New annoyance: When stores sell things cheaper on Amazon. I found something on Amazon recently and went to the store's website to find that they push a membership for their products (via shopify) and their membership prices are more expensive than their Amazon store prices without a membership.
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@benpate You're not kidding. I've had stuff take a month or longer to arrive from buying direct, if it shows up at all. And in the latter case, you're at the mercy of dealing directly with the company and/or your payment company. Having that experience a few times makes it seem all the riskier to buy anything direct for a not very well known vendor.
It's not counterfeit. They literally have an "available on Amazon" button on their website that goes to an amazon listing with a price that's $10 cheaper per unit.
Lol, and I didn't even notice they have an additional 10% off promotion on Amazon on top of that. The Amazon subscription price is also cheaper than their direct membership prices.
The only way this makes sense to me is if shopify from their website is significantly more processing overhead cost than Amazon so direct customers are paying a premium to use Shopify instead.
XYZ store has to pay a human to put your thing in a box. Amazon has robots that do it for free.
Then, Amazon gets better credit card rates, pays less for real estate, shipping, everything else.
It’s a fair bet that some stores earn MORE when they sell through Amazon.
Here’s the really shitty part: with more efficient shipping, packaging, and operations, buying from Amazon might just be better for the environment than “buy local”.
@vwbusguy
It’s not just the price, but shipping, too. Getting it shipped from the manufacturer takes a few days. Amazon can have it to me in a few hours.
Amazon’s logistics just can’t be underestimated. Huge warehouses perched outside every major city give them an absolutely massive advantage.
How can a small-ish organization compete with that?