< This is just me venting, so feel free to skip to the next thread if you are not in the mood for it >
I don't have anything personal against Amazon, and in fact am a heavy user - they have every inventory listed, their website is extremely efficient and their search engine works fantastic.
That said, I think Amazon has grown too big for a single company, and I want to do my bit boosting other sellers by trying to purchase from places other than Amazon.
But many of those sellers have not done a good job about how their websites are set up. After all these years of seeing Amazon and some other web leaders, I would think anybody who wants to be competitive should know their online presence is so vital.
And while 'Shipping' is the first factor that crops up, it's not even the only one. I agree that not everyone can compete with Amazon on shipping costs and speed, so I am willing to be lenient on this - I am fine getting my order next week instead of tomorrow, and I'm okay spending a few dollars on shipping. A few dollars, not a huge lot!
But there are other things that bug me, and I will use a few examples.
Last week I steered into McFeelys.com for a few small screws and driver bits. While placing the order I could never figure out how long it will take to ship, or when it would deliver to me (on the product page it said "in stock, will ship in a day or two", but when on the order-click page, this was not reaffirmed). I went with blind faith and clicked on buy; the order went in okay, but I did not receive my confirmation till the next day! And even then, I had to wait till it shipped to get a follow up message about the shipping. Worst was that when I received the order today, I find that the driver bit I ordered will not work with the screws in the order! The screws have a square-driver head of #1, but the driver-bit I ordered is #2 square. Yes, my fault for not checking, but I wish they have a 'related purchases' or something like that crops up that would have made this an easy purchase. To compare, try searching 'screws' on Amazon: a beautiful matrix of "filter" comes up that allows me to narrow down rapidly, which is totally missing on McFeely (which happens to be a specialty site for screws!).
I like McFeely in general - their driver bits look and feel solid (unlike the ones from HD that stripped pretty fast), and they provide a pretty wide choice, so I will not give up on them, but they have work to do.
Then again today I was trying to find some parts to fix my Kohler faucet on their website, then on the websites of HomeDepot / Lowes, but I had an easier job finding my specific faucet, and then the specific parts, on Amazon than on any of the other sites. Amazon also has a "check if this part fits your faucet" widget that is priceless.
There are more such examples but you get the idea. At the very least a smaller shop should try and copy Amazon?
While here, a shout-out for Rockler.com : they definitely have a much better website than others. They might be the only site that provides more info on each product than even Amazon does. Their search is still a bit kludgy, but I can forgive them that!
I don't have anything personal against Amazon, and in fact am a heavy user - they have every inventory listed, their website is extremely efficient and their search engine works fantastic.
That said, I think Amazon has grown too big for a single company, and I want to do my bit boosting other sellers by trying to purchase from places other than Amazon.
But many of those sellers have not done a good job about how their websites are set up. After all these years of seeing Amazon and some other web leaders, I would think anybody who wants to be competitive should know their online presence is so vital.
And while 'Shipping' is the first factor that crops up, it's not even the only one. I agree that not everyone can compete with Amazon on shipping costs and speed, so I am willing to be lenient on this - I am fine getting my order next week instead of tomorrow, and I'm okay spending a few dollars on shipping. A few dollars, not a huge lot!
But there are other things that bug me, and I will use a few examples.
Last week I steered into McFeelys.com for a few small screws and driver bits. While placing the order I could never figure out how long it will take to ship, or when it would deliver to me (on the product page it said "in stock, will ship in a day or two", but when on the order-click page, this was not reaffirmed). I went with blind faith and clicked on buy; the order went in okay, but I did not receive my confirmation till the next day! And even then, I had to wait till it shipped to get a follow up message about the shipping. Worst was that when I received the order today, I find that the driver bit I ordered will not work with the screws in the order! The screws have a square-driver head of #1, but the driver-bit I ordered is #2 square. Yes, my fault for not checking, but I wish they have a 'related purchases' or something like that crops up that would have made this an easy purchase. To compare, try searching 'screws' on Amazon: a beautiful matrix of "filter" comes up that allows me to narrow down rapidly, which is totally missing on McFeely (which happens to be a specialty site for screws!).
I like McFeely in general - their driver bits look and feel solid (unlike the ones from HD that stripped pretty fast), and they provide a pretty wide choice, so I will not give up on them, but they have work to do.
Then again today I was trying to find some parts to fix my Kohler faucet on their website, then on the websites of HomeDepot / Lowes, but I had an easier job finding my specific faucet, and then the specific parts, on Amazon than on any of the other sites. Amazon also has a "check if this part fits your faucet" widget that is priceless.
There are more such examples but you get the idea. At the very least a smaller shop should try and copy Amazon?
While here, a shout-out for Rockler.com : they definitely have a much better website than others. They might be the only site that provides more info on each product than even Amazon does. Their search is still a bit kludgy, but I can forgive them that!
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