If someone hadn’t invented the market there would never have been a flea market.
Speaking of Prime, I’m being offered a trial again. Looking through my old emails, apparently I’ve had this 3 times in the past (01-2009 / 09-2015 / 01-2017). Wonder what the refresh timer on trial offers are.
Also RE: counterfeit products, a FT writer did an excellent writeup of the growing co-mingling problem earlier in the spring. Some of the comments (by purported sellers) are also good
https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/03/20/1553085361000/Amazon--sub-Prime-/
https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/04/03/1554287401000/Amazon--sub-prime---Part-II/
Interesting to see it getting mainstream US media attention 3/4 a year later.
I think it was linked before in this thread but I can’t find it. (E: the links are in the first post infobox at least)
If you play any games with Twitch Prime “free” loot DLC be sure to redeem them while you have the Amazon Prime trial.
The thing with this bag is that I wonder how many people at those price points overlap. If I wanted a nice bag, I wouldn’t even consider the Amazon bag. And the people who would buy a $30 Amazon bag, would they ever consider a $100+ bag? Not excusing Amazon, but it’s the cheap stuff they rip off that I find to be more worrisome. Like I bought some cat trees that are Amazon rip offs. The products they ripped off aren’t really better though. In those cases I am buying which ever is cheaper, because the quality of the real product isn’t that high to begin with.
I’m not sure I follow the complaint, here. Amazon is a core retailer. Yes, they make a ton of money, but so do a lot of other big retailers and most have “house” brands. Whether you call things knock-offs or inspirations, this type of activity is beneficial for consumers and always has been. There are legal protections in place (e.g., trademark, copyright, patent) but they intentionally have limits.
I don’t think Amazon stands out, here, other than the unspoken “but they make a ton of money” bit. Yes, they do, partly because they employ industry-standard practices like this in addition to their core technologies.
Amazon has access to a ton of data the sellers do not.
BtW Peak Design does $100M business but are still “small” compared to Amazon.
I just had signature requirement packages from Newegg and it turns out no, you cannot pre-sign for those either, so the idea that UPS lets you pre-sign for packages is just not true. (And the driver never made any attempt to contact me even though I was home and could easily have signed and so I’m going to have to pick them up at a UPS Access Point. Fortunately, turns out that there is now an Access Point two blocks down the street, which is what they used. But…one of those packages is my new computer case and is nearly 30 pounds and I’m sure quite bulky, so carrying that for over two blocks would be…fun.)
I have an account with UPS (not paid, although I have payment info there for when I want to ship something), and a signature-required laptop arriving from Best Buy today. After logging in to UPS I was given the option to pre-sign and release the shipment, which I did. Best Buy still shows signature required in their record but UPS status shows this – so I’m hopeful.
I have the same setup and I’ve literally never been allowed to do that. I went and tried this time and it was just as greyed out as it’s always been for me. I wonder what the difference is.
Is yours a paid account or one of the regular free ones?
Free, as far as I can tell. I looked and the card they have on file doesn’t exist anymore, and hasn’t for the better part of a year.
I was just curious. I have one of those My UPS or Choice or whatever, and I had a paid version for a short while that allowed me to do a lot and now the free version notifies me of the shipping but not much else is allowed without paying.
Hmm. I have 2 addresses entered in My Choice, and this isn’t one of them. The two that are in there both have an option to “Upgrade to Premium”. I’ll report back what happens :)
One of my cards gave me 6 months, maybe Amex they do that from time to time. I think i used a premium feature once.
The signature thing though is a pain even when home because the drivers love to show-up during a meeting. Only my work seems to insist on signatures, but if other companies are doing that now… bleh.
I have a free account as well. Last month I received something signature required, and was also able to pre-sign and release the shipment as well. It was very welcome.
Can 100% verify that my account is a free account and that I was able to pre-sign and release the shipment without an on-premise signature.
Free account as well that lets me presign for most things, but occasional shipments just won’t let me. For instance, my recent Galaxy S21 Ultra wouldn’t let me avoid meeting the driver face to face. ugh.
Maybe it’s something the shipper/seller can set?