Amazon.com

[Merc]

Just curious to know what you guys think of shopping on Amazon.com. Like? Dislike? Somewhere in between? Or, do you ignore or avoid them?

[lyman]

Prime member, have been for years,

they are a bane to retailers, but often offer up stuff that I cannot get locally,

wife is Celiac, and trying an AIP diet, so some of the ingredients I need to bake with are available online, usually cheaper than other online retailers, and not always available locally,

we also use the TV and music functions

[SysAd]

I shop there pretty much every time I need something except groceries or pet food, I get that from Chewy.

[Allen]

I shop there pretty much every time I need something except groceries or pet food, I get that from Chewy.

Chewy (for pets) is a good company. I believe they sell direct and through ebay also.

Amazon I only use as a last resort for gifts that I can not find anywhere else. Amazon tricks buyers into their "prime" subscription and it's difficult to get out of it. For someone who shops a lot with them the monthly fees of the "prime" account may pay for itself with the discounts and free shipping but not in my case.

I don't understand their return policy and don't even know where to begin. They don't make it very user friendly to find.

Before "prime" and maybe still, Amazon would advertise free shipping on orders over $35. Amazon drop ships for many of its items so if you order several things they may come from different places. Several times I ordered auto parts for instance, sometimes buying more than I wanted in order to exceed the free shipping limits. At the close of checkout after payment and not before, I would then find that item "A" would be coming from one company, item"B" another and item "C" yet another so I would end up having to pay shipping for all the items I purchased separately and not get free shipping by any stretch of the imagination. Free shipping would only occur if you bought items within their warehouse like this is something you would know.

In short, I've used them, still have an account with them, have had nothing but problems, got rooked into a mandatory "prime" account that I had to research the web for to find a way to unsubscribe. The prime account auto-bills your credit card every month so they don't want you to end that. Some of the items I purchased were wrong but more trouble than it is worth trying to return them since they came from sellers from all over.

The ONLY thing I will recommend Amazon for is their reviews on items they sell. While I'm sure most of the positive (5 star) reviews are made up they do publish the lower scores also like "one star" or "2 star" reviews that I feel are somewhat believable since many of those I've read agree with some of my experiences. I read their reviews but buy elsewhere.

For someone who lives out in the boonies and doesn't get out much this may be a great convenience for you but personally I use ebay with far fewer problems and headaches. You can also order from Walmart and have it delivered or pick-up at the store.

Additionally Amazon supports illegals, open borders, queers, contributes to the DNC, owns the Washington Post and is anti-Trump.

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/...1000-dreamers/

[blackhawknj]

Ignore and avoid. Don't like Bezos' politics, don't like using credit cards, don't want things shipped to my home address, like to look things over first. In my case at 69 I pretty much have what I want. Also I am a dedicated thrift shop/rummage-garage-estate sale hound.

[m1ashooter]

I use Amazon a lot as I work mid shifts and find it easier to just order from home. My children are in different cities so Amazon makes it very easy to send them loot. We watch Amazon Prime TV and use Amazon Kindel Readers.

[Allen]

We use Amazon Kindel Readers.

My wife has a kindle fire 8.9" and she uses it constantly but as a tablet or laptop only. It is connected thru our WiFi or DSL router and it works like any other computer. She watches video's, reads internet news, email and facebook. It has never been used as a book or used with any Amazon resources. She likes it because it is small and light. Like a Samsung Galaxie but far less expensive. By comparison, my heavy Apple 17" MacBook Pro is like having a microwave oven on your lap.

[dryheat]

I have used amazon for buying books. But to me the site is too hard to figure out. I get loads of stuff from ebay. Automotive and photography stuff I get lots of that on ebay.
I don't like any of these guyses politics and I think they don't really need to have 100 billion dollars. That's the real number.

[Merc]

I’ve been buying stuff from Amazon for years and recently got tricked into a prime subscription. I also had to look up how to unsubscribe however, I probably buy enough stuff from them to balance out the shipping costs vs subscription fee and the 2nd day delivery is a plus. A major mall not far from my home closed its doors recently (Century 3) largely because of on-line shopping and will be redeveloped.

[Mark in Ottawa]

I have purchased the odd thing from them with no complaints although the shipping costs were high in comparison to the value of the merchandise - but then the merchandise was not very expensive

On the other hand, I have self published two novels (one bad and one so bad that my wife never got past page 2) using their self publishing service. In theory you can make a few bucks but so much of the self published material is available for zero or near zero price to Prime members that you really can't make any money at all. I have received royalty payments as low as $.01 and $.16 (seriously). Fortunately I wrote the books in response to a joking challenge from my wife and not for money.