> and had to spend 45 minutes on the internet and phone to get refunded

anecdata and all, but i've had the exact opposite experience - I've never spent more than a couple of minutes getting a refund, and it's always been less time and effort than returning something to a B&M store.

Its hard to pin down specifically. As a general rule: When I land on the homepage of the TikTok shop, without touching my screen I _generally_ see something that I am interested in buying. Its like it predicts what I am there to search for, and its quite accurate.

On the Amazon homepage that has never happened. It usually just shows some banner ad for prime day, new amazon tv show/movie, then maybe 4 little thumbnails of the last product I searched for or whatever. I have to initiate the shopping experience, I have to pique my own purchasing interest.

I’ve bought some stuff off there and can tease out some aspects, though they may be after the fact rationalizations of subconscious effects.

The first is price. The stuff is cheap, as in so cheap I know it will be terrible and I still sort of don’t care. It’s $2, if I only use it twice I got my moneys worth.

That makes it super easy to hit Buy without thinking much.

The second is that they appear to target verticals that don’t have a natural ceiling to sales. I only need one microwave, so they won’t sell me that. They do sell a lot of apparel, decorations, toys for adults (crappy 3D displays, not dildos), stuff where you don’t think “eh, I already have one though”.

The third is the marriage of entertainment and shopping. I can be doomscrolling, see an ad and buy it without ever leaving the platform. If I remember right, it doesn’t even interrupt your doomscrolling really. Swipe to next video, see it’s an ad, hit buy, confirm Apple Pay pop up, scroll to next video. You can decide you want something, buy it, and be on your next video in 15 seconds. It’s so fast it almost blurs the line where I’m not sure if I’d call it shopping or entertainment.

The last is that they’re really good at luring consumers to start selling on there. The ads for stuff tend to be sort of home made and low quality, which makes it seem attainable for your average person. That tends to mean a huge selection. I had a buddy that randomly decided to sell stickers on there just based on watching other people do it (no idea how that went, I didn’t ask)

Fair; While I can only speak to TikTok shop (as its the only one I've interacted with), the videos typically take the place where product photos would be on the product page. A swipe dismisses it and its replaced with the product photos. The core browsing experience does not show videos in lieu of product photos from what I have seen.

Eh, for me it's not about love, it's about no other retailers carrying what I want, at a price point I'll pay, with an easy return policy and easy checkout. I'm willing to put up with a lot of crap to find that, apparently.

To be clear, when I do use LLM for search, I don't limit it to one site.

Amazon's logistics are a cut above, both in terms of turnaround time and their drivers actually knowing how to deliver to my house.

They also keep making it more annoying to even get to and read the reviews. It feels like it gets more hidden at the bottom of the page every few months. What a shame! Imagine how useful it could be.