[prmoustache]

People might revert to buy in person.

I mean you get scammed maybe twice by a company, then buy somewhere else. You quickly realize that it is better spending 3-4 times the amount of money for something that will last 10 years than buying stuff that do not work or keep breaking after a few months/years.

I am too poor to be able to afford buying cheap stuff.

[phpisthebest]

If that was going to happen, it already would have.

Most people still just buy the cheapest version of an item they are looking for.

[HideousKojima]

Most people buy the cheapest version because they don't have a reliable way of knowing if the more expensive items are actually higher quality. It's a "market for lemons" problem:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

[ben_w]

I'm already switching to buying in person, though in my case because of the delivery service usually redirecting to depots further away than the shops selling the same items.

[wombat-man]

Yeah, I'd rather go to target or something and choose from the 3 spatulas they have then spend any time trying to figure out which of the 1000 listings are good on amazon. It's just less work.

[sneak]

It's not less time, however. It's easier and cheaper to buy all of the top 5 spatulas on amazon (and throw 4 away) than to drive to a strip mall and find parking.

[wombat-man]

Lol, sure. Personally I don't like dealing with online returns and I dislike the idea of buying things just to immediately throw them in the garbage. I'm picking an item I plan to use regularly, I want to see it irl and know what I'm getting.

Also, I am not trying to hyper optimize my use of time, but rather I find the experience of huge selection, fake reviews mixed with sponsored listings to be very unpleasant. I have slightly more faith in quality control at a department store, or even a dedicated housewares store.

[phpisthebest]

I try to optimize my happiness, and not talking to people in person makes me happy

[ben_w]

It takes me longer to put my shoes on and walk down a few flights of stairs to reach the main entrance of my apartment, than to get from that entrance (by foot) to the nearest place selling spatulas.

One of the depots used by DHL when they "can't find" my building (even though the place predates the formation of the Soviet Union, let alone its collapse) is about a mile away and I don't have a car. This is fine unless it rains, but it's not even conveniently on my way to anything interesting.

[red-iron-pine]

it's called Walmart, and already exists as an in-person option.

[checkyoursudo]

For the most part, I already mostly buy stuff in person. For physical goods, I cannot stand not being able to hold, touch, examine a thing before buying it. Or at least the floor model or the exhibited item.

I bought a VOIP phone from the media store recently. When I was there looking at them, and feeling them etc, I was thinking how there is no way I could have picked the right one from an online shop. I might have never known there was something better, I guess. But being able to hold them helped me pick one I thought I would like.

[sesteel]

What Amazon is missing is buyers. Actual professional buyers who evaluate products and make determinations if products meet standards and deserves to be placed in front of customers.