Don’t order from Amazon

Amazon seems too icky of a company, and therefore using it makes us all caught up in the ickiness.

And beyond that, I’m not even sure what the point is. I bought this nice sushi-making kit for someone’s present. It’s a very nice kit. It comes with all the cooking utensils you need, plus all the ingredients — the rice, the sauces, etc, etc. The only thing it doesn’t have is the fish, cause obviously that would spoil if you shipped it in a box. All the other sushi-making kits had just the cooking utensils and maybe one or two of the food necessities, so what’s the fun in that? When you receive it, you still have to shop more.

Plus, the company had free shipping; the package arrived within like three days even though this was in two weeks before Christmas amidst the shipping frenzy; and as far as I can tell, it’s a locally-owned business. It cost $45 (and it seems to be discounted to $40 now).

Now, I also found this product on Amazon … here’s the link … and yes, it’s like double the price! In fact, I found it on Amazon first. I thought, this is perfect … but I don’t want to buy it from them. Not just that, I think Amazon’s site even said that it couldn’t be delivered until after Christmas or something like (with two weeks to go!) So I just searched for the company website and lo and behold … they could ship it on time, and for half the price.

So what’s the POINT of Amazon??

I bought pillowcases the other day. Similar thing … they were on Amazon, but I searched for the company website, and found the same pillowcases there. And the pillowcases are $10, and you know Amazon won’t give you free shipping for $10. But the company did.

One more thing you might be tempted to buy from Amazon. I really like Kinder chocolate bars. And you can’t usually find them in regular grocery stores. You might see Amazon as your only recourse. But no … you can get them at your Arabic food grocery store — you can get a whole box of 20 bars! — and I’ll bet you can get them at Chinese, and Korean, and Malaysian stores — well, I’m not totally sure cause I haven’t really been, but I’m guessing you can find Kinder bars at many of those foreign flavor groceries.