Get rid of stores, all I want is Amazon

The0retical wrote: 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.

Burn them with a bad review. I have bought a good bit from AA online to get the discount. The last couple of orders were not pulled until I arrived.

I prefer too shop in brick and mortars unless i can save a bunch ordering online. I like the occasional human interaction and the excuse to drive around.

Careful, Amazon returns are NOT easy from my experience. I am still waiting on refunds from back in March. They have the returned products and I have the proof of delivery. They kept saying it can take 6-8 weeks to credit the refund. 8 weeks ended in May and it's now August. Note to self, do not use a berkeleying debit card with Amazon. Credit cards only from now on to dispute the charges if this crap happens again. This is an order with Amazon and it's own fulfilment center, not a 3rd party.

I learned this the hard way, and I pass it along to you...

there are 3 categories of merchandise sold on Amazon's website.

1. Items purchased FROM Amazon - they buy in bulk, warehouse, and ship.
2. Items purchased from 3rd party vendors, who warehouse and ship with Amazon.
3. Items purchased from, and shipped by, 3rd party vendors, who just use Amazon as a storefront.

Amazon is great about returns from #1, they can be decent about returns from #2, and from #3, you're on your own, Charlie.

Lesson learned. Pay careful attention from whom you're actually purchasing when buying on "Amazon".

In reply to EvanR:

They're getting ready to start subjecting 3rd party sellers to the same return policy Amazon uses for themselves. Including "instant refunds" and "returnless" refunds for bulky or awkward things.

From what I saw in the article, they're going to start attacking the sellers like eBay has been in an effort to "make a more consistent shopping experience" and drive a lot of their drop shippers and warehouse sales away.

Sure there's 2 sides to every story, but making things more difficult for people trying to run businesses and easier for E36 M3ty people to scam refunds doesn't seem like that great of a business practice.

Some perspective on shopping- 120 years ago, the Sears Roebuck catalog was a major way remote people bought items.

So Amazon isn't new. Just a more modern mechanism.

In reply to alfadriver:

My business partner and I just had the same discussion. We have gone from everyone delivering, to nobody delivering, and back to everyone delivering. History, repeating itself.

In reply to Toyman01:

Yep. Everything goes in cycles, such that what's old is new again. There was a time when you had to buy from travelers who bought and traded goods from all over the world. Then somebody decided to have a building people could come to for all of their purchases. Some of the old traders successfully made the transition to compete in this new market with their upstart rivals, others did not. Then with the development of a widespread mail delivery system, came the advent of mail order. Some old companies successfully made the transition to compete in this new market with their upstart rivals, others did not. Then came the advent of the mall, and its evolution and the re-expansion of physical stores. Some old companies successfully made the transition to compete in this renewed market with their upstart rivals, others did not. Then came the internet age, and its evolution and re-expansion of the mail order system. Some old companies successfully made the transition to compete in this renewed market with their upstart rivals, others did/will not.

In due time, the evolution and re-expansion of the physical store model will happen again. Consider Amazon, the company whose foundation was online book sales and drove physical book stores to the verge of extinction, has now begun opening physical book stores in major cities across the country. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall at the meeting where that 'revolutionary' idea was proposed...LOL.

The problem is, that the bigger any organization becomes, the more slowly (and often inadequately) it is forced to react to market forces. Hence some of the horribly implemented attempts to compete with upstarts dedicated to the 'new' internet sales format. I expect Amazon will eventually have this problem, whether it's the large-scale transition to more of a physical store format, or the subsequent large-scale transition back away from it.

BERK Bezos.......wake up, support those working stiffs like you that have loved ones and a community to support....

In reply to Driven5:

The book stores are a vehicle to introduce people to the Amazon ecosystem. They have run out of people who have willingingly forked over for prime. They new have to share all the benefits, let you play with devices, etc to attract more people. Amazon fresh and campus were both attempts to do such. Both haven't worked well. So amazon is stuck with cost plays and trying to expand the map with Whole Foods.

759NRNG wrote: BERK Bezos.......wake up, support those working stiffs like you that have loved ones and a community to support....

Hey, my UPS driver is very busy!

Technology advances, and some jobs change or get eliminated. Some people will adapt and get new jobs, some people will complain.