Amazon recently built a warehouse in NJ, so as of July 1 they charge me sales tax.
And before anyone says “But you should have been paying it anyway…” the NJ individual income tax return has a provision where you can say “I bought lots of stuff online, but no single item more than $10K” and you pay a very low flat rate. It’s all above board.
Now, with the NJ sales tax, they are losing their shine and I go elsewhere. For example, now I go to BH or brick-and-mortar camera stores for photography gear.
Amazon’s all-encompassing catalog and ease of use still are an incentive and I continue to be a prime member for the time being.
If you live within a 5-minute drive of every major store, as I did until a couple of years ago, it’s one thing. No, it may not be worth saving a little or even paying the same to order it from Amazon if you can go buy it in a half hour’s trip.
However, a lot of us live outside megamall land. I need a powerful electric leaf blower; yesterday I found out I could get it from Amazon in two days for $69.97, or drive a 30-mile loop to Home Depot and get it for $69.95 plus 6% sales tax. Point, click, done… and I can move on to the next task, and tomorrow I get to go scare the hell out of a half-acre of fallen leaves.
It’s not about saving money on everything. It’s about saving money on an awful lot of things, especially those that are drastically overpriced in retail stores - any kind of cable, for example. I just bought two 40-foot extension cords for $9 each. Closest local price was almost triple that. I get a lot of household products (like three automatic thermostats) significantly cheaper than HD. I buy two foods that are apparently illegal in New England by the six-pack through Amazon simply because that’s the only place I can get them - and pay about what I did from California shelves.
I will happily pay sales tax when it kicks in here, especially if Amazon builds its new distribution center in CT. It’s still worth the price savings or equivalence plus convenience plus simple availability. I save a lot of money because I choose my purchases carefully and don’t buy that overpriced tier of stuff locally, but in the end I buy a lot from Amazon, B&H and a few specialty online retailers because it saves me literally hours and many gallons of gas over the course of a month - and some items I can buy with a click aren’t available over a counter closer than 100 miles from here.
It’s not about saving that last nickel. I ran out of time to spend three hours comparison-shopping for a new hard drive a long time ago.
Big meh from me. I do pretty much 100% of my shopping online, and it’d take a lot more than this to get me back to wasting time in stores. I would guess that despite all the protestations, the same is true of most of us out there.
Scumbags? Really? These guys are running a business that provides a pretty awesome service, and I doubt they are personally trying to screw you over.
I don’t know how long they’ve been doing this. Awhile back I was shopping for a used book and didn’t like the prices at Amazon, so I went to ABE, found the book, and was pleasantly surprised that shipping was free.
I’ve read that even though Amazon is thought of to be wildly successful, they actually don’t make as much profit as you’d think and it’s because of how pro-consumer most of their policies have been (including the low $25 free shipping threshold). Jeff Bezos has said that he’s not trying to make a company that’s successful now, but one that is successful 20 years from now. He’s forward thinking even if it means less return for investors in the short term.
Seriously? Most online stores I’ve seen require $50 or more for free shipping. Or don’t offer it at all. Or only offer it with a coupon and still it’s over $50.
You need to look at other sites besides Amazon before you become the foremost expert on e-commerce.
And also if you don’t spend more than $35 on Christmas shopping then you can probably manage to do your Christmas shopping locally (and by locally I mean at your local Wal Mart).
There’s nothing personal in Amazon’s pricing. They are there to make a profit. Lots of profit. Exactly like Sam Walton did thirty years ago and Andrew Carnegie did a 120 years ago. to explain briefly … Step 1 is to gain dominance in the market. 2. watch your competitors wither away. 3. Crank up prices and roll in the profits.
We’re already well into step two. The brick & mortar stores are in trouble. Several major bookstore chains are gone. Barnes & Noble are barely hanging on. Best Buy is closing stores. Even Walmart is hurting some. It’ll be a few more years before step 3 and Amazon can really jack up prices and their profits.
Someday someone smarter than Jeff Bezos will create a major competitor to Amazon. I hope it happens soon and the competition will keep prices down. Right now, I’m not aware of any competitor that sells such a wide range of goods as Amazon. There are a few smaller competitors like Overstock.com. Walmart is moving into E-commerce.
I’d appreciate some suggestions for other E-Commerce stores. I’ve used Amazon, and Sears online. Looked at Overstock.com but never bought anything. I use homedepot.com to confirm stock at my HD local stores (we have 4 within 20 miles of me). Sometimes one store will be out of stock on something. homedepot.com saves me a lot of time.
The link goes to a search page, with free shipping as the default option. Search by author or title and you’ll find sellers who offer free shipping. I just did a search and on the first page were five different sellers with free shipping.
By definition Capitalists are greedy. That’s what they do. Make money and get rich. I respect that. I don’t enjoy paying too much. I don’t think Amazon should raise prices right after a gov shutdown. People are hurting. A lot of people lost money during the shutdown.
Competition is the only thing that keeps prices reasonable. History shows what happens when one company dominates the market like the old robber barons did a 120 years ago.
Why would you want to? The only thing which matters is lowest total cost: If someone offers a book at $20 plus free shipping and someone else offers it at $10 plus $4.50 shipping (books in the same condition) which book would you choose?
Note the default display order is lowest total cost.
I’m not sure how much Amazon makes. Maybe they are keeping prices down while they build the company. They may be waiting for Barnes & Noble and Best Buy to collapse. At some point Amazon will be highly profitable.
My scumbag comment was mostly rage at their timing. They know what the gov shutdown cost this country. The wages lost. The small businesses hurt. This was a bad time for Amazon to cash in. Even in just a small way.
Maybe the shipping change was planned long ago. But Amazon could have postponed it for at least a few months.
You do realize you’re making next to no sense, here?
To start with, I can’t find any way to see Amazon’s slight raise of the free-shipping bar as “cashing in.” Cutting their loss margin is probably more accurate, especially as shipping continues to get more expensive even at Amazon’s rock-bottom rates.
Amazon has no obligation to offer a welfare purchasing program because of the government sort-of-shutdown. They have their own business to run (or, if you prefer, they have a greedy scumbag Capitalist empire to uphold) and it’s entirely their call as to how they do it. Calling them names because they reduced a customer benefit they don’t have to offer at all is like getting down on McD’s because the local store took McRibs off the menu.
This is so surreal. I’m usually the guy taking the conservative position on this board. But when it comes to greedy capitalists I’m pretty far to the left. I fully endorse gov restrictions to prevent the abuses of the robber barons. Sam Walton,Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates,Steve Jobs are cut from the same cloth as Carnegie & Rockefeller. Never thought I’d have to defend a liberal position on the SDMB.
Anyway, I don’t want to derail the thread any further. If you love Amazon and prices thats great.
But when it comes to greedy capitalists I’m pretty far to the left. I fully endorse gov restrictions to prevent the abuses of the robber barons. Sam Walton,Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates,Steve Jobs are cut from the same cloth as Carnegie & Rockefeller. Never thought I’d have to defend a liberal position on the SDMB. 