DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
You can stop buying from Amazon whenever you choose to. There are online alternatives to every product they sell. You don’t need to be part of it. Whatever excuse you give is wrong.
Time and again, across years and product categories, Amazon has reached out to its vendors and instructed them to increase retail prices on competitors’ websites, threatening dire consequences if vendors do not comply.
Yes, buying from alternative websites is the bare minimum and the bar is so low it’s underground. But that’s beside the point: Amazon is price fixing across the internet.
And that higher price is because you cannot charge less than Amazon, but to list on Amazon you have to pay a search priority fee that has balloned from 10% to over 40%.
Thats why it’s better to skip the first pages of search returns, or just find the exact same thing on AliExpress for 50% less.
I’ve tried, but some companies only sell their products on Amazon, even when going to the products website, they link back to Amazon when you click the Buy Now button.
I buy things on eBay sometimes and it’s shipped by Amazon with a gift receipt lol
I buy direct from the manufacturer whenever I can.
The prices outside of Amazon will be higher though, that’s the reason for this enforcement, the “Amazon tax”. Cory Doctorow has been talking about it for a while. I’m glad to see someone that can do something heard it.
Finding stuff outside of Amazon isn’t easy, though. Search engines barely show results for anyone outside Amazon, Walmart, and ebay. Too often I’ll find a retailer for a while only for Amazon to buy it later or otherwise destroy them (I miss Woot and Jet and Fictionwise and Bookpool, &c).
Further their prices often aren’t the best, and it’s going to continue getting worse.
Yeah, I cancelled my subscription last year and I thought I’d missed out because it was on Amazon. When I searched other sites I actually saved money in a few cases. Also, turns out I buy less now as well which is an overall win.
Its cheaper… I have no excuse unfortunately but I’m addicted to new stuff
ZombieMantis@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Sure, but don’t deflect the responsibility to fix the economy onto the individual, this is a problem of monopoly and should be treated as such.