[Misc] Amazon: Benign marketplace enabler or parasitic leech?

[worthingseagull123]

000’s of other online retailers - why the need to buy from or via Amazon if can’t easily drive/park in B&H? Alternatively, buses, trains, taxi’s etc?

Amazon easiest to deal with, with fast deliveries (usually next day) and I’d rather not use buses or trains (too slow and uncomfortable for the former and too expensive, unreliable and inconvenient for the latter).

 

[Superphil]

I think that free delivery angle doesn't hold as much water any more. They often mark up prices to cover their "free delivery". A quick search on eBay and most can find the majority of products cheaper, and with free delivery.

Can't say I've found that to be the case, I always look elsewhere, ebay especially, and for me the majority of the time it's the other way around. Sometimes ebay prices are pretty much identical, possibly as the vendors sell on both platforms, but Prime delivery swings it for me. That said, you get Nectar points in eBay so there is a benefit to using them as well, if it's a larger priced item I'd probably go eBay.

 

[rippleman]

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and Santa brought them what they wanted. (Possibly via Amazon)

Instead of derailing the Rail Strikes thread, I brought this across here, and I’m interested in how people view Amazon.

My personal view is that Amazon offer the best delivery and “customer experience” available in the U.K. However (through their scale and ubiquity) are a menace to independent retailers (who are often forced to feed the monster as marketplace sellers or die) and to our tax revenues as Amazon are structured to avoid tax and funnel revenue/profit reporting to the jurisdiction with the most favourable tax deal, playing nation states off against each other.

This inevitably leads to lower tax revenues, hurting our ability to fund health, education, law enforcement or the environment agency among other essential services.

For the reasons highlighted above (and concerns about how they employ and utilise their staff) I have never and would never use Amazon however "convenient" it may be.

 

[rippleman]

Edited for you.

By making the UK Open For Business, the tories have given us the fastest growth and the lowest unemployment in Europe.

Let's stop talking this great country down.

Under Corbyn Labour we would all be talking Russian, and going cap in hand to the EMF.

This is brilliant stuff! JC is living rent free in your head isn't he?

Everybody knows we would have been a Russian satellite state by now if JC had been PM.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

This is brilliant stuff! JC is living rent free in your head isn't he?

Everybody knows we would have been a Russian satellite state by now if JC had been PM.

Just checking, you do realise that post was satirical......?

 

[portlock seagull]

Amazon easiest to deal with, with fast deliveries (usually next day) and I’d rather not use buses or trains (too slow and uncomfortable for the former and too expensive, unreliable and inconvenient for the latter).

Yep, I know and that’s why in a nutshell the world is fecked and we can all be proud of our contribution.

 

[worthingseagull123]

Yep, I know and that’s why in a nutshell the world is fecked and we can all be proud of our contribution.

What on earth are you going on about?

 

[portlock seagull]

What on earth are you going on about?

Sorry, overestimated my audience perhaps

 

[worthingseagull123]

Sorry, overestimated my audience perhaps

Probably. I don’t understand hysteria.