Are you in the US?

I'm just always a little surprised to read things like "i couldn't live without Amazon," and i wonder if there are no other alternatives for two day shipping on other countries or what it is that keeps people stuck on Amazon instead of using other next-day deliveries

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jack_tripper 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

It's not that Amazon is irreplaceable, but sometimes it's the best option by far depending on where you live and what you're looking for.

I'm in Austria (not Australia) and local retail prices are infamous for being 25% to 100% higher than in neighboring Germany for the same stuff because of cartel behavior of local retail industry.

Buying from amazon Germany means I can get the same prices as Germans (with +1% extra for higher Austrian VAT) for the same goods.

I'd love to give up Amazon in favor of local stores but local cartels are just as bad or even worse.

So to fix the Amazon problem you need to fix the competition problem first, which is caused by players other than Amazon too.

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rvnx 3 days ago | parent [-]

This. 100%. Local shops are taking huge margins, have limited selection and are slow because they need to order from… central warehouse

	▲	account42 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Worse is that local shops also often have a bad customer experience when things go wrong - but now it's a new different flow for every store instead of a known quantity.

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account42 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's convenience. Two day shipping is irrelevant to me but there are no alternatives here even approaching the breadth of stock. So instead of dealing with one devil I know I would have to deal with several devils, some of which will be worse than Amazon.

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macNchz 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

People in my circles in the US (in an area with tons of alternative options) look at me like I have two heads when I say we don’t have Prime and never shop on Amazon. For many, I think, Amazon has simply been the default option to buy anything for long enough now that it’s ingrained muscle memory.

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monerozcash 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Big part of that is just that it's insanely easy to use compared to most of the competition.

But still, most people go to the shop to buy toilet paper. Once you get used to Amazon, it just saves so much time and effort. The prices aren't bad either, I just checked toilet paper on amazon.com and 30 rolls of good quality amazonbasics toilet paper costs $0.22 more than the equivalent kirkland product on costco.com

You can order almost everything you need in the same app, whenever you feel like it. Just a couple of clicks, no need to fill in delivery information or anything.

The only part where YMMV is receiving the parcels obviously.

	▲	macNchz 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I did have Prime for like 10 years, I just eventually realized that between the not-infrequent annoyances with shipping and the endless search results full of total junk and/or fake products it wasn’t as convenient as I’d thought, it more so just became my default. There’s a corner store about a two minute walk from my front door, I’m certain their toilet paper is more expensive than Amazon’s, but I can have it right now if I want, and I’m not dealing with the stupid interface asking me if I want “18-count (345 sheet, 9 pack)” or the “XL 27 count (256 sheet, 5 pack)” version of the same product.

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queenkjuul 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Target will deliver anything i want next day for free, without a subscription, and same day with a subscription. Walgreens, 2 days. There's almost never anything i need faster than 2 days time that one of them doesn't have. And if i do, well, then worth the premium to go to an actual physical shop.

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monerozcash 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I live between central London and a smaller European city, the competition is generally much much worse.

Sure, for every individual item there might be a better better local option. I'd have to spend time finding that, then go through the terrible order process and hope their delivery service isn't utter shit. Oh, and yeah, half the time they'll probably block my order because I'm using a non-european card.

Just being able to use Amazon for almost everything starting from bottled water and toilet paper saves me immense amounts of time. I can generally trust that the stuff I order reliably arrives at the concierge, which isn't a given.

And FWIW, most of the time I've shopped around, Amazon has been cheaper or essentially the same price. Doesn't really matter to me, but it is a plus. I'd happily pay more for a more convenient service, but in this case it seems I'm usually paying less.

	▲	queenkjuul 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Why i asked what country, here in the US i can order same-day or next-day from several other places than Amazon for roughly the same price, and without paying for prime