I don't get it. They know Amazon locks employees in warehouses that are boiling hot. They know Amazon searches employees and takes that time out of their breaks. They know Amazon wants to get rid of employees in favor of robots. They know Amazon has likely driven a store they like out of business. If they live in Seattle, they've seen the destruction of a livable city. They know Amazon dodges taxes. They know they are anti-union.

And all for the sake of convenience or saving a few dollars, they don't care.

I hate the world Amazon has made and I wish people would stop using it.

Many people hated Sears, too.

Those people probably don't use Amazon. Amazon doesn't care, really.

Government is a way we accomplish societal goals together. Our government could use antitrust and minimum wage, amongst other laws, to improve Amazon.

Last edited Sat Feb 16, 2019, 05:22 PM - Edit history (1)

...customers.

I started using Amazon when I started book-collecting. I don't mean current best-sellers, I mean signed firsts, as well as authors better known outside this country. Real book-sellers I never would have located in a lifetime, because I am just an ordinary little person in an ordinary little town.

Then there's the music and videos. Again, the range of products and vendors is impressive.

Did Amazon run their parent brick and mortar stores out of business? Somehow I don't think so. Those outfits were never within 100 (or even a thousand) miles of me anyway. In addition the local bookstore had already been overrun by the two gigantic chains (Borders and Barnes & Noble) -- who then left town themselves.

Amazon clearly has problems related to the evils of unrestrained capitalism. So, restrain capitalism. Force them to be a better employer. Just stop blaming the customers.

to purchase medical supplies, specialized garments, and household utensils that can help me attain quality of life and adjust to living without the use of one of my arms. I'm able to purchase my resting splint much cheaper since I can compare prices. Iam able to shop for gifts for my children from my home. This winter has kept me housebound for a good portion of it for a variety of reasons. Amazon lets me rent an occasional movie or buy a book.

Living in a rural area doesn't afford accessibility and variety in shopping which I gain through Amazon. A trip into town gets me to a few block stores accused of bad labor practices too. I get frustrated with hearing these complaints because I know how easy it us to fall into a situation where you can't be as choosy about where you shop or the types of products you can use or afford to use become limited.

the problem. It's the people who use it to buy toothpaste and dog food when they live within walking distance of a store that carries those things. The apartment I live in is within walking distance of a mall and a grocery store and a Target and most of the people here order almost everything online. And now the businesses I shop in are on the chopping block: we just got notice. I am upset. I don't want this.

And the statements I made aren't "claims",most of those things have been discussed right here on DU.

I'm a social person. I like stores. I like shopping. I like getting out and about. Watching the world I enjoy being systematically dismantled is tearing me up.

their priorities. Walking to the store to buy toothpaste and dog food might not be a high-priority choice for some people. It takes far less time to order those items online, so some people do that. Personally, I don't care for going to crowded stores for mundane items. I do it, but I don't care for it. There are no stores within walking distance, so any shopping trip involves using my car. That causes pollution, safety risks, and wear on my vehicle. I don't order such things online, but plan to buy them, so I can include them in my next trip to the store that sells them. I would never make a separate trip for such things.

Your priorities and mine are likely very different. It's not a moral judgment. It's just a personal choice.

or a big grocery run. I walk or go by bus. It's not that hard. I have a cart I can walk to the grocery store.

I value local jobs and since I spend all day in an office, I like being around others. Being social is healthy and it's good for a community. I was just reading some articles about isolation and depression, they are linked.

I used to know our local grocery cashiers and chat with them when I shopped. Those were the days.

We were in Ireland last summer, and the people seemed so much happier than here, and I have to think sociability contributes to it. I realized that not only do people in Seattle not strike up conversations, you hardly ever hear laughter any more, at least out in public. I felt as if I shed ten years when I was there.

The nearest bus stop is six blocks away, and it's February, with icy sidewalks. So, I drive to do regular shopping at stores I like.

I know the checkers at the supermarket, pharmacy, and other stores I frequent. I chat with them, but I don't walk to the stores or ride the bus. That would be inconvenient for me.

My wife and I walk each day through the neighborhood with our two dogs. We take different routes. I've met many neighbors that way, but we don't walk to shop. There used to be neighborhood stores here, but they've all closed, mostly years ago.

Each of us lives the lives we live. We live where we live and do things based on that. You live near your shopping. I don't. One thing is not necessarily better than the other. They're just different.

There's an amazing montage set to the Tennessee Ernie Ford classic song "16 Tons" that compares working in an Amazon fulfillment center to working in a coal mine, like the original song suggests. I'd post the video but I think it got taken down.

Thanks!

Amazon both sells things and also lets people pay them to sell things on its platform. We used to call that anti-competitive— competing with your customers.

Amazon has an increasingly large share of certain markets. We used to call that monopolistic.

Amazon plays cities off against each other for tax breaks. Federal law could restrict that so amazon would pay a fair share of taxes.

Amazon often pays its employees less than a living wage. We used to care about that and restrict it using the minimum wage.

There’s plenty of reasons we should be advocating to regulate and even break up Amazon. We shouldn’t throw up our hands and say what it does is inevitable.

There is no reliable sizing in shoes and clothes, for me at least. It doesn't matter if it's brick & mortar or amazon. A shoe that fits me literally can range from 10 to 11. Even within the same brand. Different factories for the same brand don't have the same size templates, apparently.

So buying multiple sizes via amazon and doing multiple returns wastes a lot of my time, it also contributes to CO2 emissions. I much prefer going to a brick & mortar, trying on the clothing, confirming the fit. One stop shopping, as it were.

Currently, for almost every other item, I agree -- online shopping is going to be the way.

Eventually, (I hope), it will dawn on someone to stop the baloney of "sizes", and give actual measured dimensions of the clothing or shoes in centimeters or inches at all the relevant cross sections of the item. This would be a game-changer.

Same with music. I dearly miss going to music stores.and getting the benefit of employee knowledge to learn new music.

As for books, I do have an indie bookstore still, but I know it's a labor of love for the owner. I am reading a book right now that she recommended that I never would have picked up on my own, and I am loving it..

I love going into a real book store and just browsing. No online experience is going to replace that.

I listen to music on the radio, and if I want a CD from the artist, I get it online somewhere, sometimes Amazon but usually direct from the artist. I like having the CD to read liner notes, and convert tracks to MP3's direct from the CD for my personal use.

Both my wife and I have books published via Amazon. None of those books would have ever been published by traditional publishers. They are, however, for sale on Amazon. It's up to us to market them. When copies sell, and they do, we get up to 70% of the selling price for them. I have published a few books though traditional publishers. Their royalties are about 10% after all of their costs are taken out of the selling price.

For authors, Amazon has enabled more books to be published, and with higher royalties than has ever been possible before.

I worked in one for 9 years and it was the best job I ever had.

I have a friend who is published by an Amazon imprint. It's destroying her talent. She needs to kick out two it three books a year to make money and they come out almost completely unedited (I'm sure your books are higher quality). She is a good writer but she puts out books way too fast and her art is being highly diluted.

And reviews! Where are the Dorothy Parkers and Edmund Wilsons and Anatole Broyards of the world? Now we see a bunch of yahoos with stars and the most clap-trap reviews I have ever seen.

When publishing is easy, quality can suffer, no doubt. I'm not responsible for your friend's output in any way. Neither is Amazon. No doubt, most of her books would never be published by traditional publishers. I've had four books published by traditional publishers. They didn't make me rich, either, and I got only 10% royalties. Both excellent books and terrible books are published on Amazon. Amazon doesn't act as an editor. It just publishes books. The rest is up to the authors. Poor quality books don't sell. They never have.

Book reviewers who are professionals are still around. The ones you are talking about are dead, so they aren't writing reviews any more. Anyone can review an Amazon-published book. And they do, although not as many do as I would like. You don't like their reviews. OK. How is that my fault?

You seem angry. I'm sorry about that. But, don't be angry with me. I'm just a poor schlub out here trying to make my way through life. I don't own Amazon. I use Amazon as a publisher, and as a place to buy weird stuff I can't find locally, mostly. I like it for both of those things. You don't like Amazon. I suggest you not use it, then, for anything.

I can barely afford to live here and I have a decent job. My rent has more than tripled in the last ten years and it's an endless construction zone. Buses are packed. Empty stores everywhere, local stores vanishing, unions being squelched, the list goes on. Yes, I am angry and I feel powerless to do anything. My piddling boycott does nothing.

Downtown Seattle used to have tons of bookstores. Now there is one (for new books) and it's a Barnes and Noble. There used to be a bookstore in the building where I work, long gone. Now it's a Starbucks (and they drove out a small espresso stand owned by two nice women).

I am angry because this is the world people seem to want. A town with no small businesses, no bookstores, no music stores, 7-11 every two blocks, Ubers cluttering up the streets, union halls on 2nd Avenue turned into pricey boutique hotels, and on and on. The people who keep the city running can't afford to live here, and ugly luxury apartment buildings being built with no seeming restrictions. How did we get here?

How nice...but thanks for buying and reading them.

is that the market is completely saturated with books these days. while self publishing has given everyone the chance to be in the crowd, standing out in the crowd is nearly impossible. In short while everyone can put their works up for sale now, publishing to actually make enough money to call it a career is no more or less prevalent than it was before self publishing gave everyone access. Writing is still, for the vast majority, a hobby at best. a few lucky ones might actually make enough money to maybe fund a vacation on top of their usual 9-5 income. Writers actually making a career of just wiring are exceedingly rare.

My wife and I aren't going to retire on what our books are earning, but they're bringing in enough money to make a difference. We're both active in marketing them, primarily through social media and blogs.

They wouldn't be commercially publishable. We know that business, too. Writers who make a living from books have always been rare. That's why we write other types of material. Books are just extra. With Amazon's royalty system, though, even a weak seller can bring in enough to make the writing worthwhile. Plus, you're the only one involved with the entire process, which saves a great deal of time, while giving you complete creative control.

Now, with Amazon's Print-on-Demand paperbacks, it's easy to offer both eBooks and paperback editions. Oddly enough, for our books, the paperback versions outsell the Kindle versions. That was a surprise. It also lets us ship review copies out, which we can buy from Amazon for just the production costs.

It's not a solution for everyone who wants to sell books, but it's a solution for some.

I would not encourage anyone today to plan on earning a living by writing, though. It's unlikely to be a success. We managed to do that for a few decades, though, but never made a huge income.

By their persistent advertising? Uh, no. Those are just ads, like any other ads in this life.

One thing I do like about Amazon is the customer reviews of the product and the ratings of the individual vendors. Some of the customer reviewers of books, movies, and music are really excellent. Corresponding with book vendors has always been a treat.

I'm still kind of in touch with one indie bookstore that sells used books and one that sells new books -- both, alas, in the town I moved away from. I was a good customer of the used bookstore back in the day, and I have to say there were some really quality personal libraries in that town that periodically got cleaned out (probably by the heirs).

For those, I can rely on sizes fitting properly for me. I haven't returned a pair so far. Same with other items of clothing. Within particular brands and styles, I can order my size and be confident that what I order will fit. But, you're right. Shoe sizes can be odd, especially on imported brands.

Amazon also has a fit accuracy data point on the detail pages for clothing and shoes. It shows the percentage of people who were satisfied with the fit. I've also seen comments in reviews about fit accuracy. When I've followed that information, I've done well.

I've never had to return any item of clothing or shoes, but I choose familiar brands almost always.

The problem I have had with the Amazon's accuracy data point is it is not a standard either, it's based on a different sample of people for each different product, who's personal body size necessarily biases their feedback. I got burned trying to use that information a couple of times too.

I would LOVE to have clothing sizes just literally measured. It would take the "size" mystery, and thus trial and error, out of it.

to standardizing, due to the very thing you're talking about.

What I've found is that if I order 36" waist, 32" inseam men's pants and pay attention to the fit type (standard, etc.), I never seem to have a problem with any major clothing manufacturer. I don't wear "slim fit" anything, but what passes for "standard fit" works just fine.

Consumers will probably drive that standardization process, as will the cost of returned merchandise. On the scale of Amazon's sales, too many returns can be devastating to profits.

But, then, I'm sort of an average-sized guy, so it has never been much of a problem for me, really.

Women's sizes, though, are a complete mystery to me. My wife returns a lot of stuff she orders online. There seems to be far less standardization in women's clothing sizes.

Adapt or fail,again you just named on to the most perplexing issues when shopping for shoes and Apparel. Did the Payless thing for years,then all of a sudden,no wide width shoe varieties. So you guessed it,went on Amazon read the reviews and bingo,a week later had the shoe and size of my choice. Oh btw,purchased a similiar shoe years ago at Penney's and guess what,had to do a special order which took a week .

It is all about being able to adapt to market conditions . Remember Sam Walton copied the Target Model used in the Twin Cities as his model of addressing his losing sales in his Arkansas Stores. And the rest is History.

odd sizes that might not sell. So they don't. If you wear an odd size, you'll always have trouble finding a place that has it in stock.

For everyone in that boat, Amazon has been a godsend. Amazon and other online retailers, anyhow. Sometimes, you may end up buying on Amazon from a third-party retailer who is just piggybacking on the platform, but that doesn't matter, really. Your odd sizes are available, and in all available colors, etc. Someone on Amazon has what you need. Plus, Amazon's internal search engine lets you specify sizes and only see items that are available in that size.

That's actually amazing, really. That's why Amazon is doing so well. Whatever you're looking for in the retail world, you'll probably find it on Amazon. Amazon even sells used goods, which is even more remarkable.

What they've created is a retail system that is very, very difficult to compete with. Maybe impossible.

In addition, there are two types of thread that make me break out in hives: one is Lurex, used to make the fabric sparkle, and the other is some kind of fishing-line, supposedly invisible.

Costco may not have dressing rooms, but at least they are extraordinarily generous about returns. I can't get hubby inside a clothing store, so I've been dressing him from Costco for years. I'll buy two sizes of everything I want him to try on, and return everything he doesn't like or that doesn't fit.

They don't have my width, plain and simple. I wear a 9W shoe and I can waste my time and gasoline driving from place to place, never finding what I want. There used to be Naturalizer shoe stores in malls that had my width years ago, but eventually all they carried was medium width, too. So, I get catalogs from different places or I look on line for my Sanita shoes and I'm happy and comfortable. If I find a shoe I really like, I might buy a second pair in a different color.

Different commodity, same story: I want to a Lane Bryant to buy new underwear (TMI?) I knew exactly what I wanted and the size. They had NOTHING in stock. The clerk said, "I can order it online for you." Thanks, *I* can order it online - and I did.

I didn't leave the stores. They left me.

The last time I remember really good shopping in stores was the late 90s. I miss it so.

they tell me they can order it online for me. Maybe they are going for customer service for the rare dinosaur without internet but it's ridiculous to think it would be easier for ME to stand there and give them all of my information when I could do the same thing in the privacy of my home.

I stopped by a shoe store to pick up some footbeds for some shoes and they didn't have any in my size (which is a pretty standard size, mind you.) They said they could order them for me but not send them to me. I'd have to make a trip back in after they arrived. Oh, and they didn't place their order for a few days so it would be about 10 days before I'd get them. I said I'd order them myself at home.

They have since closed.

Amazon's Merchant Sellers

I've been selling on Amazon for about two years - part of 2017, all of 2018, and so far this year to date. Sales have been ok-ish - nothing to write home about. Profits? Pathetic. Because if there are other sellers, you won't sell anything if you're not the lowest price including shipping. And you can be the lowest including shipping but if you're not Prime you won't get the sale. Now, I know what other merchants are paying for their products. I'm buying from the same manufacturers or distributors. Sure, others may save a few pennies for larger quantity purchases, but we're all buying at effectively the same price. So I know that the other sellers are losing money on every sale - and I don't think "loss leader" applies to sales in the Amazon eco-system. And when Amazon is the seller, forget about it. Regarding volumes, the products I'm talking about (doesn't matter what it is - the idea applies to any product that is not unique or private label) simply do not have the market size where volumes can make a difference for marginally profitable sales. Oh, and don't get me started on Amazon's fees - they are outlandish.

As for relatively unique products, e.g., products sold more widely in Europe but not as known here, you simply don't get the Amazon hits. And for private label products, Amazon makes that process so onerous it's not worth the trouble.

I will acknowledge that maybe I'm just doing it all wrong. Keywords, categories, pricing, etc. Maybe.

That said, there are, what, hundreds of thousands of Amazon sellers? Many must be doing something right. And maybe your client, MM, is one of them.

The evils of Amazon aside, I am a regular buyer. Availability, savings, Prime. All fantastic. As a seller, I'm thinking of closing shop.

books, which I do sell on Amazon, since they publish mine.

My example of the chain link fence products is sort of a clue. That small fence company in Kansas, no doubt, makes most of its money selling and installing fences. But, it has discovered that selling low-demand fence components that aren't typically stocked by most fence companies is a good business on Amazon.

I found my part by searching Amazon for wall-mounted chain link gate latch. That store in Kansas was the only seller on Amazon that offered it. I needed it, so I bought it. It's not like it's a rare part or anything. But it's not something that everyone needs, so most places don't stock it. This guy stocked everything, no matter how low the demand. That way, he could sell those unusual items at double the typical price, since they weren't available to customers.

He found a profitable side-hustle that related to his own business and made some extra money for him. Very clever.

So, if I was looking for a business to start, using Amazon's platform, I'd begin by looking for unusual items that nobody was selling on Amazon, but that had a ready, if small, market of customers who needed that thing, but had difficulty finding it. There are a lot of items like that, really, out there.

Another example from my own experience: I needed a part for my 17-year-old gas furnace. It wasn't a major part, but it was specific to that brand and model. The local HVAC parts supplier in the MSP metro area didn't have it. "I can order it for you, and it'll be here in a couple of weeks." So, I went on Amazon and searched for it by its part number, which I knew. Sure enough, there it was, being sold by just a couple of sellers. It cost twice as much as the list price, but there it was when I needed it. So, I ordered it, paid for overnight delivery, and got my furnace working properly. The seller I bought it from also had a long list of obsolete NOS parts for a wide range of outdated furnaces. He probably buys that stuff from other HVAC parts places who no longer need them in inventory and then sells them at a premium price on Amazon to people who need them.

That's the kind of business I'm talking about. There are many niches that can be exploited, using Amazon's powerful search tools and marketing power. I'm just not in the mood to start such a business right now. I'm too old and not interested in firing up something like that, but the opportunity exists.

Hell, unless I become a shut in I wouldn’t trust them for groceries either.

Like Walmart, I only use Amazon if they are the last resort. I’ve had too many screw ups with Amazon in the past to reliably trust them on a regular basis and I certainly wouldn’t trust them for goods that I would want to inspect in person before purchasing. I’m surrounded by brick and mortars and it’s no real hassle finding a store that I want where I live.

good luck with your project tho.

that are backed up by research. It's not coercive marketing. It's just effective marketing.

Mostly, you'll never notice it. It's just a way to market more effectively by understanding why and how people make decisions.

Here's an example: You know those blue text links in ads on Google? In 2014, Google tested about 20 different colors of blue in those ads. It turned out that a certain purplish blue shade got consistently more clicks by users. Google estimates that switching to that color of blue for those ad links earned them $200 million more in click-through revenues annually. That's neuromarketing.

Not creepy. Just interesting. It's just research-based marketing decisions.

I lived in a small town in Texas for a number of years. It is about 50 miles southeast of Austin. We had a number of mom and pop retailers, but being a small town, they had a limited section. I was always looking for something, would go to them, and their constant refrain was "We don't have it, but can order it for you." I did not have time to wait two weeks, so the end result was invariably a trip to Austin. So I would spend hours driving back and forth, plus the expense of fuel. If I were living there today, Amazon would be my go-to place. Hell, Amazon and eBay are my go-to places living in Fort Worth.

Just like MM said, when you're in the middle of a project, you do not have time to wait for weeks to get a local retailer to order it for you.

And I experienced the same thing MM did with Payless. They were oriented toward women's shoes, and had few in my size, 13W.

With the fast paced lives we lead today, we do not have time to sit on our asses waiting on others so we can get things done.

I worked for 19 years for Radio Shack. They went out of business because they did not adapt their business model. And it was not all Amazon's fault.

We can rail all we want about Amazon, but the exist because they serve their customers needs.

I do not know what the solution is either. Wish I did.

I order to be a vendor on Amazon, you are held to a very high standard for customer service. Just a few unhappy customers can cause Amazon to close you down.

This has been great for consumers. It’s simply so easy to deal with anyone on Amazon, I can’t remember the last bad experience I had with a vendor. This has also driven other online outlets to improve customer service. It’s pretty remarkable really.

Doesn’t mean some of their other business practices aren’t screwed up, but they’ve revolutionized customer service in this country.

They don't need me and I don't need them. Btw, I buy footwear at the nearby DSW store. Then walk a few steps to Bed Bath & Beyond for housewares. Then browse at the Barnes & Noble in the same large strip mall. I shop at the same family owned art supply/craft store that I've shopped at for 40 years.

My point is that for the time being I'm doing fine and never without. It can be done. And there's really nothing like being eyeball to eyeball with the employees.

You see, bigger than god amazon wrongfully accused me of being paid by sellers for leaving reviews. Never happened but there's no appeal process. They hand down their decision based on who knows what - perhaps an algorithm. The customer can't leave reviews ever again nor can they participate in any Amazon "community" activities. We only retain the privilege of continuing to shop. So I've taken my dollars elsewhere. Be sure to factor in this draconian policy in your project because it looks like Amazon considers it essential to their success.

Shoes need to be tried. If they don’t fit or you don’t like there’s akways the rigamarole of mailing them back to Amazon. I have in the past tried on shoes at a local store and if I liked them and the price was better I would purchase from Amazon but that’s a lot of work.

I used to get shoes there before Amazon and return them if necessary. UPS will pick them up. But there's still a hassle factor.

One thing I noticed when I stopped shopping at Amazon is that I've tamed my impulse buying. In the past, things like bad weather didn't stop me from shopping. Since I now need to plan going out and about in the neighborhood I often put it off and then decide that I never really needed this or that in the first place.

There are some things that still I buy online. But I go to the manufactuerer's sites and do very well shopping sales.

If one doesn't like Amazon, don't shop there. Amazon is not exactly begging to be saved.

Amazon is successful the old fashioned way -- find a need and fill it.

In today's world of traffic jams, high gas prices, shortage of parking, time spent in going to and from stores .. Amazon is a godsend to many many people. Especially the elderly and the disabled.

But that fight has basically ended with a knockout and stomping. Etsy is still around and has decent size, but do a search for ANY thing that you want to buy, the Amazon site comes up on every item, Etsy every once in maybe once or twice in 30-50 searches.

Amazon is using it's size and general reliability of having what a person needs to become a coercive force that enters then blankets a new retail environment. Amazon started out as a little online book selling company, it now pretty much owns the publishing and book selling industry and has moved strongly into it's own publishing operation, with a big stable of writers that are beholden to it. Amazon has recently moved into movies, both online and in theaters, Amazon has a stable of novel and short story writers under it's control, once it starts mining the literature under it's control from very good but unknown writers (and there are quite a few there), it will eventually own the moviemaking business by gaining movie rights to literature that no one else can touch because Amazon controls the distribution rights.

I don't know whether I agree with you that Amazon will one day be sidelined (respect your view, just don't agree with the ending). I think it is more likely that Amazon ends up forcing everyone to sell through it if they want to stay in business, like it is doing to book publishers more and more.

I can foresee a day soon when Amazon starts selling medicine, then it is goodbye Walgreens and CVS. I think the only thing preventing it from launching in that area is ensuring that prescriptions are up to date and from legitimate doctors, but I can bet you that there are people within Amazon looking into how to do that.

I recently had a situation where I wanted to buy a soap that I grew to like from a national brand soap maker. I looked all over for the particular bar and could not find it anywhere, not in drug stores, not in grocery stores. So I popped a search string online for the bar that I had looked for for months. Guess what, the soapmaker was selling it on Amazon for a premium and already had something like 2,000 customer reviews for the soap. The soapmaker sell it's other soaps via CVS and Walgreens, but you won't find probably it's top bar, only Amazon seems to get that to sell.

Gifts. There are several sellers with decent prices, good service, and nice items. It's also good for hand-crafted items.

For example, enormous businesses for Amazon now are essential oils and all natural fruit and juices, along with any type of organic offering one can imagine. Etsy used to basically own those markets, no more, the big sellers to individuals are on Amazon.

The reason why I know that is I buy some of those items wholesale and constantly see that Amazon is selling small batches of oils. Since I need wholesale, I buy from defined wholesale companies unless I have concerns about the purity and sourcing of an ingredient and about whether it was made by a method like cold pressing versus solvent extraction (I only use cold pressed because even a small amount of residual solvent screws up what I am doing). But after a while, I have figured out who the wholesalers are that are perfectionists about what they put up for sale.

If you find it in a search, it will be priced higher than on Etsy. I also use eBay for similar items, sometimes finding excellent bargains. While Amazon sells virtually everything, it is not always the best place to find many things.

I would not buy jewelry on Amazon, except for watch brands whose quality I know. I find Amazon good for the hard to find nick-knacks, like you pointed out in the OP. If a local store or mall have it, I go there and pay their price.

They are really work boots (no design on them, rubber soles) but can be worn in business casual with khakis.
Had a $50 Amazon card. Ended up spending $145 on two pairs (black and brown) from. Amexican shoe company called El General. The first pair were through Amazon $80, the second through a website I found looking for a brown pair $41+$24 for shipping.


I couldn't find a pair of boots at any retail store that I liked. Either too granola or too hipster.

... to compete with Amazon in another thread?

Writing above, "How can small businesses compete with Amazon? That's a very good question. Often, they can't."
So, often they can't, or, as in the title of the other thread, it's "impossible to compete" with Amazon. So why would a potential client want what you are selling?