BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!

Subject: RE: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 10:57 AM

Not you, Steve. Only those who slammed over to an extreme point of view.

I think some folks have old information. I think maybe researching employee satisfaction might br good. I know there was a problem in the spring/early summer when they were hit hard with orders.
They used to have other delivery services deliver their stuff. Now, they have a fleet of trucks (In the US, I don't know if it's the same in the UK). I think it's likely they got things under control.

Subject: RE: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 10:43 AM

No good asking me anything about Croydon Town Centre, it's a shit hole I avoid like covid!! I can only speak for Addiscombe a little more than a knat's pee away, where there are more charity shops than there were a year ago - all closed at the moment of course!

Subject: RE: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 10:37 AM

Who's "they," Jeri?

I'm not too happy with a lot of what I hear. Amazon, it seems, doesn't always (or at all? I only heard this on the news this morning) directly hire its own delivery drivers, and the companies who run those drivers can be extremely exploitative, to the point of illegality. I think Amazon should be held to account.

Bonzo, I don't understand stuff like corporation tax and, even as one of those lefties you oft disparage, I won't stand too much in judgement of Amazon on that score. However, their reputation is one of professional tax avoidance, as with several other multinationals, that's all I know. We should be concerned about the unlevel playing field apropos of our high streets, shouldn't we? How many charity shops or boarded-up shop windows have you got in Croydon? Plenty here in Bude. Coronavirus is one thing, but vicious competition from online corporations is a longer-running sore.

I use Amazon a lot and I have Prime. We live in a remote area with few big shops unless we drive for forty or fifty miles. That isn't an excuse, as I'm sure I'd still use Amazon wherever I lived. I can't afford to spend my life paying higher prices just on principle. We support our local shops as much as we can and buy from Amazon stuff we can't get locally. I have to admit that Amazon is super-efficient at what it does. I've had several issues with marketplace sellers and fake goods/non-delivery, and Amazon are extremely responsive.

Subject: RE: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: DMcG
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 10:33 AM

There is role for Amazon that has not been mentioned yet. They do enable a range of products that really could not readily be sold other than online.

Around a year ago now I bought a 4Tb wireless drive. No local shop could afford to stock such a thing. The demand is too low - they could have it sitting unsold on the shelf for a year - and by the time they are on the point of selling it the customer would find it had been superseded by a 6Tb one for the same price, or maybe the price has fallen below what the local shopkeeper bought it for.

Niche products like that really do not work for local purchasers. As it happened, the manufacturer did not have 'direct sales' to end users either. Even if they had, searching through possible suppliers would have been difficult and risky: do I want to send a fair amount of money to a company I have never heard of?

Amazon has many faults, of course, and the way the treat their staff is a major one. I do not know a good alternative solution for this problem, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 10:14 AM

The most important item we ordered from Amazon was lavatory paper during period when people were panic buying from supermarkets. It's a shame one can't order a haircut from Amazon!!

Subject: RE: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 10:05 AM

...and as they slam over to an extreme view...well, I'll just ignore it.

I've been thankful for them. Currently, though, I ordered a set of watercolor paints (it's the manufacturer's #3 set)
Thursday, I got a package. Of 3 sets of acrylic paints, manufacturer's #1.
I filled out the thing on Amazon, got the QR code, and on Friday,I drove the wrong ones 20 miles to the UPS store, where they were sent back.
The'd sent the replacement out on Thursday, and on Friday, it arrived.
Guess what - same wrong thing again.
I figure they have someone working in the warehouse (they call it "fulfillment", right?) who can't read very well. One set of No.3 is three sets of No.1, and they don't know the difference between "watercolor" and "acrylic".
I CALLED this last time, and they said they'd elevate the issue, and call me back on Monday.
There's somewhere else I can order the paints I want, if I have to.
Most things I've ordered from them have arrived without mishap. This one is a chance to see how they handle screw-ups.

Subject: RE: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 09:08 AM

When I am grateful to Amazon it is the worker drones I am thanking, not the executives.

Subject: RE: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 08:39 AM

Oh, good, another thread set up for the purpose of arguing. Like we don't have enough of those.

Amazon is what it has become because people use it. I can look at my total purchase history; I first bought books for graduate school there in 1996.

Alabama is, I think, the first state with a warehouse on the cusp of unionizing, and hopefully that will continue. Bezos needs to spread the wealth more equitably and they need to stop with the warehouses run by contractors who hire without having to follow Amazon's rules for other employees and who depress wages to increase their profits. Those who work in the corporate other offices are generally paid well but work very hard until they burnout. Family experience speaks to that.

Subject: RE: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 08:33 AM

We have both black and white drivers, some more polite than others.

So the tax question which really winds up lefties - corporation tax is paid on taxable profit. A smart company will set up a holding company in a low tax state. The holding company will charge a royalty on every sale for use of the name Amazon, which under current UK legislation is tax deductible. Get the picture?

Subject: RE: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 08:18 AM

Not black and white though, is it, Bonzo?

Subject: RE: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 08:00 AM

"Brutal exploitative shits. It was obvious where they were headed from the very start and I have never bought anything from them."

Getting offended on behalf of the drivers who are almost certainly grateful for the work are we??????????????????

My wife is disabled and cannot do shopping when I am at work (at 74) so Jack Campin and Sandman - I'm sure that we and many other people would have found life in lockdown very difficult without the extraordinary service provided by Amazon!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: Senoufou
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 07:36 AM

We too have been very grateful for Amazon. We've bought quite a few things during lockdown which we couldn't have obtained otherwise. (Mainly DIY stuff)
We always give the courier a tenner for his efforts, and a bar of chocolate/cupcake etc. And we're always happy to take in our neighbours' deliveries if needed. (Tenner tip just the same)
Amazon's site is easy to navigate (I'm a bit dim on the computer!), wide choice, good prices, swift delivery. Never had any problems.

Subject: RE: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 07:20 AM

Amazon consists of hundreds of thousands of low-paid workers in vast, soulless warehouses, sorting, gathering, packing and labelling the stuff we order before loading it on to trucks or vans, to be brought to us by an army of low-paid delivery drivers, all of these workers forced to stick to extremely tight, inhuman schedules. Oh, and a few highly-paid big knobs in offices (including squads of accountants to make sure that Amazon pays as little tax as possible so that the company can compete with the high street on unfair terms). Stuff that the millions of us who use Amazon don't see. We're good at "not seeing things." We don't see what happens to what we flush down the bog and probably don't care. We eat eggs and chickens without worrying too much how the birds were treated in their short lives. We simply see those neat little cleaned-up fillets, sitting several abreast in innocent-looking film-covered plastic trays in Tesco. We aren't that bothered about that packaging either, as long as the bin man takes it every week. When we turn up the heating to get the house cosy, we don't see the pollution churned out by the power stations that enable us to do it.

We have rights, you see...

Subject: RE: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 06:28 AM

Amazon , i never use them , why should i thank them. i would rather thank the doctors and nurses

Subject: RE: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 06:19 AM

We've sort of covered it in three little posts!

Subject: RE: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 06:16 AM

Brutal exploitative shits. It was obvious where they were headed from the very start and I have never bought anything from them.

Subject: RE: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 06:15 AM

Mixed feelings here. I prefer to be grateful for all those harassed and badly-paid delivery drivers, and the people who have to rush around massive, charmless warehouses in order to meet their near-impossible targets to get the stuff to us.

Subject: BS: Thank goodness for Amazon!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 06:09 AM

I'm sure that we and many other people would have found life in lockdown very difficult without the extraordinary service provided by Amazon!!