Originally Posted by
livedarklions
I've found that sometimes Amazon is the cheapest place to buy a specific tire-- often the Continental GP 5000 I prefer. They're fine, coming in their original packaging.
Oh, I'm not saying that Amazon can't provide cheapest prices and genuine items. In the past I happily bought stuff from Amazon. I just don't like them at all any more, thus my little peeve post and willingness to pay a tiny bit more (rarely more, usually comparable) not to have to support them. It's usually very easy find prices and shipping (cost and time) that are comparable. Amazon's brilliant and hard -won niche is "you don't have to look anywhere else", but it's not that hard, and often pays off.
Last spring when components were really getting scarce, I found many things from online sellers that weren't available at Amazon and/or were more expensive on Amazon. In some cases I thought that Amazon pricing was way out of line, maybe Amazon itself and its sellers were so used to people automatically looking to Amazon that they didn't think they had competition. And that's probably true in a lot of cases. Not to mention talking or chatting with someone who knows something about what you're looking for. And they often or usually have a "waiting list" type of deal where if something isn't in stock, they will either ship it (and charge) when it comes in, or will notify you when it comes in. This was extremely handy during that time of extreme scarcity. I could get on one or more waiting lists, and buy when the first one came through. I made use of that several times, and I've never seen that with Amazon sellers.
That built up knowledge of a bunch of great online bike sellers that I just check now and don't bother with Amazon. EBay is my other go-to over Amazon. Not necessarily for bike parts, but almost anything I can get on Amazon, I can get from much smaller-time EBay sellers, competitive pricing, with reliable fulfillment and shipping. Supporting small business E-commerce with little or no cost penalty vs. paying for a business I don't like.
Anyway, I'm not a crazy person about this (at least I don't think I am!) but am very happy to convey my distaste for that particular business and how easy it's been for me to wean myself from them.