this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2024
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I put some of the blame on retailers as well. Retail stores just don't want to carry inventory anymore, especially tech-focused ones with many of those just turning into glorified showrooms. I don't know how many times I've heard some version of: "Sorry, we don't have that in stock but we can bring it in for you."
We needed a short length of garden hose here for the house so I went to two hardware stores and one garden centre looking for one. Nothing. Not even in their dedicated gardening sections. I had to order it off Amazon. A goddamn garden hose.
Amazon has done a lot of damage for sure but retail is suffering from several self-inflicted wounds too. Home Depot, for example, is a multi-billion dollar corporation and even they have a weaker retail presence now. That's not Amazon's fault.
There's quite a few retail stores that don't keep inventory, even for common things. Staples comes to mind, where it feels like half their damn office items aren't in stock, so you need to wait for them to have it brought in.
The problem is that those same retail stores can't compete with Amazon's shipping speed. It becomes a case of:
It's alright if they don't want to carry inventory, but they need to have the shipping speeds to compete, otherwise there's no reason for the consumer not to just buy it off of Amazon directly.