shiny happy people everywhere. I liked my old midnight shift routine, first in the store at opening, done and gone, off the road by 9 a.m. Maybe I'm spoiled.

Almost stopped in Staples but remembered this thread. I'd hate to even buy a mouse pad there anymore, their service sucks and there's always a wait w/ only one cashier. Skipped A-A cause there were 5 cars in the lot, that means wait, wait, wait cause customers don't know exactly what they need and they're always understaffed. Look your berkeleying part up online, check stock and come prepared.

First world problems, yea. When I have time I'll order online anytime, I hate to leave the yard most days. I've had all good experience w/ Amazon.

The only store I don't mind driving 10 minutes to is Fastenal. Check stock online, usually no wait, bing bang boom, done. Well, it's a project toy store too.

I needed a vacuum cleaner belt and filter set. It's a common Hoover of recent vintage. After wasting a couple hours driving to 3 WalMarts, Target and Home Depot I was pissed. The largest retailers in the country can't be bothered to carry this stuff? Ordered from Amazon and wished I had done that first.

Walmart is getting like Blockbuster and Netflix did: they used to carry everything but now it's just the best-selling items in each category.

When we were living way out in the boonies it was a half hour drive one way to the tiny small town grocery store or half hour the other way to a WalMart.

I had a recipe I wanted to try that started with a pineapple cake mix. Drove to WalMart and they didn't have it. Weeks later I was in the small town grocery store and they not only had pineapple but a total of 14 different flavors from three different brands. Went back to WalMart and checked, they had 8 flavors, but as many as a dozen different chocolate ones from half a dozen companies.

That is what box stores have turned into these days, lots to choose from but no real selection.

We do Target online shopping too. My wife has their CC too so we get 5% off and free shipping.

We got some cheap furniture that had 'team lift' on the side and I felt bad for the delivery person.

In reply to tuna55:

That's an interesting question. Can Amazon continue to grow this business now that they have effectively just tapped out the prime percentage by household? They are making tons of money as a cloud computing provider but Microsoft is catching up at a fast rate.

I'd hate to bet against Amazon, but it looks like their ability to grow is limited with lots of downside here. Transportation cost reduction will certainly help, but it's interesting.

Lots of hubris in the market about Amazon now. Does when others are fearful buy work when you have such a cultural shift?

I literally just ordered for pickup caliper paint, a half gallon of evaporust, a gallon of purple power, and brake grease from the Advance on the way home. Online inventories with a pick up in store option is super duper convenient.

Edit: apparently this advance doesn't pick items prior to me showing up. So that's not going to happen again.

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine:

A lot of what they're doing currently is streamlining. They have a million square foot facility here in the Lehigh Valley and they're building another one right now for "Odd size" packages. I see probably two Prime Air flights out my window a day going to ABE who is building them a terminal.

Cloud computing is their bread and butter though. I know the US Gov has a bunch of big contracts with them for data storage and processing. There's a lot of room to expand there despite my own suspicions about the whole "cloud" thing.

They're also moving into the grocery business and growing as a content creator.

So there's a lot of things which can sustain at least moderate growth. I think the days of their explosive growth are way behind them now though. Unless they fix their search functionality. God it is terrible.

Unless it's Lowes or HD for lumber or something large or something I need immediately, I don't do brick and mortar anymore. A steady stream of "we can order it for you," pretty much killed them for me because I can order it for myself.

Where Amazon is still killing Walmart and the like, is their website. Their customer interface just works. It's simple, easy, and convenient. Be it on my phone, tablet, or laptop. That in itself is worth any extra they charge. Until the other guys get that part together, they will never take over the world.

Fueled by Caffeine is right about how the ease of purchase changes your buying habits. I find myself thinking about things and ordering them long before I actually need them. From where I am sitting, I can see two Amazon boxes that have been opened and checked, but not unpacked or used.