To say Amazon is getting too much like eBay?

[JetskiSkyJumper]

It's hard to sort the genuine products from the dross.

You read reviews and they're clearly for a different item than what's now being advertised so can't be trusted

It's too hard to find what I need and I often end up just buying somewhere else

I still use it but not so much. Agree that it is full of crap. Am careful about what I buy and who the seller is.

I have Prime which pays for itself with the free deliveries and more. I tend to order vitamins, toiletries and sometimes gifts. I rarely have a problem and on the rare occasions I do, returning for a refund is done without quibble and sorted very quickly. As an online seller myself I don't understand how people are able to sell rubbish because Amazon is the hardest platform to sell on. What I love most is the next day delivery.

ITA - I just wanted to buy genuine HP inkjet cartridge multipack, as my HP printer only works with the brand name. That is another story, which I will address one day when I have the time. I put HP cartridges into Amazon, and about the first 15 packs, that came up were non-branded!

Also, when I'm looking for electronic goods, I don't want refurbished - I want the brand name new!

Half of it is just dross now! Same as with all the clothes websites. If I want to look at M & S or Next or Tu clothes, thats all I want to look at - not 1,000 clothes in that category, because they include about 5 other brands! I'd do a search on another brand, if that was what I wanted. All the websites end up the same!

I was about to say this. This is the natural direction of travel for end-stage capitalism, in my view.

I gave up on Amazon ages ago. Far rather buy direct from independent sellers for most stuff. I buy less, but what I buy is much better quality, more durable etc.

I just watched The Shopping Conspiracy on Netflix. Very tempted to cancel my Prime. What a world.

@FancyRedRobin the Internet is a giant jumble sale of shite.

Never a truer word was spoken. It's appalling. I used to pride myself on being able to find obscure, crafty suppliers but not anymore. It's the same with the Christmas markets - a sea of identical tat.

Yes I find that they really push non branded things with odd sounding names. The same items can have different brand names too but it's the same photo.
Some of these cost just as much as branded! I actually ordered a pair Skecher type shoes and they were rubbish so returned them.

I don't think it's that hard to avoid dodgy stuff on Amazon unless you are largely buying tat.

Just check the seller.

Shop around for important stuff and trust brands for other things.

I largely agree with @RedToothBrush. Especially since I live in Nowheresville, where even our B&Q has practically no physical stock and online orders are forwarded to third party sellers. It's annoying to sit on my sofa for an hour or so, navigating through a storm of crap in hopes of finding what I want. But compare that to:

An hour on the bus to my nearest city, or two trains to the nearest big city;
Walking from shop to shop, having to remember what I've seen and what it cost;
Needing to stop for coffee and something to eat;
More walking to buy the things I chose, if they're in stock;
Same journey back with bags & packages.

Takes a whole day, is at least as frustrating and much more knackering! And I still won't have seen everything I could have bought. It's less choice for more effort.

I miss living and working in London, where I sort of kept up to speed with things by osmosis and knew where to look for what I wanted. For the rest of us, though, the Web fills a lot of gaps. It could do better, mind you! Anybody fancy building a shopping search engine that actually works??

Joking aside, the temptation to monetise a shopping website would be too great I think, given the time and investment.

I might use enshitification as my new user name though. It's brilliant!

Thank you SnoopysHoose, I got my oven from there and it hadn't occurred to me to see if they do smaller things. You are a star! ✨

Hang on, isn't "AI" supposed to held us wade through this shit ?

I'm beginning to think it's not all it's cracked up to be.

Awful for toys. I've bought things from amazon before made by hot wheels or monster jam and they've sent me another version of a similar toy by the same brand. Also it's SO expensive. I've cancelled my subscription, runs out in Jan.

It could be. Maybe one day it will be. Outside of specialist applications, though, they train themselves on the internet - and they're undiscriminating (they don't 'know' anything), so they pretty much replicate the issues above.

The thing is to get better at filtering. A Google search for
"sequin top -Shein -Temu -Boohoo"
gets more of the results I'd like, and you can keep on filtering until it shows you ideas you're interested in following up. You can also try asking an AI for what you want, then keep chatting in hopes it will understand you, at least for that session.

An intelligent AI is a terrifying thought, but would make life easier ... in some ways!

I have a load of things that I buy from Amazon (yes, I know it's awful) - household supplies, business stationery, gardening things etc - and I also buy stuff for my mum who is allergic to doing her own internet shopping but also too crumbly to lurch round shops these days. This makes Prime worth it for me, even without the music or telly.

Yes, I didn't know this until very recently when most things I'd ordered come in plain white box / air vacuumed clear packet and obviously wholesale tat from China rather than a decent quality item it looks like

It doesn’t make a difference.

Amazon does commingling, different sellers can send the “same” item to the Amazon warehouse and there are no checks to see if they are real. You can order from what you think is a good seller but the items are picked from the same bin.

I used to deal with Amazon fulfilment and sometimes we would ask for our stock back and it wasn’t the stock we sent in, it was stuff that other sellers had sent in but Amazon considered it the same because it had the same barcode on it (think kids Spider-Man costume, we sent an official one in and got fake ones back).

They probably do proper checks for their big clients like Apple but for everything else it’s Russian roulette.

Just watched the "Buy Now" documentary on Netflix - it explains what's happening with Amazon.
Wall-E is really coming true 😞

We all just need to stop buying shit and companies need to stop making us want more.

Was awful wasn't it. We just can't go on like this. Those beautiful beaches just covered in rubbish.

It is achievable. I deleted my Amazon account years ago (in disgust at their aggressive tax dodging and anti-union stance) and haven't missed it.

That Netflix documentary is shocking on so many levels but the thing that got me were the 'hauls' - literally rooms, packed floor to ceiling with boxes and boxes of orders, just to be shown off on social media.

Amazon's been going downhill for ages.

Up until fairly recently it was full of fake reviews. Now it's full of crap products (and probably fake reviews).

Quite a bit of the "Prime" stuff is more expensive so they can deliver it in 24h.

Just eye-opening and conspicuous consumption taken to a whole new level.
Also the waste was so sad - all that food and all those clothes just ruined on purpose.

I’ve just re fitted the kitchen.

AO : spoke to real person to ask questions, short delivery time, product fine.

Currys: picked it from the shelf ( very helpful chap carried to car and gave us free microwave steamer.)

Tap Warehouse: came late, filthy sink in open package, incorrect tap hole, couldn’t speak to a person, no response to emali

Ebay1: came quickly, one handle short of twenty. EBay 2 :pullout drawers : super fast, no problems.

East Coast kitchens : sent completely wrong item, still trying to get a refund (£195).

i didn’t buy any of it from Amazon because I hate what they did to bookshops. eBay usually has the same things but cheaper, and their complaints service is better.