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3a it shows up in an Amazon box delivered by an Amazon truck.
Or you go to their site and they just direct you to Amazon – and not because they’re lazy, to sell on Amazon you need to agree that you won’t offer the product cheaper than Amazon anywhere else, including on your own site.
And, that’s even assuming you can go to the manufacturer’s site. Often instead you’ll just get a facebook page, or maybe not even that.
I hate when I go to a manufacturers site and navigate to “products,” filter the list and find what I want, and on the product page it gives a description, no “add to cart” button but a “buy on amazon” button.
Like. FFUUUUCCCKKKKKKK.
[image of a computer leaving a broken window of a high-rise building]
Yeah. Especially if it’s a very specific version of a product you want, and they just link to their “amazon store”, which has terrible search filters, or doesn’t have that model available.
It’s not just that they give a big cut of their sales to Amazon, it’s that often the manufacturer puts a lot of effort into having different versions of their product with different features. But, then it’s dumped on Amazon. Amazon’s search is “helpful” and gives you similar products and then uses their “recommended” ranking to put products they make more money from at the top.
That one can be easily fixed by writing to them and complaining.
I mean not selling via Amazon theoretically too, but the company might not want to play with logistics, so it might be much harder.
Pro tip for manufacturers: sell a slightly different model number with more features on your own site if possible…
Or bundle one of them with something extra, so it’s not technically the same product and not subject to the price restrictions…
Yes, I’m sure you’ve outsmarted the multi-billion dollar Amazon with these hacks.
Not so much outsmarting as avoiding their wrath: like avoiding the eye of saurons gaze
What makes you believe these tricks, which took you 2-3 seconds to come up with, aren’t well known and already not permitted by Amazon?
Why wouldnt they be?
Because Amazon is known for not allowing that kind of thing, and has probably invested more than 2-3 seconds thinking of possible work-arounds.
Yall don’t even try. Make up all the excuses you want. I see how little the majority give a fuck about giving money to bezos or whoever if a product of consumption is right there within your grasp.
What the hell you talking about? The person you’re responding to is correctly pointing out that Amazon has some awfully anti-competition rules and a lot of their sellers can not legally sell for less than they do on Amazon, even though Amazon gets a cut. No one is “making excuses,” and no one is happy about it, it’s just a reality.
If I didn’t try, how would I know that many manufacturers only have Amazon stores?
Or that even if you order directly from their site, the order is still fulfilled by Amazon. My partner actually don’t try any more because we’ve recently given up after trying for too long, paying more, and still ending up giving money to Amazon.
Don’t fucking blame us for billionaires rigging the system.
Same thing happens on ebay
This is the worst. Return it and email them that you like supporting small businesses and avoid Amazon. They may tell you to pound sand, but if they hear it from more of us it may (probably not) change things.
The only way we change things is fewer billionaires - which can be done. The power imbalance is too shot at this point.
Step 6: Product comes shipped in an Amazon box using Amazon couriers :facepalm:
At least you tried
happened to me a few times too 😅 I guess it’s not worth for a company to have multiple different shipping procedures if most of their orders are via Amazon anyway
Some places don’t. 3M, for example, in spite of how big it is. I needed P100 filters. I go to 3M which links me to Amazon. I could go to Home Depot, or buy from the Amazon 3M store and pay 2/3 to half.
WEN. A tool company that actually sells their own from their site. For whatever reason, their stuff is 10% more expensive on their own site, plus shipping.
And let’s not forget returns, which are free, easy and require no packaging most of the time with Amazon. I hate to say it, but they’ve got keeping people hooked figured out.
Walmart does well. The shipping is faster with no membership. And the returns are easier than Amazon. Provided you make sure the “fulfilled by Walmart” box is checked. But it’s Walmart, run by shitheads and associated with Heritage.
Michaels does alright on the crafting materials side. As does Blick, on art supplies. Fabric Warehouse is fairly solid for fabric though their selection is a bit random.
People I’ve talked to actually like shopping in just one place. So you’re combatting the “one stop shopping” thing as well.
It might be a distributor selling on Amazon, and hence it’s cheaper than the brands own website
I’m happy with slightly slower and non-free shipping if it buys me the knowledge that I get a genuine product. That’s not a given with Amazon.
I think they finally stopped commingling items between different sellers but there still enough dodgy shit floating around that I’d rather go to the manufacturer or a dedicated retailer for anything expensive or commonly faked.
Especially for expensive stuff. Lenient return policy or not, I’d rather not wait for my new phone twice because the first time some fulfillment center worker “accidentally” put something else in the box. And yes, that has happened to me.
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You’ve described how I feel. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do, not like there are any mom and pop stores by me. I’m not sure how much better supporting another big box is over another
Still shop around, sometimes you find different shopping venues. Decide how much you actually care about $5.99 added onto whatever.
The other piece is, not guaranteed, but many places have label prints for free returns now because of Amazon, but you’ll still have to package it yourself, which, whatever.
As many packages as order I order in as many things as I get from as many different sellers. That $5.99 would add up to way way more than I’m willing to pay. If I maybe ordered things once a year hell even every few months then 599 is not a big deal but considering just in the last 5 days I’ve received 20 packages for various things I’m pretty sure that 599 would order a very quickly. And especially considering that that $5.99 wouldn’t just be on 20 packages it would be on more than 20 packages because of the amount of things that I have within those packages.
My favorite N95 producer also links directly to amazon. It may be different if I am a large medical facility.
Looks of traditional manufacturers never operated any type of direct retail for customers. If you have a business and a account that’s more likely but that’s not the same.
I think online stores that can provide a better experience can still compete.
I really like swimoutlet.com for swim equipment at good prices. They are very easy to search for exactly what you need, and everything is decent quality, with all the big brands, but also their own house brand and some lesser known brands too. They really know aquatics.
I would try to put a referal link here to try and get $20, but I can’t figure out how it works.
We need an Amazon Alternatives list. Some have low bars for free shipping too.
If Amazon’s algorithms detect that a seller is offering the same item cheaper elsewhere (including on the seller’s own e-commerce site, then Amazon will immediately strip the listing of the “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now” buttons. The algorithm will also hide or suppress the listing from search results. And for repeated or severe violations (especially related to price-gouging), Amazon may suspend or terminate selling privileges completely for sellers selling cheaper off site. And they call this “Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy”. F- Amazon.
This is one of the main reasons why many indie shops are doing so many coupons these days. Price obfuscation is not only a marketing strategy but also a genuine safety one.
Ugh. Fuck Amazon
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A few sources around, here’s one from https://news.law.fordham.edu/jcfl/2024/03/13/understanding-amazons-alleged-anticompetitive-practice:
the FTC claims Amazon punishes third-party sellers for offering lower prices on other websites.[2]
Select Competitor – Featured Offer Disqualification (SC-FOD).[6] SC-FOD is an algorithm that prevents a seller from “winning the Buy Box” if it finds that the seller sells that product for less on a Select Competitor’s website.[7]
References for 2, 6, 7:
[2] Complaint at 85, FTC v. Amazon, W.D. Wash. Case No. 2:23-cv-01495-JHC (Nov. 2, 2023).
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Honestly I’ve mostly been finding items cheaper on Amazon either because you’d have to pay for shipping on it, or because they just entirely neglect their website since nobody uses it.
Also that only really applies to “real” brands, not the gibberish named brands. Those companies only exist to use Amazons brand registry for better SEO and probably don’t even have a website. AINOPE is not a “real” company, they just slap their name on whitelabel products. Of course the first random one I picked does have one, but it is more expensive than amazon.
At least with AINOPE or GJHUIRAJ or MBHJOILJRE you can go to Ali Express and get it more directly from China, often for half the price.
Yeah but you’re almost definitely not getting that within the 2-8 days the OP quotes, compare that to being able to get shit within hours in some cases through Amazon and it’s curtains
Unless you don’t need your curtains right away and wouldn’t mind waiting a few extra days/weeks to get them much cheaper.
I tried Aliexpress before, and they blocked my account for no reason and their support wanted a ton of my banking information then never resolved the problem
That sucks. I’ve never had any issues. Are you sure you weren’t scammed? Being asked for banking information seems very odd.
Yes, you can also see on Reddit that it’s a common occurrence
Stop using Google as a verb. “Search” company name.
- If you stay in/get into the habit of searching for products using google, inflation will just keep happening and amazon will give them a kickback. (Google charge for the higher search results).
- They save and use your data, you are effectively an unpaid employee of google (it is how google ‘work’ - they also are the reason you are often paying more. The best way to do it is
- Find a cool product (if it happens to be on amazon, so be it).
- Search the name of that company on Duckduckgo, or qwant or many other non data collecting engines that don’t have a kickback agreement with seller, or just a lower rate.
- 10% (or any) code is the reason they are selling product higher. Some people buy at the higher price (presumably most) so why would they care if people find the 10% discount code (advertisement on search engines) to get the product for the normal price?
- Company avoids paying both amazon and google, - it’s not really “losing a 25% margin” unless you believe that they don’t pass the fees on to the customer (YOU).
- You avoid giving money to all the c**ts but more importantly, you pay the proper item value, or you help competition grow.
The old way (2007ish - 2026) is the shit way.
Genericize the word google so their trademark becomes useless. Google everything on duckduckgo
not going to work sadly
ah yes, i do love buying from GAAMALASORF LLC. the family photos on their website are so charming.
2.a.i.) find out they don’t have an actual shop, they just send you to Amazon
I want something like amazon as a public utility. But much better, Amazon is such shit as a website today. And with 0% take from producer. And make online banking and free instant wire transfer as easy as using paypal, but without paying a rent to plutocrats. Two factor authentication using phone is a plague.
I dont think people realize how easy this would be if we actually made our politicians do their jobs. If we did this 5 years ago, think of the infrastructure we could have funded with the proceeds. Screw a giant worthless penis space ship, we could have funded schools to a crazy degree or made health care work.
Just make it non-profit, all proceeds are to be used only to pay the workers well and make the service better. Otherwise you get political wrangling what it’s used for or pressure to make more profit. Just print more money lol.
We could do this with most major websites tbh, i was thinking “nationalize social media” like a decade ago
What if 2a is slightly more than amazon and no free shipping?
Or free shipping on orders $40+, but everything is $39.95.
Then I pay more money because fuck Amazon.
One big antitrust issue with Amazon is that they require vendors to use their fulfillment services in order to get the best terms on being listed on Amazon: prime shipping, etc.
That deal for shipping/fulfillment itself isn’t too bad, even if they charge a pretty high price to sellers for the service, because the seller is actually getting something valuable in return, and it’s hard for Amazon to promise fast shipping not in their control.
But the FTC lawsuit a while back alleged that Amazon does more than that. They downgrade the search results of anyone who isn’t a paying advertiser, so they’re squeezing sellers in more ways than one. And worse, part of the contract for fulfillment is a prohibition on competing with Amazon’s listed price.
So if you’re selling something that you need $30 to earn a profit, and it costs you 40% to list on Amazon, you’ll need to list it at $50 on Amazon in order to make your profit, and you’ve hamstrung yourself from selling that same thing for $30 on your own site and turning the same profit by cutting Amazon out. That’s what’s anticompetitive and harms the consumer, even when that consumer intentionally avoids Amazon and goes straight to the seller’s own site.
Sadly, I offen see stuff being more expensive on the company website…
Me too! Why is that?
Is Amazon’s shipping/ distribution system that much better?
Does Amazon require sellers, as a condition of listing on Amazon, to always have their cheapest price listed on Amazon?
I do note that, especially lately, I find a lot of stuff significantly cheaper on Ebay that Amazon.
Does Amazon require sellers, as a condition of listing on Amazon, to always have their cheapest price listed on Amazon?
I think, that is true… and should be forbidden.
Tried that, the company fulfills web orders with Amazon.
Now I just buy local.
I thought i was ordering a product directly from a company and avoiding Amazon. The thing was delivered in an Amazon package
Yep. That’s “FBA”, Fulfillment by Amazon.
There’s no way for a consumer to avoid that if the seller opts in. But do tell the seller why you won’t buy from them again when this happens!
Here in a week fba will be much much much much much much much much much cheaper for small sellers.
I’m at the point I wish yall would understand how bad shipping has gotten. Like, it’s bad and it’s about to double in how bad it is.
Sometimes.
I was getting something I wanted and their website just referred me back to buying from Amazon. I emailed them because I was curious as to why. It was a pretty niche thing to buy. The guy emailed me back saying that the sales through Amazon keeping his listing towards the top of their algorithm made him more than if he sold direct and his Amazon listing would drop down lower in the search because so many people just go to Amazon.
In other words, Amazon is a cancer trap, and as long as most people go straight there to buy shit, sellers have to sell as much as they can on there.
