> Is Amazon "the best" place to go shopping? No, you might find better prices on individual items if you put a little more work into it, but it's the most expedient.
It's not just that. Every time you do business with a new web site you assume additional risk. Amazon is a known quantity. You can be pretty sure that they are not going to outright scam you, and they aren't going to be hacked by script kiddies. There is a significant risk of getting a counterfeit item, but they have a very liberal return policy, so the real cost to you in this case is a minute or two to get a return code and possibly a trip to the nearest Whole Foods to drop it off.
Amazon sucks in many ways, but at least their suckage is a known quantity. Predictability has significant value.
Yep it’s the return policy that allowed me to gamble on items that may or may not be real/functional vs spending a ton of time to find one elsewhere that maybe is, but if it’s not it’ll be hard to return
It's not just that. Every time you do business with a new web site you assume additional risk. Amazon is a known quantity. You can be pretty sure that they are not going to outright scam you, and they aren't going to be hacked by script kiddies. There is a significant risk of getting a counterfeit item, but they have a very liberal return policy, so the real cost to you in this case is a minute or two to get a return code and possibly a trip to the nearest Whole Foods to drop it off.
Amazon sucks in many ways, but at least their suckage is a known quantity. Predictability has significant value.