Submitted 3 days ago by ArchRecord@lemm.ee to mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/b06aee73-c4a7-449c-a4e2-90e996a3a9f8.png
Amazon gives non-Prime members free shipping at $35 or more of eligible items. Instead of simply letting users get the product with free shipping, they’ve added a discount that prices it exactly one cent below the $35 limit, while only subsidizing the price with $3.38, which is about half of what they’ll then charge you for shipping.
Easy fix, don’t buy from Amazon.
I try to when I can, but I tend to have major difficulties doing so.
I tried Ebay, they restricted my account and said the only way for me to get it un-restricted was to buy a product from a limited set of brand-new partner suppliers (e.g. Logitech, HP, etc) that were all over $100, and nothing I actually needed.
I tried buying some chargers from Anker and they also restricted me and said they wouldn’t let me make a purchase because my email seemed suspicious (I don’t use Gmail), so I had to go back to Amazon and buy it there instead for practically the same price, even though it would have actually been cheaper on Anker’s own website since they had a discount code that would have worked for my order.
I bought something on Target because I’d been given a Target gift card, Target cancelled my order 3 times and made me contact customer service to remove an invisible hold on my account.
I frequently try checking third-party sites for the same products, and the prices are way higher (e.g. A product I plan on purchasing is $80 on the manufacturer’s site, and $58 on Amazon, with the price frequently dropping to $38) because Amazon literally mandates that the cheapest price must be on Amazon. Often times, these price differences are so drastic that I could end up paying double for the same product.
I also tend to get Amazon gift cards from relatives even though they already know I dislike using Amazon when I don’t have to, so it’s often somewhat unavoidable.
Don’t get me wrong, those are just the worst instances so far. I’ve bought quite a few items from elsewhere before without issues, it’s just that I tend to have the occasional issue that makes it practically impossible to buy elsewhere.
Believe me, I do my best to not have to spend money on Amazon, but it’s either so drastically more expensive that it’s simply not reasonable to buy elsewhere, or for various reasons I mentioned before, I’m not even capable of placing an order in the first place.
What in the world are you doing to get restricted and cancelled at different sites?
Sounds like you need to make a boring Gmail account just for buying online.
What’s the alternative? The other places I can order a big box of cheap stuff from (Walmart, Target) are run by even worse people and have even worse service.
I once ordered porcelain plates from target and they arrived with no packaging. I don’t mean insufficient packaging, I mean four plates just thrown in a giant box with absolutely nothing else. Somehow 3 were not broken.
Generally, I believe the convenience of cheap shit delivered to your door comes at the invisible cost of exploitative labor practices and/or excessive consumerism by the means of low quality crap that will need to be replaced regularly or through “buy more and save” deals. If you want to avoid supporting that, you’re probably going to have to spend a few extra bucks buying from a smaller business or buying secondhand.
Convenience isn’t free and if we want to reduce our dependence on harmful institutions we’re going to have to make some sacrifices.
Well, in the case of the OP, the alternative is the manufacturer: www.ifixit.com/Tools
Walmart and Target aren’t run by worse people. I’ve never heard of Target or even Walmart employees being forced to piss in bottles or a robot will fire them.
They said, they are still bad people, as retail capitalists, but are you ready to have that conversation?
Either buy more expensive shirts or stop buying creatine if you want to stop ripping them
Shop for shit on amazon then buy it from the manufacturers website.
Just a heads up on the Costco online thing, their selection isn’t that expansive, so it can’t replace Amazon for you. You’re at the whims of what item and brand they decide to carry and when.
What’s wrong with Target? Only thing I heard was backlash from putting out certain kinds of lgbtq+ designs and then reacting by pulling those back (and getting backlash again for that).
Support your local businesses. Unless its a super niche product, just buy it local
Normally cheaper on eBay in my experience. Pretty rare that I will use Amazon these days
So you literally never buy from Amazon?
You must live in a very major city.
Ebay, Etsy, and the manufacturer direct are great places to go too
It’s literally not even hard, but yes you have to put some minor effort into it
there are a lot of companies that sell things direct to consumer, using the exact same shipping infrastructure that amazon would otherwise be using, if it doesnt already.
If you live rurally, go campaign for funding the USPS more, trump fucked that one, you can thank him for that.
I don’t. It’s called Wal-Mart, last hope of democracy
Wait
Almost everything on Amazon you can also fine on eBay. Sometimes it is a couple of bucks more expensive, but it’s usually due to shit like this. Haven’t bought on Amazon for 4 years now.
This must be very different in the US because over here eBay would be like just lighting your money on fire (since you have 0 recourse or reimburse options while Amazon’s primary upside is how trivial replacement and reimbursements are). I mean de-amazon sure, but not for a place that’s as anti-consumer as can be, which of course makes sense for actual second-hand purchases where you have no legal liabilities by the seller anyways.
If you’re buying on ebay and use PayPal, PayPal provides the consumer protection. That’s been my experience anyway.
where are you? Im in Ireland and use eBay all the time, and when there’s been a problem it’s always been rectified
I’m based in Europe so that night be true.
Amazon are getting bad about refunds and replacements plus have a major problem with counterfeit goods due yo how they mix 3rd party and Amazon sourced goods in their warehouses.
They can’t refund your house if it burns down because Amazon sold you fake electronics.
EBay is find for the smaller cheap Chinese tat that you can find on amazon, and PayPal provides consumer protection. Go to other retailers for electronics - any site or shop that does not use third party sellers.
This is such a tired trope. eBay has improved well beyond when it was just the wild west of third party sellers. I’ve not had a single issue on eBay in the last 3-4 years of purchases. Ive actually had extraordinary customer service through eBay. Recently purchased a used $50 coffee grinder and it arrived with cosmetic damage from shipping. Contacted the seller and they refunded the entire purchase while also letting me keep the item.
And the cheap stuff you can find for half the price on AliExpress. That’s where they source their shit anyway
Sadly, Americans learned to use Amazon as a grocery/hardware store and relying on fast delivery. Something something all ages in a single basket…
Unless they lose your stuff. Then you’ll see that consumer protection on all orders guaranteed involves you fighting with a wall that keeps denying your claims with no recourse. Aliexpress is much cheaper… As long as things work out. If they don’t, it really sucks.
And shipping from AliExpress has improved so much. Used to take weeks or months now here within a week.
Yeah band anything of value I would not get from Amazon due to the risk of counterfeits. Amazon pools its stock for an item with that provided by 3rd party sellers in its warehouse - either can be delivered to a customer based on which is closed not who youre buying from.
So you can easily receive dodgy goods from 3rd party sellers that may he counterfeit or refurbished rather than new.
Get your expensive items from other retailers that dont have 3rd party sellers. Get your cheap random Chinese manufactured crap from EBay or Aliexpress. Get your digital content from other stores like ebooks.com where you can legally remove the DRM and keep your content forever.
Fuck Amazon.
2nd eBay. Sometimes it’s even cheaper.
I’m joining that club too, managed to avoid Amazon for Black Friday and Christmas and it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be
Depends on what country you live. Here in the Netherlands nobody sells anything on eBay. The items from Germany always cost a lot more than in the store and they always add shipping on top of it.
I usually just… go to the store.
Obligatory fuck Amazon
Seriously. Through some weird twist of fate, the Walton’s are suddenly looking like the best billionaire retail moguls.
That set is normally 39.95 off iFixit’s site.
They knocked off $3.38 i’d just go add a pack of duracels 2032’s and get them for almost nothing, free shipping.
TBF, I usually have something sitting in my cart that I didn’t feel like ordering yet anyway.
So they’re getting you to buy more than you wanted or pull the trigger on something you were waiting on. Sounds like this is still a win for Amazon.
Check camel camel.
U can probably order that for temu or aliexpress. Skip bezos pockets, comes from the same source and is not gonna be price gauged
Why would you order from amazon instead of directly from ifixit?
The same thing is $50 there with shipping.
As another user replied to you earlier, yeah, it’s substantially more expensive after shipping. Nearly 50% more, in fact, but in this specific instance I wasn’t actually planning on buying this specific bit set, the price and subsequent notice of the discount just caught my eye when it was in Amazon’s list of product recommendations.
Because you already have an account set up with amazon.
Because you’ve used amazon before and feel comfortable with them.
Order something really fucking heavy extra and refund it.
I’ve learned about this in church. The bible calls that a “cunt”, from “the book of dick moves”.
They’ve been doing this for years.
It’s why I’ve made a ‘save for later’ collection of things I either use on the regular like my favorite soap or face cleanser, or really low cost things ($1 or less) I could make use of like single use eyewash to put in a first aid kit, things like that.
Annoying that I have to play their stupid little game, but this lets me bump it past 35 without it being wasteful
There’s Filler Checker as well for those that don’t have such a collection.
There are ebooks listed for exactly 1 cent.
I am going to publish a bunch of 1c, 2c and 5c ebooks now 🙏
You have to select “prime eligible” items. Are these penny ebooks included in the minimum purchase total?
just order the same from temu/aliexpress - skip Jeff Bezos pockets
I am confused by this thread, do you only have Amazon and eBay in US?
weird place to cast shade
Just by something costing .01
Like what?
People didn’t know this? I mean Amazon is evil shit. But companies have been doing stuff like this for 30 years…
I’d just never seen this specific flavor of bullshittery from them before. Encouraging sellers to keep prices below the shipping limit is one thing, but adding discounts artificially no matter what the actual seller prices their product at is a whole new level of making things worse for everyone involved.
Sellers have a lower likelihood of a non-Prime member buying their item, users don’t get free shipping.
its a strategy, theyre not even being deceitful here, just pricing to their interests. theres so much evil stuff they do, but this example isn’t properly evil.
temu/aliexpress - same product and you are skipping jeff bezos pockets
Or just avoid buying from megacorpos directly.
Buy iFixIt stuff directly from them on their website. Or is that somehow more expensive?
You think they’ve brought the price down from $35?
I bet this thing is actually worth only $25 and they’ve increased the price to that instead. With shipping and handling you end up paying almost double.
What annoys me is the price fixing
I don’t know if this will still work, but ages ago, I contacted their support about being one cent under free shipping and they made sure shipping was free for me. Try asking, but I can’t promise the same results.
Very Amazon of them.
You could buy something cheap like soap But don’t they do free shipping if total order is above the limit ?
Can’t say I find this surprising, especially not coming from a #GAMAM. (Formerly #GAFAM)
You used to be able to buy digital Amazon gift cards for a dollar. You would use the credit on your next purchase anyway. But they’ve raised the minimum to $5.
lmao jesus
Oh, so that the reason for the random discounts I’ve been seeing lately? Well I never buy anything unless it’s above the minimum for free shipping and so far it hasn’t affected me (not that I buy often anyway )
I wanted to order something, but half a year of waiting seemed like a bit long. Refunded, got money back and ordered again. I still have half a year to wait, but I have mine money too. profit?
Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 3 days ago
Stop using Amazon
d00ery@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I’ve switched to eBay. The delivery time is often the same and the returns are ok too
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 3 days ago
A few years ago I mused that we might see the day when eBay becomes a more trustworthy platform to purchase on than Amazon. I’m not sure when exactly the streams crossed but I think we are past it now
TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I wish I could do more shopping there, but eBay in Canada is extremely expensive which has lead to it being kind of a ghost town compared to the US. $20-$50 shipping fees, even on tiny items, is common.
So I’ve started to use AliExpress more often. Literally the exact same item on Amazon but without the markup - sometimes even half the price. It’s not a great solution but the online shopping selection here in Canada is awful.
swampdownloader@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Just gotta avoid Amazon drop shippers. Thousands of feedback + free expedited shipping + free returns = maybe a drop shipper.
way_of_UwU@programming.dev 3 days ago
I’ve found that a lot of stuff listed on Amazon is about the price of shipping higher than it is on eBay I guess to account for the free Prime shipping. If you don’t have Prime, there really isn’t much reason to not use eBay since you’d be getting doubly screwed without the free shipping on Amazon.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Start using Amazon, but in an elaborate drop shipping scam where you sell a $.25 item for $38 and have Amazon pay you $3.99 to ship it to yourself as a proxy.
Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 3 days ago
Nahh their workers still get exploited (even more than the average laborer)
humble_pete_digger@lemm.ee 3 days ago
Temu or aliexpress
qaz@lemmy.world 2 days ago
90% procent of products on Amazon are from AliExpress dropshippers anyway
PlainSimpleGarak@lemmings.world 3 days ago
It’s too convenient. Order something Sunday night, I’ll definitely have it by Tuesday afternoon if not earlier. I always wait until I have enough items I need over $50 before I place an order anyway.
dan@upvote.au 3 days ago
In my area I can order something at midnight and receive it by 10am. They do next day, same day, and overnight on a lot of items.