The days when I thought of ordering from amazon as a hassle free experience are long over. I now largely think of Amazon as a more expensive AliExpress.
a. Their search is broken.
b. Same item is listed by different sellers as different SKUs.
c. You cannot rely on reviews anymore.
d. You cannot filter by merchant and rely on receiving an item that is genuine since Amazon will comingle inventory from multiple merchants for the same SKU. Ie buying a product from Amazon has no guarantee that it is actually an item stocked by Amazon.
e. Their price competetiveness appears to have eroded. Best Buy etc no longer feel like a complete rip off in comparision.
f. Other retailers (Macys etc) have much more hassle free return policies.
Prime is the single thing that Amazon gets right in the whole selling experience - which is why I now think of Amazon as more of a logistics company than I do as a retailer.
a. Their search is broken.
b. Same item is listed by different sellers as different SKUs.
c. You cannot rely on reviews anymore.
d. You cannot filter by merchant and rely on receiving an item that is genuine since Amazon will comingle inventory from multiple merchants for the same SKU. Ie buying a product from Amazon has no guarantee that it is actually an item stocked by Amazon.
e. Their price competetiveness appears to have eroded. Best Buy etc no longer feel like a complete rip off in comparision.
f. Other retailers (Macys etc) have much more hassle free return policies.
Prime is the single thing that Amazon gets right in the whole selling experience - which is why I now think of Amazon as more of a logistics company than I do as a retailer.