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Amazon love/hate


Bunion

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No matter what we think of Amazon, the effects it has on high street shops, the way it treats its employees or the huge waste in boxes and packaging there’s two things you can’t take away from them and that’s efficiency and in a lot of cases price.
As I sat noodling on the new MM cutlass  a sudden sense of longing for some DR black beauties came over me, never used them before, heard them many times. 

It was 22:30 on a Saturday night so I was packing up for the evening anyway, I picked up the phone and started perusing the many outlets to order some. 
I normally play DR’s Fat-beams and Sunbeams (fretless) but jeesus, Black Beauties are expensive after you add p&p 

Enter Amazon, around £5 cheaper, free P&P and “am I reading this correctly” if I order in the next 3 hours they’ll be delivered next day… wait tomorrow is Sunday, isn’t it? 
I was expecting a next week delivery after the order had been processed Monday by the usual outlets. 
I’ll take some of that! 
So after the usual process to finalise the order it was off to bed and see what tomorrow brings. 
what can I say? At 09:30 this morning I heard the porch door slide open and by the time I got to the front door the driver had vanished leaving me a brand new set of DR Black Beauties 45-105. 
Love them or hate them Amazon do provide an amazing service… 

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I do believe they are the death of other shops and working conditions so eventually it will just be them and some other super shops like aliexpress etc. I wont use them for myself (although I have stuff that work get through them) and haven't since the early 2000s,  and I rarely find I can't get things in other places, but I can't deny their efficiency or how cheap can things can be if you can get away without paying taxes!

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Great efficiency at the cost of social contribution. One of the worst employers in the modern world. I've stopped using all Amazon services this year, just can't justify it anymore.

 

edit: the black beauties should last a long time, pound wise!

Edited by Bolo
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24 minutes ago, pfretrock said:

First used them around 1996, ordered on line, posted US$ bank draft to Seattle to pay invoice.

Stopped using them 18 months ago. Can't support carbon headed global warming cardboard box tax evaders.


Don’t forget minimum wage, zero hour contracts and employees p*ssing in bottles to meet targets and not get fired.

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50 minutes ago, joeystrange said:


Don’t forget minimum wage, zero hour contracts and employees p*ssing in bottles to meet targets and not get fired.

I've worked for Amazon for just over 4 years, and I can honestly say that I have NEVER seen any of this. 

 

1) Hourly rates have always been well above MW

2) Temporary workers are on temporary contracts -minimum of 40 hours p/w

3) P*ssing in bottles to meet targets? You've got us confused with truck drivers - it's called 'driver tizer' for a reason.

 

I agree that they do need to get their house in order as regards paying taxes, but that's our governments allowing them to get away with it, they're just exploiting an already crooked system.

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Then can deliver. I decided to order Geddy's bass book direct from the publisher's website store - they offered a discount which made it lower than Amazon. Supposed to be 3 days delivery. Every time I emailed over a 3 week period it was "in the warehouse due for shipping". Eventually cancelled and got a refund. Amazon delivered in 2 days. That was my last purchase.

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I've just bought a set of my usual strings through them. 

D'addario half rounds, well into the £40s from D'addario and some retailers, well into the £30s plus p&p from most retailers, but £26 delivered for free the next day from Amazon. 

 

I not sure I believe all the band wagon jumping horror stories of Amazon,  sure they're probably not the best employer, but show me any big retailer that is. A forty hour contract is a very rare thing in any supermarket or large retailer these days. 

 

Death of the high street blah blah blah, I've never enjoyed having to drive twenty miles to my nearest music shop and pay through the nose for the limited stock of Ernie Ball Slinkys as that's all they had. Or most any other product for that matter, 'going shopping' has held little appeal since being a child with a fistful of Christmas vouchers. 

 

When high street shopping became a thing there was probably a load of hand wringing over the death of small independent local shops. 

It's progress that's all, and if people didn't want it then it wouldn't be happening. 

 

Yes I am a miserable old fart well before my time. 😄

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I'm with @paul_5 and @Maude I think there's a lot of Social Media and paper talk about about how bad working conditions are, a few disgruntled employees spreading malicious gossip maybe, I don't blame any company for paying as little tax as possible, who pays more tax than they need too? it's our inept politicians fault for not being able to stop it

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I won't use amazon I agree the next day delivery must be awesome but it comes at a cost that is just too much to ignore the treatment of staff the effects on the environment and the contribution of killing off all other competition 

You wait and see when everything else has gone and all that's left is amazon you watch the prices rise and people and planet suffer more 

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10 minutes ago, Thunderbird said:

to ignore the treatment of staff

There are Amazon staff on here telling you they are not being treated badly. 

10 minutes ago, Thunderbird said:

the contribution of killing off all other competition 

Any director of any company be it large or small would be failing if he didn’t try to do this in his chosen field.

I’m not saying it’s not a cruel world but do you think when the Woolworths or the coop or Sainsbury’s hit the market the same things were not said and yet now they are a part of normal life (well not the Woolworths) 

Times change and while it’s great to see small businesses flourish (I’ve owned a few) Why cut your own nose off to spite your face. 

 

Edited by Bunion
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2 minutes ago, Bunion said:

There are Amazon staff on here telling you they are not being treated badly. 

Any director of any company be it large or small would be failing if he didn’t try to do this in his chosen field.

I’m not saying it’s not a cruel world but do you think when the Woolworths or the coop or Sainsbury’s hit the market the same things were not said and yet now they are a part of normal life (well not the Woolworths) 

Times change and while it’s great to see small businesses flourish (I’ve owned a few) Why cut your own nose off to spite your face. 

 

I'm not cutting my nose off to spite my face I just have no need or want to use amazon its only my opinion and anyone else can obviously do what they please 😀

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I boycotted Amazon this year too. No big anti-corporate reason, just they f__ked me over with a transaction, and decided my custom for the entire last decade wasn't enough to reimburse the small cost of their fault. I waited until my Prime expired a couple of months later and then stopped using them. I shop online ALOT. There are very very few things that I actually need to be delivered next day and I don't particularly miss watching trash on Prime in the evenings.

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16 minutes ago, Thunderbird said:

I won't use amazon I agree the next day delivery must be awesome but it comes at a cost that is just too much to ignore the treatment of staff the effects on the environment and the contribution of killing off all other competition 

You wait and see when everything else has gone and all that's left is amazon you watch the prices rise and people and planet suffer more 

If they kill off the competition by being cheaper and more efficient, then put all their prices up, do you not think someone else will come along, undercut them and put them out of business? 

 

Edited by Maude
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18 minutes ago, Thunderbird said:

 

You wait and see when everything else has gone and all that's left is amazon you watch the prices rise and people and planet suffer more 

 

This.

I do not want to live in a world where there is one super retailer and no individuality on the high street.

 

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10 hours ago, joeystrange said:

employees p*ssing in bottles to meet targets and not get fired.

 

How many bottles do they have to fosters in to meet their targets on urinary volume? 🤔

 

I use them for a lot of things to be honest. Like others have said, for price and efficiency, they're hard to beat. When it's music related buys I try to buy from a shop, or at least an online music shop. For gifts and that I try Etsy first, but prime next day delivery is pretty handy when I've forgotten a bday!

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The last time (several years ago now) I ordered strings from Amazon I ended up with a phone case for a Samsung S7. Customer service was as much help as a chocolate fireguard. 

 

 

I very rarely buy from Amazon, partly because for the things I buy online they're naff. For fishing gear Amazon is abysmal, there are much better retailers that I use. As for next day delivery, the times I have used Amazon that's been very hit and miss, many items have been 3-4 days. And to be honest, when did we become so impatient? 

 

Someone on social media posted the following 

 

'In Communist countries everybody buys from the state, in capitalist countries everybody buys from Amazon.

Not too far from the truth.

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