The cause is the same, the solution is the same: when companies become so big and capture so much market share that they no longer are responsive to the needs of their customers, it's time for them to be destroyed. Amazon should be dismantled into dozens or even hundreds of small companies and all its assets distributed among them.
A big company can create value though, as an arbiter of quality like Sears was. Sears was a logistics company that offered push-button value for commodities much like Amazon basics. I think that before their economic philosophy was ruined(long story short one of the managers was a big fan of inter-departmental competition, same thing what killed RCA). Perhaps the problem here is America lacks a Sears option, save for Wal-mart, which doesn't offer the same quality. I think the middle class would benefit from a catalog offering push-button quality options, but such a thing does not exist, perhaps Sears undid themselves by making items that would last decades (still using all the power tools they made in the 90s and 2000s, and some of the clothes/blankets too)
The ones I'd say have high quality are usually "retreating upmarket" to combat fast fashion like zara or shein. I recently bought a coat from H&M that was fairly nice and seems like it will last quite a while, obviously priced to be that way. In terms of homewares, design within reach/Williams Sonoma seem to be the ones for durability. The only problem as you've likely noticed is these stores almost have "too much" variety, likely due to them fragmenting along specialization lines. The beauty of Sears was it's range, that it had almost everything, I'll link a catalog below, it has everything from standard dad-tools to survey gear, I don't think I've ever seen another retail store get this close to McMaster Carr.
What makes you think your view represents the needs of the customer? The "needs of the market" may just be the absolute rock bottom price, shipped as fast as possible, with an easy return policy. While I agree this article highlights a problem, it feels more like the needs of businesses which is being solved well by Shopify, something the author hits at
Walmart is big enough to take on Amazon. B&N is no small fry either in the book business. That's what sytelus is complaining about. They (maybe) could do something that is beneficial to the customer and get an edge on Amazon, but they don't.
There are no viable competitors because nobody is big enough to take on Amazon. Anyone with aspirations to will inevitably just get undercut and run out of business.
There exists some people, notably me, that refuse to use AMZN due to this type of shit they allow on their platform.
I got hooked on them during college because I got tired of getting shafted by the local university bookstore.
Used to be tax free as well since they were e-commerce related. But state comptrollers later closed that loop hole since they realized how much revenue they were losing.
Then some time in 2020-2021 learned about the abuses to their workers, awful working conditions, near impossible quotas. Then came the merchant abuse stories of AMZN using the purchasing data to push out their own white label items, advertising/ranking merchants below those items (sometimes even cheaper to undercut them). Then as a consumer, the quality of the items ordered from AMZN has dropped significantly.
Free shipping. Free returns. 1-day shipping/same day shipping. It’s all a gimmick and you pay for it in one way or another.
All of those factors have caused me to move my money away from AMZN completely.
Yes I realize warehouse division is nearly subsidized by AWS division. In the long run, it won’t matter unless there is a significant
What did I do:
Easy, purchase directly from manufacturer where possible. Shop local for similar items.
Still try to avoid big box stores as much as possible. For example, using mcmaster.com in place of big orange/blue.
Sure I pay for shipping but I end up buying in bulk to offset it anyways.
Sure it takes 3-4 days to arrive.
I likely won’t get free return shipping, but so far have never had to return items. ("Free returns” at most big box stores are now factored into the cost of items these days. So you pay for it even if you don’t use it)
But in the end, I am getting quality products. I think I can only recall a couple of cases where item did break under normal condition (dog harness). But they were happy to replace at no cost. No need to return defective item.
> Free shipping. Free returns. 1-day shipping/same day shipping. It’s all a gimmick and you pay for it in one way or another.
Yes but I actually much prefer that cost to be included in the list price compared to sellers trying to hide part of the purchase price in inflated shipping costs.
